REVIEW : SAMANTAR 2 ( Web Series)

Producer-Kartik Nishandar and Arjun Singgh Baran

Director- Sameer Vidwans

Star Cast- Nitish Bharadwaj, Swaapnil Joshi, Tejaswini Pandit, Sai Tamhankar, Jayant Sawarkar

Genre- Thriller

OTT Platform- MX Player

No of Episodes- 10

Rating- ***1/2 (Three and a half)

Intriguing and Exciting!

Jyothi Venkatesh

The intriguing narrative of Samantar Season 1 followed Kumar Mahajan’s (Swaapnil Joshi) search for Sudarshan Chakrapani, (Nitish Bharadwaj) ,a man who had already lived Kumar’s life and could tell him what’s to happen in the time to come.

In Season 2, Kumar is handed a diary that details Chakrapani’s life, and he finds out that a brand new mysterious woman is going to enter his life.

Thereafter continues Kumar’s quest with his destiny and in spite of his best efforts to prevent the prediction of the diary, a mysterious woman does enter his life.

The 10-episode thriller with a difference explores who this mystery woman is and whether Kumar faces the same fate as mentioned by Chakrapani in his diary.

Directed by Sameer Vidwans, the series stars Swwapnil Joshi, Nitish Bharadwaj, Sai Tamhankar and Tejaswini Pandit.

The first season ended on a cliffhanger with Sudarshan Chakrapani (Nitish Bhardwaj) warning Kumar Mahajan (Swwapnil Joshi) about a mystery woman.

Samantar is based on the book named Samantar by Suhas Shirwalkar. Tejaswini Pandit plays Kumar Mahajan’s wife Nima.

The second season sees Sameer Vidwans stepping into the shoes of the first season's director, Satish Rajwade.

The first season had a cliffhanger with Sudarshan Chakrapani (Nitish Bhardwaj) warning Kumar Mahajan (Swwapnil Joshi) about how a mystery woman was likely to create havoc in his life.

You stay glued right from the time you see a housewife Sundara (Sai Tamhankar) walking into the pharmacist’s shop and ordering him to give her the packet of condoms and giving him cuss words when he asks for the name of the brand once again.

In the first episode, you were shocked when Kumar (Swaapnil) passionately kisses his wife Nima (Tejaswini Pandit) lip to lip but in this sequel, when Meera( Sai Tamhankar) in a double role enters into a extra marital affair with Kumar and kisses him passionately, you are confounded.

There are some flaws too in the screenplay but then they do not rattle you. When Meera rings him at midnight and aka Kumar to buy some medicines for her husband, Kumar is already drunk to the core but does not send his servant to fetch the same but goes to the shop to buy medicines but the shop keeper’s assistant who is very sleepy does not even ask for the prescription and what’s more hands over to him 750 gms instead of 250 kgs packet which is lethal.

And it is irritating that Kumar Mahajan has this habit of giving cuss words to his wife whenever they are in a romantic mood.

Nitish Bharadwaj is cool and is seen after a long time in the underplayed role of Sudarshan Chakrapani where he is able to display his ardor for acting while Swaapnil Jpshi is superb in his role as Kumar Mahajan.

While Tejaswini Pandit is good as the housewife, it is Sai Tamhankar who steals the thunder with her double role- one as the rusty Sundara who wants to model and seduces Sudarshan Chakrapani as well as Nima who is married to an old businessman who treats her like shit.

Cheers to director Sameer Vidwans who has done the deft job of direction as well as the DOP Prasad Bhende.

In fact, credit ought to go to Sameer for being the first ever Marathi director to shoot passionate and unbridled smooching scenes of Swaapnil Joshi, Tejaswini Pandit and Sai Tamhankar, besides the scintillating semi nudity of Sai Tamhankar. I’d give 3 1/2 stars rating for Samantar 2. Binge watch the 10 episode series on MXPlayer