When you hear the title, Virgin Woman Diaries 2, the first thought that automatically comes to mind is sex. The expectations rise, given that season 1 was so true to its concept. But the sequel of this Kabir Sadanand-helmed web series does not get deep into its concept. It is more of a fun romance of errors involving 2 couples.
Most of the 10 episodes begin with hoity toity Kiara (Archita Agrawal) talking about her love life with an RJ.
Kiara is dating tech wizard, Amit (Dhiraj Totlani), whose dumb friend Sameer (Nishant Shandliya) is dating Shalini (Mridanjili Rawal). The setting is Kiara’s dad, Kanti Shah’s café (more about him later).
A bizarre sequence of misunderstandings forces both the girls to call time on their relationships. Kiara thinks that Sameer is having a fling with Shalini, who suddenly disappears into thin air, voila!
When Sameer tries to explain to Kiara that there is nothing cooking between him and Shalini, the latter’s sanskari twin sister, who speaks in ornamental lingo, turns up blasting Sameer for the break up.
The story keeps going back and forth, with each of the principal characters trying to explain just what the hell went wrong. Sometimes the to and fro gets too confusing even for us. Most of the digs are quite funny, while few are quite lame. The one which made us roll on the floor was Sameer’s decision to build a huge latex statue of Shalani. Interestingly, Malini too starts to develop feelings for Sameer; quite original.
My biggest bone of contention is where is the entire fun drama regarding an Indian woman losing her virginity? Well, you might argue that it had been already shown in season 1.
But then, if you really wanted to take the franchise forward, you should have focussed on the post virginity-losing part, in relation to pregnancy and marriage. Or you could have simply taken new characters, revisiting the core theme in new settings.
But here it appears that they just want to milk the brand. In all practicality, it is a new concept with nothing common to the old thread. The biggest plus is that the narrative is quite clean with no nudity. Agreed, huge s*x play was not the case even in season 1, but sometimes the edgier portions go up as seasons progress.
To be honest, the jokes and story are all fine, if you watch it as a standalone story. However, if you had waited for this as part 2 of the franchise, the party goes nowhere as some might expect risqué stuff.
The four main actors are good. All of them are apt for their respective parts, especially Archita as the very confused gal in love. Good looking dude Dhiraj is good as the smart Amit. Mridanjili is lucky to get a contesting character in season 2. The antics of the shorts-wearing Nishant is fun. His filmy obsession gets a smile on your face.
The narrative does miss the presence of Delnaz Irani as Kiara’s dominating mother from season 1. Even the character of Kiara’s dad seems too silly. We found the hunting part a bit too tough to swallow. A senior actor like Amit Behl surely deserves better.
Also, this time they are not streaming it on YouTube alone, but also on the Lehren App. While that may be a good strategy of winning more eyeballs for the app, you run the risk of picking lower core views. Also, much more has to be invested in PR to create awareness about your series.
Actor turned digital producer, Kabir, is a very talented guy, who has great potential for the web. We are sure that he will go back to the drawing board and come back with another winner very soon. Having said this, the Season 2 is a good watch for sure..
We credit Virgin Woman Diaries with 2.5 out of 5 stars.
