‘Paatal Lok’ Season 2 Series Review: A World-Class Sequel Well Worth the Wait

Creator: Sudip Sharma 
Director: Avinash Arun Dhaware
Writers: Sudip Sharma, Abhishek Banerjee, Rahul Kanojia, Tamal Sen
Cast: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Gul Panag, Tillotama Shome, Nagesh Kukunoor, Jahnu Barua, Anuraag Arora, Merenla Imsong
Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video
Episodes: 8

A beloved political leader from Nagaland is found brutally murdered in Delhi. The timing is dubious. It’s on the eve of a landmark business summit between the ‘mainland’ and the ‘margins’: The central government is primed to invest thousands of crores into the development and tourism sector of Nagaland. Protests break out in Kohima; conflicts erupt between the slain man’s loyalists and the rebel factions against this soul-selling deal. The case is given to ACP Imran Ansari (Ishwak Singh), fresh from topping his IPS batch. The optics are irresistible: A Muslim officer must lead an investigation into the killing of an unprotected guest — an Indian outsider — in the capital. If things go wrong, Ansari is a readymade scapegoat.

Meanwhile, jaded protagonist and Ansari’s ex-boss Hathi Ram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat) continues to bat in the minor league. He flirts with the idea of quitting, but an inconspicuous case of a missing husband puts him on a collision course with the high-profile investigation. Most officers are expected to do their job, but Hathi Ram is destined to do his duty.

Jaideep Ahlawat in 'Paatal Lok' season 2

Season 2 of Paatal Lok is just as dense, indirect and plotty as the first. There are several suspects, buried skeletons, red herrings and dead ends. There’s a troubled girl, Rose (Merenla Imsong), who was last seen exiting the room. There’s a slick ‘Special advisor to the Indian government’ named Kapil Reddy (Nagesh Kukunoor), whose wife runs a hotel chain where Rose once worked. There’s Meghna Barua (Tillotama Shome), Nagaland’s own dignified version of Hathi Ram Chaudhary. There’s the wise old party president (Jahnu Barua), whose casting itself is a tongue-in-cheek device for those familiar with the recent Film Federation of India (FFI) fiasco. There’s the leader’s estranged son, Nagaland’s heir (in)apparent. There’s a nightclub owner, a drug peddler parading as a fruit trader, a local fixer, a cold-blooded sniper, orphaned kids, and substitute mothers.

In short, there’s a lot. Everyone matters, or pretends to matter. It gets difficult to follow, yet it’s this difficulty that the narrative turns into a statement. It’s the density that becomes a political language. There are times when Hathi Ram realises that the dots he’s obsessively joining are just that: dots. From most vantage points, these dots look like insects — connected by birth, divided by hunger. No matter what angle it’s seen from, the result is more bloody than coherent. It’s more inevitable than mysterious.

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Rarely has the title of a show been so socially expressive. Season one had a field day with the parallels between the WhatsAppification of Hindu cosmology (“Paatal Lok” refers to the lowest realm: the netherworld) and modern segregation. Season two extends this metaphor into a lived-in truth. When warned against digging too deep in hell, Hathi Ram declares that he’s a “permanent resident of Paatal Lok”, bringing to mind Bane’s iconic line (“You merely adopted the dark, I was born in it”) from The Dark Knight Rises (2012). He knows that escaping the pit is, in some sense, betraying the nourishment of its dirt. What this season does so craftily is reframe the title as its biggest twist. Most crime dramas find suspense in the identity of the killer. But the second season of Paatal Lok finds suspense in the identities of those who die. When a character perishes here, it confirms their status as a citizen of the netherworld they thought they had escaped. This “reveal” is more about where they belong than who they are. It’s not about whether they are good or bad, it’s about whether they are seen or unseen.

Some of these deaths come as shocks — as emotional twists — to the viewer, despite all the familiar tropes of foreboding. A poignant exchange with a colleague, phone calls going unanswered, a delicate moment with a child: These are famous signs of an imminent tragedy, but we don’t see it coming because these little scenes of respite and humanity feel like a blinding light in the darkness. There is no finality because we assume that each character’s agency — as brave cops or hitmen or hustlers — makes them immune to narrative cliches. It’s a moving distortion of perspective, and Paatal Lok’s second season is richer for it. The title becomes a paradoxical confession. It’s the heavens (the above in the “orders from above”) that stay unseen and invisible to the cameras. It’s the carnage down below that attracts eyeballs through primetime telecasts or intricately written shows. Each one of them is a story; they just hope they aren’t.

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This is why the staging is so alive to the India it occupies. Scenes don’t exist solely to advance the script. They unfold like passing parts of ongoing lives; it’s almost like the camera is on them longer than they allow it to be. For example, the scene of a hotel attendant spotting a body starts with the guy chatting on the phone about how night shifts are peaceful; his personal space is hijacked by a public scandal. The act of a railway cop recognising a woman fugitive starts when he banters with a magazine seller — establishing his male gaze — before he gets a ‘Wanted’ photo alert. A key piece of evidence is simply not found, it’s uncovered; a kid getting scolded for ‘stealing’ admits that a WhatsApp forward taught him to reactivate a broken phone by burying it in rice grains. A lady constable is heard discussing her pregnancy before we see the orphan she’s sheltering at the police station. Hathi Ram keeps getting annoyed with his brother-in-law’s car parked near his gate, but the gag builds up to the night he finds a rickshaw parked there.

