Cast: Shefali Shah, Rasika Dugal, Rajesh Tailang, Adil Hussain, Gopal Dutt, Sidharth Bhardwaj, Denzil Smith, Yashaswini Dayama, and Tillotama Shome
Director: Tanuj Chopra
Delhi Crime Season 2 is a thought-provoking sequel to its Emmy-winning season 1.
If you are planning to binge it, do it in one go; all of its five episodes hook you, line and sinker.
It tells you much more than it shows and retains nuanced storytelling as it challenges your status quo in a very moving plot.
The first season was about the hunt for Nirbhaya’s rapists and killers, and many assumed that was it. So, taking the story forward and introducing a new case with the same team is daunting. Delhi Crime 2 takes this challenge head-on with a fresh approach,
DCP Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah) and her team are back. This time, they are hunting the infamous kaccha-baniyaan gang, terrorizing northern India with a spate of murders and robberies in the 80s and 90s. The team must figure out why the gang is back after two decades and in Delhi of all the places and catch the culprits before they leave a long trail of bodies behind.
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To start with, Delhi crime faces a considerable challenge. Season 1 was about the most grotesque crime in the history of modern India. The intrigue and the audience’s interest were natural. That the show was magnificent was a cherry on top.
But given the content, the second season often needs to outdo the first in scale since no crime could have been more gruesome than the 2012 Delhi gang rape in sheer barbarism and the emotions it evoked in the people.
The challenge for Delhi Crime 2 must have been to show something that the audience would find equally gruesome, if not more. In this case, the show vividly depicts the brutality of the crimes on screen.
It is a brave, courageous choice, but it is controversial too. The show remains delicate yet intense, but it is hard to exalt the victims again once you see the state of their slaughter.
The writing makes up for this choice by delivering the cops as sensitive human beings and showing us the victims’ families. It is not a callous police routine but a show about individual emotions–greed, fear, frustration, and determination.
The season does a deep dive into the personal lives of the cops in a way Season 1 did not.
The bigotry faced by a woman IPS officer, played by Rasika Duggal, whose husband does not treat her job seriously enough. She meets criminals and is responsible for keeping victims safe at her workplace while facing a cold war with her husband and mother-in-law, who are happy to use the perks of her job but do nothing to support her career.
Vartika struggles to stay sane as a mother of a teenager who studies in Canada while ensuring she does not diss her daughter off by being over-inquisitive of her life.
Shefali Shah delivers another brilliant performance as Vartika Chaturvedi, who stands up for her conscience despite bias.
Rasika Duggal performs the character of Neeti Singh with great precision, torn between her dedication to her job and a marriage where she is not respected enough.
Rajesh Tailang and Sidhartha bhardawaj are all top-notch and add laurels to the series with their presence.
The scene stealer is Tilotama Shome, a negative character. She needs an award for this portrayal, for sure.
Even when the graphic sequences of murders may put you off, the show pulls off the intrigue and the storytelling in concise and crisp five episodes that make for a perfect weekend binge.
We highly recommend the very palpable Season 2 of this show.
