Aspirants: Season 2 | Review, 5 things I liked and disliked about it

Prologue:

Abhilash Sharma has assumed the position of a District Magistrate in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. The emergence of ideological disparities between Abhilash and ALC Sandeep Ohlan has resulted in escalating tensions between them.

IMDB: 9.2
It’s Review Time (Season 2): 7

Cast & Crew:

Director – Apoorv Singh Karki.
Naveen Kasturia plays Ahbilash Sharma.
Sunny Hinduja plays Sandeep Ohlan.
Shivankit Singh Parihar plays Guri.
Abhilash Thapliyal plays Shwet Ketu/SK.
Namita Dubey plays Dhariya.
Tengam Celine plays Deepa Nabam.
Harish Chabbra plays Dayanidi Joshi.
Darius Chinoy plays Abhilash’s Boss.

Plot:

The season begins when SK and Guri are at Old Rajinder Nagar discussing the secrecy Abhilash has kept as he is coming to Delhi and has not even told his friends about it. Although this scene does not have much of an impact on the story but it shows us the feelings his friends have for him. Where Guri thinks of this move as Abhilash being selfish, SK thinks of it as Abhilash being very busy with his work.

From there the story continues and focuses on the friendship and working collaboration between Abhilash as District Magistrate of Rampur and Sandeep Ohlan as Assistant Labour Commissioner. As the story continues, we see disparity increasing between ALC Sandeep and DM Abhilash increasing with each intervention from the government or outside sources.

As we progress towards the end of the 5 episode season, the disparity between Abhilash and Sandeep increases more and more as Abhilash starts taking legal and official action against him. Even though it gets hard to decide for the viewers who is right or wrong in this fiasco, but the cliffhanger ending makes the entire series even more interesting.

Review:

First of all, what a fantastic cliffhanger we get in the last few minutes of the last episode of this season. When you start watching this season, it is recommended to not compare this season with the previous one, because if you do, you will be really disappointed considering how well the first season sets up the entire story. The start of this season’s story felt really slow and boring as most of the time we see each and every one of our loved characters busy in their personal and professional lives. It is similar in a way if we compare the first and second seasons of TVF’s Pitchers as well.

But as soon as things start going south at Rampur when the labourers’ protest starts getting out of the control of Abhilash, we see the situation going sour between him and our beloved Sandeep Bhaiya. Meanwhile, the situation between the Tripod, that is, Guri, SK, and Abhilash tends to ease up a bit but at last, SK has started to dislike Abhilash. The entire scenario of relationships and how people tend to change with time and experience was explored wonderfully which even feels natural and real.

And coming to the best part I saw in the series was, how realistic a married relationship the writers created between Guri and Dhariya. Unlike some upcoming woke movies and series where we see women complaining about their lives, how society has oppressed them, or no one has been good enough to please them. We see a relationship between Guri and Dhariya being mature and sensible, where both the partners contribute and celebrate each other’s success, and they both are always ready to sacrifice to see their partners be successful and happy.

5 things I liked about Aspirants, Season 2:

There are many things I liked and disliked about the series. Let us first discuss the things I liked about Season 2 of Aspirants.

1. The chemistry built, developed and carried between the characters has been the best part of the series. Whether it is the sweet and sour friendship of Tripod, the dissolving friendship and respect between Abhilash and Sandeep Bhaiya, or the relationship of Dhariya with Guri and Abhilash, it always looks real and well-written scenes between the characters we have been following from the days of Old Rajinder Nagar.
2. The way the costume designers make their characters look younger during the scenes of backstory looks amazing on the screen. Whether it is Abhilash, SK or Dhariya, costume designers put in a lot of effort to make them look younger and in their 20s. Although, for Guri, I would not say the same. Guri looks almost the same when it is the scenes in the backstory or the present time.
3. The continuation of the story and characters from the first season of Aspirants and ‘Sandeep Bhaiya’ (series) was fantastically continued in this season as well. Nothing felt out of proportion or some discontinuation from one season or series to another season of Aspirants.
4. The setup of Abhilash vs Sandeep took a lot of time in the 5 episode series to be built but it was worth the wait. I do understand that the initial story was required to be narrated to the audience. But I think writers and directors took some time to bring and drag the entire scenario to the third episode and from there they started to build on it. I think we are definitely going to explore more of it in the next season as Sandeep has betrayed the entire friends group of Old Rajinder Nagar with his move to get Abhilash investigated at the end, SK is the only one from that group who he might still connect with.
5. The way the writers and directors build the antagonists was beautifully written and created. We first start with Dayanidi Joshi, who is the owner of Red Giant Distilleries in Rampur and has been facing issues with his labour and providing them increments, but that later gets justified because his company has been facing continuous losses.
   From there we shift to Abhilash becoming someone we start hating as he goes against one of the most beloved characters, Sandeep Ohlan, who has become Sandeep Bhaiya for everyone after the first season and continued his legacy in his stand-alone series as well. But in the season finale, we see Abhilash justifying his actions to Guri and conveying that his investigation complaint against ALC Sandeep Ohlan was not something personal, but it had to be professional as many things were at risk.
   And at last, we see Sandeep providing proofs for the suspected bribery against Abhilash to the Investigation Committee. This will create a major plot point in the next season of the Aspirants.

5 things I disliked about Aspirants, Season 2:

Now, coming back to the things I did not like about the second season of Aspirants.

1. There were many time-filler scenes in the entire series. It looked like the director and writer extended many scenes to fill up episodes and time mark to reach the main plot of this season.
2. The back story of Abhilash’s post-fifth attempt was something that I was not expecting to witness again. We had seen Abhilash crack the PRELIMS exam in the first season, and from there, the story continues to tell us about the journey of Abhilash cracking the MAINS exam and then the Interview. Personally, I wanted to watch them explore the current time after all of them are leading some other kind of success in their lives and what kind of things they go through.
3. There were many inconsistent pacing issues in the entire series. There were many scenes where watching this season felt boring and sluggish and some scenes where the story took sharp turns in its plots and made every single minute of the story worth watching and wanting the audience to ask for more. The sluggishness of the series was most prominent during the scenes of the backstory where we see the story extended for our aspirants to the MAINS exam and Interview, and for others who pursue other things in their lives.
4. There is no competition for Season 1 of the Aspirants considering how good it was written, how well it was directed, and while also considering the casting for the characters where we had characters like Guri, SK, Dhairya and Abhilash, we had someone like Sandeep Bhaiya who became one of the most popular Indian OTT characters overnight. And if we compare both seasons of the same series, the second season fell short of delivering the same level of perfection.
   Yes, I know that I mentioned that we should not compare the seasons in the very first line of the Review, but no one was there to tell me this.
5. When the backstory began, it was a bit difficult for me to grasp the story and understand what was going on in these scenes. As we saw in the first season, Abhilash cracks the PRELIMS and from there we saw him as an Officer straight away. It got me confused as to what he was doing in the Old Rajinder Nagar again, or when this storyline occurs and who are these new friends of his. A little introduction or an overlay narrated or mentioned to us would have been more helpful.