She 2(Netflix, 7 Episodes)
Rating: *** ½
This is not a series that can be classified easily. Its heroine Bhumika Pardeshi is an undercover cop like no other we have seen. The law-enforcement agency sends her off on a drug-bust mission which could easily leave her dead.
But Bhumi doesn’t seem to care. Does she enjoy her death-defying job as it offers a chance to lead a parallel life far more exciting than her middleclass Maharashtrian upbringing and her constant squabbles with her rebellious sister Rupa(Shivani Rangole).
Bhumi is a very unhappy woman.It’s in her eyes. We seldom see her smile in the seven episodes of Season 2 except when she is with the gangster Nayak(Kishore Kumar G).A sinister shadowy figure who operates from the darkchat domain.
Like everyone else in this restless series, Nayak leads a double life. He is at home, the perfect family man.The traditional Maharashtrian home where Bhumi finds emotional sustenance with Nayak , is given the right artwork touches to make it look like rural paradise, a fantasy getaway resort.
A lot of the dramatic scenes are shot in the detached atmosphere of luxurious hotel rooms where the drama that unfolds is surprisingly at odds with the elegant atmosphere.
The blueprint from Season 1 is very much operational in Season 2. We are dragged into a tense cops-and-crime drama where the undercover cop mingles with gangsters and hookers as though she is part of this seedy world.
Midway through the seven episodes Bhumi’s world of dangerous duality begins to come apart. She feels she is neither a part of her natural habitat, the police station. Nor does she fit into the world of drugs and crime she has adopted as her dangerous playground.
Straddling two divergent dimensions, Bhumi comes across as an irredeemably tragic figure.Aditi Pohankar plays Bhumi as a vulnerable woman giving her virtual identity all the grit she can never apply to her own life. Vishwas Kinni as Bhumi’s handler is another talented regular in the series who brings to the table a knowledgeable fidelity that makes the more implausible plot points seem like a karmic intervention.
She Season 2 is shot largely in the dark where civil law-abiding behaviour has no place. Pohankar’s Bhumi is a lost cause in the truest sense of the word.She is floating in a haze of self-annihilation. She knows she is hurling down a one-way street taking us with her in her damn-burst of gun-blazing self destructive heroism which finally has no resting place.