Most shows might have reduced these moments and characters to the information they’re imparting (for example, a shot of a kid noticing a broken phone on the tracks). But the padding in this series suggests that nobody exists in isolation; it humanises a universe in which each of these people is an unwitting protagonist. This also defines some of the show’s action set pieces. A hospital escape is bookended by a riot and a brawl; the everyman desperation of this sequence speaks to how the attackers are more than the violence they unleash. Hathi Ram Chaudhary has no idea what he’s doing, but you can tell that his wild punches stem from a history of moral suppression and grief. It’s almost an anti-choreography, in stark contrast to the flashy single-take shots from The Family Man — a universe whose situational humour Paatal Lok seems to share.

The staging is also in the details. When his boss makes a flimsy remark about “minorities”, Ansari mentions he grew up in Kashmir’s Anantnag district (at a crucial moment, his parents are said to be stuck in a curfew). At another point, a cocky nightclub owner jokes about “the problem with democracy: anyone can say anything” to a bemused Muslim officer. A news ticker about the end of the farmers’ protests is seen under the footage of three masked Naga extremists taking credit for the murder. Two henchmen named Ranga and Billa mow down a woman in broad daylight. An auto-rickshaw flashing the quote “Dosti bani rahe” becomes the proof of a crime. A sarcastic cop encourages someone to help him by rattling off a patriotic quote like it’s a children’s essay. One can argue that the very existence of this season of Paatal Lok is political in today’s climate, but the show goes an extra mile to be specific. The framework of Nagaland manages to be its own entity without sacrificing its place as a surrogate metaphor.

A still for 'Paatal Lok' season 2

That's not to say Season 2 is flawless. There are a few false notes. Take the Sherlock-ing of Hathi Ram’s deduction skills. Too often, his photographic memory is used as an excuse for lazy exposition. Ditto for the designed exchanges between Hathi Ram and his former supervisor Virk (Anuraag Arora) — every time the plot spirals, the two speak to each other like commentators updating viewers about a game. Two complicit wives trade a corny line like “Aren’t we both paying for the sins of our men?” The final revelation isn’t convincing, but the act of selling hope built on a blood-soaked lie is the origin story of most nations. It allows Hathi Ram Chaudhary to win by being defeated on his own terms. If this sounds like a Baazigar reference, it’s probably more of a Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa–coded journey. It’s as if he spots the ring in the church, but chooses silence over salience; the permanence of fiction over the transience of truth.

Jaideep Ahlawat’s star-making turn from the first season settles into the embattled rhythms of a striver. He obliterates the image of an honest cop with Hathi’s writerly ego and toxic righteousness. The man compares himself to an anonymous racehorse that sprints for trophies he’ll never get credit for; he is equated with a fool who keeps plugging the holes of a sinking boat instead of saving himself. At some level, Ahlawat plays Hathi as someone who refuses to be corrupt because he’s addicted to the disenchantment of being the underdog. Some of the show’s best moments emerge when Hathi’s dormant humanity shines through this performative nihilism. It’s when he softens against the odds of his primal nature. Like when he gently stops a child from seeing a body in the morgue; when he reacts to a secret with more of an inburst than an outburst (“Can I call you Ansari instead of sir for a minute?”); when he halts the ambulance and waits for the queer lover of the victim to join them; when he grieves by a river.

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Ahlawat slowly defies Hathi Ram Chaudhary’s tenure as Paatal Lok (p)resident. He has all the foreboding signs too: closure with his wife, a ‘last’ chat with a colleague, a farewell-like glance at a friend. Yet he’s the only one who confirms his netherworld credentials by living, not dying; by surviving, not succumbing. It’s a strange, real-world echo of Unbreakable’s David Dunn realising that he might just be an indestructible superhero. Choudhary’s cape is his cynicism; he expects the worst this season, so anything better becomes a bonus. He’s like a vigilante in a uniform, except he’s part of both the illness and the cure. He looks disappointed with the people from the lower echelons — his co-inhabitants — when he thrashes and interrogates them. But he fears no red tape or suspension order if he’s punching above his pay grade.

At his most colourful, Hathi Ram Chaudhary is a lyrical reflection of the non-mainstream Hindi space that the show’s makers and collaborators have come to represent. His integrity is a weakness. He sticks to his guns. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves. His contemporaries compromise. He is pushed to the margins and the brink. He always has one foot out of the door. Something keeps pulling him back: one last case, one last passion project. He recognises the bigotry, power abuse and oppression around him. He endures. He is not alone. He rejects the system and becomes his own system. He could be anyone — showrunner Sudip Sharma, director Avinash Arun Dhaware, actors Ahlawat or Shome. He could also be Black Warrant creator Vikramaditya Motwane or Poacher creator Richie Mehta. That’s the subtext of Paatal Lok as a mythological land: anything is possible. There is no fear because there are no limits. And in the netherworld of new-age Bollywood, scarcity is the mother of invention.