If you’ve seen Season 1, you’ll know that the big picture has courtroom king Janardhan Jaitley or JJ (played by Piyush Mishra with a raspy voice) pitched opposite his former protégé Niharika Singh (pretty Neha Sharma who spouts earnest dialogues with a duck-shaped mouth).
Niharika’s gone independent, partnering Puneet Tandon (Satyadeep Misra with a pleasant screen presence) who quit his plum job as Public Prosecutor to join hands with her.
In the credit titles, chess pieces tumble, the blindfolded lady of justice with the scales is askew, and a series based on lawyers and the law is ironically called Illegal. Sets the tone for men and women in black coats going beyond their law books to win a case.
Directed with a firm grip by Ashwini Choudhary, Advaita Kala writes a racy screenplay, casting JJ as the pivotal blackguard with Niharika attempting to checkmate him. JJ aspires for Chief Minister Mrinalini Singh’s post (Achint Kaur is the CM in lovely sarees), plotting his moves to topple her and step in. But he can’t help playing politics on all fronts – his wife has had a mysterious death, even son Akshay (Akshay Oberoi, likeable as always), a lawyer with a conscience, has to watch his back when devious dad’s out to get what he wants.
A stalker lurking around, a murder or two, a hit-and-run, a client with a grouse, corporate intrigue, a Vijay Mallya kind of absconding businessman, marital strife, client pinching and the Bar Council watching Niharika for veering between illegal and improper; all of this run parallel to the cat-n-mouse game of politics.
Niharika vs Akshay, Niharika vs JJ, Akshay vs JJ, Akshay vs estranged wife Devika (Paul Gulati), everybody’s duelling somebody and most of it is out of the courtrooms. It’s fun when Piyush Mishra and Achint Kaur as JJ and CM have their battle of words as you get two raspy voices for the price of one scene.
Jokes apart, Advaita and Ashwini keep the eight episodes moving even if much of it is predictable. When richie-rich entrepreneur Raghav Malhotra (Tanuj Virwani) moves into Niharika’s building, you know the pot’s on the boil and the plot will thicken in the next season.
You also can’t help asking, when a threat to life exists, why would anybody go for a morning run bang in the middle of a lonely road? Ah, that’s the cliffhanger last scene which will obviously open the doors to the next season.
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