Yuppie school escapades seem to be the flavour of the web season. First RejctX, then Class of 2020 now RejctX 2 comes along (ZEE5). Good looking kids getting steamy and fighting their internal demons make for a juicy watch, you bet.
The story takes off from season 1 where a group of elite Singapore school failures (academic, personal issues take your pick) get further snared in a web of deceit and blackmail, forcing them to commit /be accessory to murder. Arav (Ahmed Masi Wali) has to take the life of his girl Kiara (Anisha Victor) whose mom wanted her to dump Arav, given his past. He had shot his politician dad, unable to come to terms with his mother’s death.
Arav seems to be leaving behind of trail of dead bodies. Add more spice here… His school councilor Anushka Rao, (talented Kubbra Sait) who he got intimate with, is found dead. One more dance instructor gets seriously hurt for rejecting Arav. FYI, apart from all the above mess, our motley group alsos run a band (multitasking and cliched cool)
Copying a leaf from Gossip Girl, we too have an anonymous student chat group (managed by Harvinder and Paromita) which shames a sports student to suicide by wrongly alluding her success to performance enhancement drugs. Err… could she not have asked to be tested?
Then you have women trying to molest another. The back story is conservative bisexual Sehmat (Saadhika Syal) trying to break the shackle by openly declaring her love to.
Interestingly in the past, both had dated Maddy, who in turn is unable to make peace with his po*n star mother (man, they do have issues). He is forced to film a po*n act with an underage gal to save Harvinder.
In all this, you also have Arav’s doppelganger school janitor. The later has the hots for Arav and plays an essential role in making his life and his band’s life a living hell.
Local Singapore cop Rene (Esha Gupta) is dead bent on nailing Arav for Anushka’s death. Kiara puts pressure on her boss to close the case as a suicide. (Arav is quite ungrateful right by killing someone who is going on a limb for him).
So, the makers have several threads to play with, i.e. who is the blackmailer? What does he/she want? (it reminds us of MX Player series Mini written by the same writer Novoneel Chakraborty).
While the overall narrative was good, the constant time jumps were unhinging. It took us till episode 4 to get hooked on, till then, we were just wondering what and why? Will today’s fickle audience have so much patience?
On the other positive side, the show has some peppy music and compared to other web offerings; the s*x part is much lesser. You have a story to tell her. Good work by director Goldie Behl. Shooting in Singapore adds to the scenic beauty, indeed.
The pill-popping school principal Farhan Hussain (Sumeet Vyas) too has a back-story that needs to be watched. No more spoilers here.
Performance-wise all the new kids have done a decent job, But here, Esha Gupta takes the cake and bakery. The makers keep roping in B Town names to add heft. The first season had Kubbra.
Rene does what it takes to solve the case, including using her feminine charm .The scene where the kids are taking Kiara’s body in the van and she asks for a lift, quipping about the deathly atmosphere, is full of pathos. The entire murder screenplay reminded us of How to Get Away With Murder season 1.
Overall, the season has evolved and Goldie Behl does make it gripping. A franchise to take it forward, for sure.
3.5 out of 5 stars from us.
