Sacred Games Season 2 Review - Disappointment?
 |
| Sacred Games Season 2 Poster |
WARNING!!MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD
The second season definitely did not live up-to the hype of the first season and although I would say it was entertaining and solid enough,It was not the same show everyone fell in love with and some parts are just bizarre and disappointing to the point they are almost irrelevant.
THE PROS
The acting was actually the most important thing that keeps you afloat on the journey and the MVPs are definitly Saif Ali Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Pankaj Tripathi. These three gentlemen have done a top notch job to give life to their characters. Saif has given a new direction to his character Sartaj as we see his character completely broken and distraught and at the brink of giving up as he loses his head to the ashram. Nawazuddin on the other hand also gives a rather new spiritual touch to his character of Gaitonde as we see a more calmer side to him and how his life goes down the toilet as the story moves on is even more interesting to watch.HE IS NO GOD.And then their is Pankaj Tripathi who plays the character of Guruji who made a very brief Ten second appearance in the first season and he does a damn convincing job at that.When ever he is in a scene,their is a different vibe and energy and he is just so charismatic and I love his pure Hindi dialogs and the way he pronounces each sentence is just awesome.Too bad Guruji was a kind of a mixed bag to me as a whole and the most important reason has to be the Ashram storyline which I will talk about later in the review.Some new characters are also introduced this season. Batya Abelman is played by Kalki Koechlin who is the closest to Guruji and she does a great job playing her and she has a certain charm to her too. Jojo Mascarenas played by Surveen Chawla who is not technically new as she made a brief appearance in Season 1 as Gaitonde kills her in first scene of the first episode and is also the love interest of Gaitonde.I really enjoyed Jojo and she was the only good female character in the show besides Kanta Bai played by Shalini Vatsa because she had her own dark and twisted past involving her sister and she has her own struggles and her interactions with Gaitonde are really some the strongest moments in the season and I was always curious to know what will happen between them that will cause Gaitonde to kill her.Too bad that part was disappointing lol. The characters of Kusum Devi Yadav played by Amruta Subhas who is a RAW agent and Shahid Khan played by Ranvir Shorey also play an important role and they do really well with what they get.
Visually,the show is somewhat different than season one as there are a lot of scenes which are a lot more colourful and vibrant specially during the Ashram scenes and I really enjoyed the contrast between the dark scenes and the vibrant scenes and there are some very unique shots in the show with very extreme colour grading effects and I absolutely loved them.Direction was really good.The music is also pretty solid.One very important thing the show never loses is the pacing and although it starts a little slow, it picks up pace and the story pieces move rather smoothly until that rather abrupt ending.The season does well to bring Gaitonde's story full circle and connect it to the events of the first season.One of the most enjoyable thing this season was the focus on our main guy Sartaj and we finally get some insight on how is marriage went wrong and how alone he is.He considers himself a loser and the closer he gets to the mystery,the more his life falls apart as he starts feeling restless because he does not have enough time to save his city.He also gets more insight on his father's past and how he was connected to Guruji.
Now,the show has some massive problems so lets talk about them.
THE CONS
I always liked the idea of some weird and dark cult stuff happening in the background of the events of the show and the existence of Guruji only improved the possibily.I really was excited about the Ashram storyline ever since it got teased in season one and I was really curious to see where would that plot fit in but its a shame that the Ashram plot was rather disappointing.Now the plot itself is not completely terrible but the problem is that it is so illogical and a lot of parts are just cringe-worthy and laughable and cannot be taken seriously.Sometimes it almost feels like a filler and does not add anything additional to the story until very late in the episodes.The people in the ashram have zero character and are completely bland.This also effects the character of Guruji who at first appears compelling but then becomes kind of lame and goofy despite Pankaj Tripathi's performance and this takes lots of the seriousness away.The show definitely picks up a lot of momentum in the last three episodes as it moves away from the goofy and cringey side of the ashram plot and gets back to the street level dark crime drama that it is known for. Gaitonde's flashbacks also take a noticeable hit in quality specially in the beginning. His story in Kenya is rather boring and his behavior change in the ashram is rather rushed and feels unconvincing.His flashbacks get interesting very late in the season as it moves away from the ashram.A lot of the darkness and grittiness is gone from the season specially because of the ashram storyline and sometimes it felt like a different goofy show.The suspense and mystery angle of the show also disappeared this season.Old favorites like Bunty and Kanta Bai are barely in the season and do not add anything new to the table which almost feels disrespectful to the characters.Compelling characters like Malcolm and Jojo are completely ruined.First,lets talk about Malcolm the Assassin who played such a mysterious and important part in the first season who is supposed to be such a bad-ass is barely given any screen time and he barely does anything the entire season.He had background presence last season but now,no one really cares what he is doing.Now when it comes to Jojo, it is even more disappointing because she went through a lot of character development and as a viewer I got attached to the character but then by the end,the writers threw all the character development down the toilet and made the character do something that makes zero sense.After giving her a dark backstory and giving her dimensions,the show turned her into another one dimensional character.And the ending was well, the show was going well in the final episodes but then it just abruptly ends and I doubt the writers will be able to live upto the ending.The only thing that will shock me at this point is if aliens attack Mumbai in season three!
