Breathe (season 2) – into the shadows, a serious-emotional-suspense-psychic-crime drama streaming since Jul 20 on Amazon Prime. A little bit lengthy Hindi web series with 12 episodes released with an average length of 40-45 minutes each and the last episode of 57 minutes.
The series doesn’t have any connection with Breathe season 1 except a few common characters, so you can watch the series with any of the titles like J ka Badla, Khuni Kaun, Ravan, Dashanan, etc.
The story revolves around 4 major characters. The first one is the same character from season 1 with a changed nature and personality Inspector Kabeer Sawant (Amit Sadh) is good, emotional, loving, healthy hunk, no drinking habits, and an energetic man. After completing the punishment of six months in jail, he requests a job transfer to Delhi to take care of or help Meghna.
New characters introduced for season 2, Avinash Sabharwal (Abhishek Bachhan) a psychiatrist, a rich family man, and his wife Abha Sabharwal (Nithya Menen) chef by profession and the mother of a daughter.
4th character and villain of the series J, a mental patient, and psycho killer (if you preferred to watch the series suspense about him will be revealed in the 5th episode, else you will be happy by avoiding the series)
Other main supporting roles are Siya Sabharwal (Ivana Kaur) Avinash’s daughter, Prakash Kamble (Hrishikesh Joshi) a character from season 1, Jaiprakash (Shrikant Verma) Kabeer’s assistant in the Delhi Crime Branch, Zeba Rizvi (Shradha Kaul) Kabeer’s rival selfish senior officer in Delhi Crime Branch, Shirley (Saiyami Kher) a call girl, Meghna Verma (Plabita Borthakur) works in an animation studio and lost her legs in an accident when Kabeer push her from the balcony to save from a gunshot, Gayatri Mishra (Resham Shrivardhan) a medical student whom J kidnaps to take care of Siya, Principal Krishnan Moorthy (Nizhalgal Ravi) Avinash and J’s boarding schools principal and J’s Paa, Tejinder Singh (Sunil Gupta) Kabeer’s Boss, Young Avinash (Varin Roopani), Vrushali (Vibhawari Deshpande) Dhaba owner, Pritpal Singh Bharaj (Kuljeet Singh), Natasha Garewal (Shruti Bapna) and Angad Pandit (Pawan Singh) J’s targets and victims of Avinash. Some other small characters are also in supporting roles.
Except for some scenes of Meghna, Nithya, and AB, everybody else did good in acting. Kabeer overshadowed Avinash.
The series starts with a scene of Jagrata where Gayatri is studying. For further study, she alone leaves from there and gets kidnapped on a deserted road.
In the courtroom, Dr. Avinash proves a girl who killed her uncle’s family is not a patient of multiple personality disorder. He helps police in such many cases.
Avinash is a happy man with a family of a daughter Siya and a wife Abha. Siya is a patient with diabetes and needs an insulin dose every 4 hours. Siya gets kidnapped from a friend’s birthday party organized at the farmhouse. Avinash and Abha put all their efforts to find Siya but fails to get any news about her.
9 months after the kidnapping, kidnapper J asks Avinash and Abha to kill Pritpalsingh to save Siya. But killing must be by taking out his emotion “anger” and having to shoot the killing and send it to the news channel. After Pritpalsingh, J tells to kill Natasha by taking out her emotion “lust” and the same way shoot and sending it to the news channel. After Natasha, J tells to kill Angad, this time by taking out his emotion “fear” and repeating the other things. Avinash and Abha kill Pritpalsingh, Natasha, and Angad by taking out their emotions Anger, Lust, and Fear. Avinash finds the pattern of killing by taking out emotions is related to the ten heads of Ravana, where each head is representing one emotion. The kidnapper is telling, one after another emotion related to ten heads of Ravana to kill the targets. In this way, the kidnapper will ask them to kill ten people with ten different emotions. To stop killings Avinash tries to find some proof from videos sent by the kidnapper but doesn’t get anything. At the kidnapper’s place, Gayatri takes good care of Siya and 2-3 times attempts to run away with Siya from that place but fails.
Kabir takes responsibility for investigating the brutal killings that were shot and broadcast on the news channel. Avinash joins the investigation to avoid arrest before Siya returns. Kabeer step by step reveals or finds the links between the murders, Avinash and J, and reveals the suspense.
Who is J? Who played the role of J? How J kidnap Siya? How does he take care of diabetic Siya for 9 months? Why he kidnaps Siya and Gayatri? Why did J ask Avinash to kill these people? What relation do these people have with Avinash or J? How does Avinash plans all killing? How many targets does J have? Is Kabeer able to free Siya before more killing? Is Kabeer able to stop Avinash and Abha? What happens with Meghna? What relation she has with Kabeer? How did JP and Prakash help Kabeer? What role does Shirley have in all this? How did Kabeer come to know Avinash is behind these killings? Does Abha help Avinash in Killings? How does all this mess end? Is J a patient of Avinash? What is the special role of these different emotions in murder and kidnapping? The last episode ends with C-16 written chit in Shirley’s hand, so what is C-16? All this and much more suspense will be revealed in 12 episodes of the series.
Many characters and scenes are irrelevant or not necessary in the series, which made the series lengthy and boring. Many things shown are illogical and difficult to digest. The story is not strong enough. Direction, editing is also not up to the mark.
The last episode ends with a C-16 written chit in Shirley’s hand given by Avinash. This is new and unrevealed suspense along with J’s life at the end of the series, which means you can expect the next season of the series.
Nothing new in the story, the story of such a base plot may be you have seen before. Till the 5th episode, it keeps our interest, excitement, thrill, and curiosity high but once suspense about J is revealed, then the series is all about flashback, revenge, planning, plot, etc. At some point, the lengthy and slow running series misses the rhythm and gets bored and arid. As expected it is not emotional enough. You can watch it for Kabeer’s acting if have 9-10 hours spare and nothing more interesting to watch, else many reasons to avoid the series and save time.
Chetan Nikam 