Abhay Season 2 | Series Review | Crime, Gore and Justice

Abhay Season 2 Series Review | Crime, Gore and Justice

ZEE5 is back with the second season of its successful crime thriller Abhay. Abhay 2 premiered on the eve of Independence Day and ZEE5 in one of its tweets said, ‘Crime aur criminals ka naam aur nishaan mitane ke liye (To remove crime and criminals and their existence), we welcome back Officer Abhay Pratap Singh, on #TheRoadToJustice

With mainstream Bollywood movies now taking the OTT route for initial releases, the OTT platforms are buzzing with hot new releases with big Bollywood names. #AbhayOnZEE5 has got the timing right, with Abhay being received well by the audiences in season one.

Plot

Abhay 2 starts from where it left off in season one. Kunal Khemu returns in the titular role as a no-nonsense and uptight special task force officer, who goes on carrying out his job of solving crime and fighting criminals without much fuss. The setting for most of the crimes is in and around Lucknow. The second season promises to have more menacing and disturbed criminals than the previous season. Will Abhay be up to the task, for that watch Abhay 2 on ZEE5.

My Review

Interestingly this season premiered with only three episodes, which can go either way for ZEE5 – it definitely increases the curiosity element but with a slew of releases across OTT platforms keeping the western releases in mind, people might not return to watch the rest.

Each episode begins with a gruesome and gory crime. In the first episode, we witness a middle-aged photocopy shop owner played by Chunky Pandey (Harsh) opening a skull using an electric saw to eat the brain of the victim. The episode hints at a troubled past with his dad, which leads him to think that having brains of toppers will end up making him smart.

Similarly, the second starts with a woman deriving orgasmic pleasures when a person is getting drowned and eventually dies. She cuts off one of his legs and takes his tooth as a trophy. Both these episodes also have glimpses from another crime that gets unveiled in the third episode as ‘the game begins.’

The writing is crisp and sleek with most of the narrative focused on the crime at hand. There haven’t been excessive use of sleaze or vulgarity, unlike other shows that are recently on many OTT platforms. Having said that the writing isn’t inventive or creative, it is still clichéd in the way characters have been portrayed. It definitely reminds you of characters from saw series and many Hollywood productions with serial killers of such nature. Even Ram Kapoor’s character has traces of Joker.

The Indian audiences haven’t viewed much of domestic content from this genre where the gore is a centrepiece of most of the crimes. So, for them, it’s a welcome change as ZEE5 itself promotes that ‘it is not for the faint-hearted.’

Cast and Crew

Cast: Kunal Khemu, Ram Kapoor, Chunky Pandey, Bidita Bag, Asha Negi, Nidhi Singh

Director: Ken Ghosh

Kunal Khemu is in good form compared to season 1. He is getting comfortable in the role and is playing it with much ease. Shades of his portrayal of Abhay were witnessed in the recently released movie, Malang where he played a corrupt cop but with a similar no-nonsense demeanor remained.

Chunky Pandey was a pleasant surprise moving away from the comical caricatures that he often plays. Bidita Bag does a decent job with her role as a sadist prostitute. I wish both of them had bigger parts with longer or more episodes. Nidhi Singh and Asha Negi do an okay job of the roles they have been given. All eyes will now be on Ram Kapoor in the upcoming episodes as he had pretty little to do till now.

Verdict

Abhay 2 is not as good as Sacred Games or Paatal Lok, but it definitely is a decent one-time watch. The writing and screenplay are engaging. The grisly crimes will keep you hooked on and the audience will be eager to know what happens next. Abhay 2 is a cocktail of gore, horror, insanity, mystery and justice.

Waiting for the next episodes to get released on September 4^th.

Manas ‘Sameer’ Mukul

If you liked Abhay Season 2 Series Review then you can read my review of ZEE5’s original Rangbaaz here.