Paatal Lok Season 2 Review: Sudip Sharma and Jaideep Ahlawat Triumph in a Darker Descent

3.5/5

Paatal Lok Season 2 Story: So Hathiram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat) is still at the Jamuna Paar thana, which he likes to call Paatal Lok. However, the dynamics have changed as Ansari (Ishwak Singh) is now an ACP and Hathiram is still where he was. As he continues to tackle his life as a young boy who is now in the hostel, a high-profile murder draws him to Nagaland, where an entirely new broth of vicious things is boiling. New challenges are laid ahead of Hathiram, and he must now solve this case so his moral compass stays intact and he can avenge the death of a dear friend.

Paatal Lok Season 2 Review:

In my conversation with Sudip Sharma ahead of Paatal Lok Season 2, he told me how the curiosity in him to explore the country and understand it better has somewhere made way to wanting to understand the inner self better. He told me how that has seeped into Paatal Lok 2, and now that I have seen all eight episodes of the second season, I can confirm it has. Paatal Lok entered our lives during the peak lockdown and showed us the gap between the haves and the have-nots and the conflicts it creates. This was the same time videos of the marginalized spreading the COVID-19 germs in the elite vicinity in a Korean state were going viral. Paatal Lok reflected exactly that conflict but in a much, much more brutal way.

Over the years, Sudip Sharma, the creator of Paatal Lok, has been on a quest to understand violence and its root causes. His interest is not in the action but the idea of the action and what led to the moment where someone killed somebody. That exact exploration created some of the most nuanced and complex characters that have been sprinkled over his films and shows. Be it Hatoda Tyagi or the characters in Kohrra, there is always a reason for the actions. Probably we might not agree with them, but we cannot even ignore them. 

Paatal Lok Season 2 now meets us in the post-pandemic world, and by the dialogues, it is confirmed that even Hathiram has been through the pandemic phase. So, five years have passed since Season 1, and the second season begins sometime after the climax of the first. Hathiram’s growth is stagnant, and he is still the man sipping tea and giving the spiciest of comebacks in the police station, where the dwellers of Jamuna Paar line up to register their bizarre complaints. However, he is also the man who has seen all his colleagues rise higher while he has no growth. Imran Ansari is now an ACP, and the awkwardness with which they call each other ‘sir’ is what develops their dynamic even further.

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The conflict in Season 2 moves from Delhi to Dimapur in Nagaland, and the writing is so smooth that it organically takes the story there. You aren't suddenly told it shifts to a new location—it takes you with it, almost like you are one of the people in the police station lined up to file an FIR and witness it all happen. While Ansari is solving the high-profile murder of a politician, Hathiram is on to find the missing husband of a lady from Jamuna Paar slums. These cases get connected and take the two men to Nagaland, where an entirely new landscape, culture, and set of challenges await.

With writers Abhishek Banerjee, and Tamal Den, and director Avinash Arun, Sudip Sharma creates a tapestry with Season 2 that is more about the inner conflict than the outer one. For Hathiram to bring an orphan child home, to his wife—a stellar Gul Panag accepting it—to Ansari not forgetting what Hathiram did for him in his initial days, it all boils down to the goodness in people amid the darkness that is around them. For some, Paatal Lok Season 2 might not stand at par with the first season because it is not as outrightly dark. This time the pacing is slow, plots are being cooked, and things are unraveling at a very slow pace. And that is completely alright because it all adds up to a worthy conclusion.

Sudip continues to look at the struggles of the marginalized and their exploitation at the hands of the elite, who think they were born to be the oppressors even in 2025. Hathiram stands as the first Hell’s Bodyguard, who will not let anything wrong happen here, and there is so much growth in this character's arc. The writing beautifully shows how he is aging and that his ill habits are taking a toll. Not just that, the script writes him like a hero, and when he comes out of the combat scene as a man like us and not a chiseled hero, it is such a brilliant shift from the obvious.

Jaideep Ahlawat is pitch-perfect, and there is no way he is going wrong with Paatal Lok. The star has embodied Hathiram, and we cannot even imagine the show without him. Ishwak Singh as Ansari is the same adorable boy who seems like the misfit in this system, but now the system has toughened him a bit. Gul Panag is a brilliant actor, and I hope to see her become a pivotal character to the main arc in the third season, if there is one. Tillotama Shome can make even the weakest character look the best, and that is her art.

However, in Paatal Lok Season 2, the way Jaideep Ahlawat’s Hathiram decodes things half the time looks very convenient, and that is not a good sign. Especially in the final three episodes, things fall into place so quickly at times that you can see the urge to save time for the big final act. But the twists are so brilliant that you might forgive it for the flaws. Prime Video is clearly having a great time with successful franchise shows as Paatal Lok 2 follows Bandish Bandits 2, and we await The Family Man 3.

Paatal Lok Season 2 Verdict:

Paatal Lok Season 2 continues to be the exploration of the depths of hell, and Hathiram Chaudhary is the Hell’s Bodyguard. Sudip Sharma “George R.R. Martins” his way through the season and shapes a narrative that is slow, gritty, gripping, and one that has some brilliant rewards by the end of it.

Paatal Lok Season 2 is streaming on Amazon Prime Video from January 17, 2025. Stay tuned to OTTplay for more information on this and everything else from the world of streaming and films.-

Also Read: Paatal Lok Season 2 Character Guide: From Jaideep Ahlawat to Tillotama Shome, who plays what in Prime Video’s crime thriller