From what I know,season two is the completion of the novel source material and from now on, the writers are on their own.
FINAL VERDICT
The second season of Sacred Games has major flaws but it is no where near as bad as it looks like.The ending is not worth it but overall,the good outweighs the bad and I think it is worth watching by being less excited about it.The show never feels too much boring and picks up a lot of pace in the last three episodes and overall is still entertaining enough.You can at least laugh at the bad parts and we got so many beautiful memes this season.
Final Score - 7/10(solid)
Season 1 Trailer - Click Here
Season 2 Trailer - Click Here
Visually,the show is somewhat different than season one as there are a lot of scenes which are a lot more colourful and vibrant specially during the Ashram scenes and I really enjoyed the contrast between the dark scenes and the vibrant scenes and there are some very unique shots in the show with very extreme colour grading effects and I absolutely loved them.Direction was really good.The music is also pretty solid.One very important thing the show never loses is the pacing and although it starts a little slow, it picks up pace and the story pieces move rather smoothly until that rather abrupt ending.The season does well to bring Gaitonde's story full circle and connect it to the events of the first season.One of the most enjoyable thing this season was the focus on our main guy Sartaj and we finally get some insight on how is marriage went wrong and how alone he is.He considers himself a loser and the closer he gets to the mystery,the more his life falls apart as he starts feeling restless because he does not have enough time to save his city.He also gets more insight on his father's past and how he was connected to Guruji.
Now,the show has some massive problems so lets talk about them.
THE CONS
I always liked the idea of some weird and dark cult stuff happening in the background of the events of the show and the existence of Guruji only improved the possibily.I really was excited about the Ashram storyline ever since it got teased in season one and I was really curious to see where would that plot fit in but its a shame that the Ashram plot was rather disappointing.Now the plot itself is not completely terrible but the problem is that it is so illogical and a lot of parts are just cringe-worthy and laughable and cannot be taken seriously.Sometimes it almost feels like a filler and does not add anything additional to the story until very late in the episodes.The people in the ashram have zero character and are completely bland.This also effects the character of Guruji who at first appears compelling but then becomes kind of lame and goofy despite Pankaj Tripathi's performance and this takes lots of the seriousness away.The show definitely picks up a lot of momentum in the last three episodes as it moves away from the goofy and cringey side of the ashram plot and gets back to the street level dark crime drama that it is known for. Gaitonde's flashbacks also take a noticeable hit in quality specially in the beginning. His story in Kenya is rather boring and his behavior change in the ashram is rather rushed and feels unconvincing.His flashbacks get interesting very late in the season as it moves away from the ashram.A lot of the darkness and grittiness is gone from the season specially because of the ashram storyline and sometimes it felt like a different goofy show.The suspense and mystery angle of the show also disappeared this season.Old favorites like Bunty and Kanta Bai are barely in the season and do not add anything new to the table which almost feels disrespectful to the characters.Compelling characters like Malcolm and Jojo are completely ruined.First,lets talk about Malcolm the Assassin who played such a mysterious and important part in the first season who is supposed to be such a bad-ass is barely given any screen time and he barely does anything the entire season.He had background presence last season but now,no one really cares what he is doing.Now when it comes to Jojo, it is even more disappointing because she went through a lot of character development and as a viewer I got attached to the character but then by the end,the writers threw all the character development down the toilet and made the character do something that makes zero sense.After giving her a dark backstory and giving her dimensions,the show turned her into another one dimensional character.And the ending was well, the show was going well in the final episodes but then it just abruptly ends and I doubt the writers will be able to live upto the ending.The only thing that will shock me at this point is if aliens attack Mumbai in season three!
From what I know,season two is the completion of the novel source material and from now on, the writers are on their own.
FINAL VERDICT
The second season of Sacred Games has major flaws but it is no where near as bad as it looks like.The ending is not worth it but overall,the good outweighs the bad and I think it is worth watching by being less excited about it.The show never feels too much boring and picks up a lot of pace in the last three episodes and overall is still entertaining enough.You can at least laugh at the bad parts and we got so many beautiful memes this season.
Final Score - 7/10(solid)
Season 1 Trailer - Click Here
Season 2 Trailer - Click Here
Comments
Post a Comment