Go Watch ‘Mirzapur’ Season 2 – Like Right Now!

If you haven’t watched ‘Mirzapur’ season 1 and/or season 2, head over to Amazon Prime Video and watch the show now! 

Creator/writer Puneet Krishna and directors Gurmeet Singh and Mihir Desai bring out the best in each character and in every scene. Minute details such as the safety pin to replace a missing button in Golu’s kurta and nostalgic flashbacks of Bablu and Sweety will win your heart right from the very beginning. The show may be predictable enough to guess that good will triumph over evil at the end (Happy Dussehra), but the question of who is really “good” will haunt you the entire season right up till the end.

You get to see phenomenal performances by the entire returning cast – Pankaj Tripathi as Akhandanand Tripathi a.k.a. Kaleen Bhaiya, Ali Fazal as Guddu Pandit, Divyendu Sharma as Phoolchand “Munna” Tripathi, Shweta Tripathi as Golu Gupta, Rasika Dugal as Beena Tripathi, and Anjum Sharma as Sharad Shukla. Some of the new cast members in season 2 including Isha Talwar as Madhuri Yadav and Vijay Varma as Bharat/Shatrughan Tyagi blend in so smoothly, you will be forced to jog your memory of whether they were indeed not part of the first season.

When Munna Tripathi kills Bablu and Sweety in front of Guddu and Golu at the end of season 1 of ‘Mirzapur,’ it leaves the latter two shattered and completely defeated. Season 2 kicks off with Guddu and Golu plotting revenge for the death of their loved ones, with the intention of taking Mirzapur from the Tripathis. With Kaleen Bhaiya still ruling over Mirzapur and gradually expanding his control over other parts of U.P. and Bihar, there are several other self-qualified contenders with their eyes on the gaddi (throne).

Munna is as spoiled and hot-headed as he was in season 1, but something (or someone) brings about a change in his nature and it’s an almost-pleasant surprise to see his character develop through season 2. Golu goes from being a mature and responsible college student to a vengeful woman who will stop at nothing until she gets what she wants. While strong and united on the outside, the Tripathi household is broken and weak on the inside. Men of the house prey on helpless women and everyone is only looking out for themselves. How Kaleen Bhaiya’s wife, Beena Tripathi, learns to survive and, dare I say, thrive in such an environment is one of the best sub-plots in the series.

Isha Talwar’s character Madhuri Yadav seems insignificant enough initially but grows into one that heavily influences some of the alpha males in the show. As naive as Vijay Varma’s character Shatrughan Tyagi is in the show, there is something about his on-screen presence which gives us hope that things may not end so badly after all.

There’s a pleasant coincidence you might miss – Guddu and Bablu’s parents Ramakant and Vasudha Pandit are played by Rajesh Tailang and Sheeba Chaddha, who also happen to co-star as husband and wife in ‘Bandish Bandits,’ which is also on Amazon Prime Video. Another coincidence is that Rasika Dugal and Vijay Varma had another release on the same day – BBC’s miniseries “A Suitable Boy” on Netflix (not available in the US yet). 

If you’re still reading this review and it’s not obvious yet, I highly recommend watching ‘Mirzapur,’ seasons 1 and 2. Everything about this show is the best you’ll see in Indian digital content.