Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein 2 review: A raunchy second season that smartly takes ahead the legacy of the show!

With its second season, Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein cements itself as a unique blend of pulpy drama and psychological thriller, seamlessly merging tragicomedy with suspense!

A victim is someone who suffers from a situation, while a survivor is one who moves on and grows from it. But what do we call someone who is stuck in the situation but is neither a victim, because they are largely responsible for their own predicament, nor a survivor, as they lack the courage to escape? Sidharth Sengupta answers this through Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein's Vikrant! Keeping focus on that, Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein 2 has become India's answer to another Netflix show called 'YOU', where the story of Vikrant is dressed in a way that forces us to question human behaviour and motivations in unexpected ways.

This show's brilliance always lies in its ingenious craft of first-person narrative for its storytelling. Told from the skewed perspective of Vikrant (Tahir Raj Bhasin), an ordinary engineer trapped in an extraordinary web, the show in season 1 initially positions him as a helpless victim forced to marry Purva (Anchal Singh), a woman who has obsessively loved him since childhood. Her politically powerful family is willing to destroy Vikrant’s love, Shikha (Shweta Tripathi), and her family to get what they want. Hence this first-person view makes Vikrant's plight almost believable until cracks begin to show, and he emerges less as a victim and more as an anti-hero driven by naïve idealism. 

Season 1 could have easily been described as a straightforward tale of how a "good guy" turns bad and becomes a criminal, as no one is born one, only if Vikrant doesn't live in his denial. Torn between the fantasy of being a heroic survivor who escaped his captors and the grim reality of being a coward who romanticizes his victimhood, Vikrant is lost with no sense of purpose but no acceptance of it either. In that case, season 2 acts like the next chapter of Vikrant's story, where he inevitably transitions from oppressed to oppressor. As he is still desperate to get Purva killed, so now it is Vikrant who has now become the obsessive head that doesn't even know what he wants- a happily ever after with Shikha, who is now married or this adventurous pursuit with the ever mysteriously enigmatic Purva. 

Also Read: I Want To Talk review: Abhishek Bachchan is the highlight of this silent but impactful film!

The success of the second season lies in its ability to maintain the show's tragicomic tone while evolving the narrative. We still derive a dark sense of pleasure from Vikrant’s misfortunes, as he finds himself in tricky situations and is always on the verge of being discovered. Yet, the show broadens its scope, offering different perspectives that invite us to see Vikrant for what he truly is: a red flag. He is someone who makes his own decisions, but when things go wrong, he blames the world for the consequences. His identity is shaped more by victimhood than responsibility. This is underscored by introducing two contrasting male characters—Shikha’s dependable police officer husband, and Guru, the devoted “sadboi” commando. Both are green flags, offering stability and responsibility, yet, much like in real life, the women are drawn to Vikrant—the red flag, whose passive choices drive his fate. He embodies a man stuck between denial and accountability.

The true beauty of the six-part series lies in its reachability. Whether you’re drawn to its layered social commentary ranging from how the wealthy escape accountability to the making of a real-life anti-hero or not, its edge-of-your-seat pulpy drama will still make you revel in the season where the stakes only seem to be getting higher. Every narrative arc, from Purva's kidnapping to Vikrant's sticky situations and Shikha’s dilemma, is thought out without relying on over-dramatization. For instance, the introduction of a new villain working alongside the old sharpshooter raises the complexity while adding a respite for Vikrant, and even sequences like the energetic wedding synonymously going on with a body being dismembered in the bathroom are meticulously designed to draw in a parallel as well as leave you in awe. The show’s attention to detail extends to the soundtrack, where Buddhist chants blend with thumping beats to give a solid background score or the new enhanced title sequence packed with hidden clues. 

However, some elements feel slightly out of place. Guru's “Mission Impossible”-style arc, complete with Gurmeet Choudhary’s chiselled appearance and his high-tech team, feels disconnected and at odds with the show's tonality as if it's another world. Similarly, Golden’s (Anant V. Joshi) comedic arc, meant to mimic Dhoom's Ali, falls flat, failing to provide the intended comic relief. Despite finally delving into Purva’s backstory at the start of the season—a character who until now operated like Gone Girl’s Amy, using the manic pixie dream girl trope to her advantage—I missed Anchal Singh’s eerily piercing presence, which only becomes prominent in the final episodes. Keeping her largely in the background while still relying on her looming influence to dominate the narrative doesn’t pay off as well as it might have been intended. In contrast, Tahir Raj Bhasin fully embodies Vikrant, blurring the line between actor and character so seamlessly that only Vikrant seems to exist.

By the electrifying and unsettling climax, it’s clear that Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein 2 has evolved the show from being solely Vikrant’s story into a twisted love tale between two star-crossed victims bound by their shared victimhood. Beneath the surface, the show touches on generational trauma that we all somewhere grapple with, making its twisted version of a happily ever after feel far more fitting—and haunting—than the traditional pursuit of a happy ending. Otherwise, it is whatever you want to derive from it, as this spicy, dark, and innovative show is more conversational than spoon-feeding an ideology!

Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein is currently streaming on Netflix!

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