In a scene from the second season of Asur, Shubh, the child genius at the heart of the show’s ritualistic provocations, debates the guru of an ashram. It’s a conversation that veers through the obvious, but remains committed to a vedic-sounding manual. Later in the same season, Shubh speaks to a scientist about Artificial Intelligence (AI). The predictive principles that AI has been built on are seamlessly translated to the mythological perception of the past and the future. It’s an audacious evolutionary step in the world of the show that tries to root the advent of AI in mythology. Incredibly, the show just about pulls it off, highlighting why it became a cult hit in the first place. In its second season, Asur may have lost some of its novelty but its desire to punch well above its weight, claw at potentially provocative material and stay committed to the daftness of the age-old, derivative, good vs evil narrative, makes it all the more unique and watchable.
In its second season Asur returns with things on a knife-edge from the start. Nikhil (Barun Sobti) is still trying to recover from the loss of his daughter, something he, in his own way, enabled. Dhananjay, played by Arshad Warsi, is away in a monastery licking his wounds, resigned to a life of withdrawal. Rasool, revealed in the first season’s finale to be part of Shubh’s coterie of violent evangelists, continues to play the sly technician blindsiding the CBI from within. Thankfully, the show retains its desire to place forensic science and mythological allegories at the heart of the show’s structure. Clues are cracked via literature, while methods are canonically sourced from the space of medical jargon. It might make the show repetitive but rarely does it drag.
Much like the formative season - daring for its ideas and somewhat passable for its direction - there are obviously flaws here as well. The performances, though, have gotten better as Warsi and Sobti raise their games. A revolving door of characters introduced and then chalked off adds to a sense of jeopardy in a show has never shied away from going for the jugular. In its first season, it exhibited an audacious gall to follow through on megalomania and religious fanaticism without creating a Mogambo-like caricature with ticks and catchphrases. Asur’s villainy is an encompassing ideal, instead, as opposed to an intimidating body. His secrecy is key. Scenes from Shubh’s adolescence further add to the mystery, even if it has somewhat dimmed over the course of two seasons.
While Dhananjay chases history and Nikhil attempts to deal with the present, Shubh’s operation becomes a mascot of terror. It’s a Thanos-like vision, but sowed in the soil of intellect and intelligence as opposed to brute belligerence. It’s probably what makes Asur a thoroughly Indian creation. Not just its mythological antiques and props, but the fact that it carries out its villainy with a sort of structured etiquette. Bad guys here don’t just explode into spells of violence. They arrive at it through learned beliefs and cultured processes. Understandably, the good guys look like the ones losing composure and their sense of moral compass. “Mar gya toh kya hua,” DJ shouts at one point about the possible danger to an accused. He has, in a strange sort of way, passed onto the other side.
What made Asur’s first season the cult hit that it eventually became was its ambitious mix of fanaticism and genius, the complex battle between the hard sciences and pure, superstitious gut instinct. Instinctively, and perhaps in its bold vein, this new season attempts to capture the zeitgeist by weaponizing artificial intelligence. It’s irreverent and valiant at the same time. No other show on streaming services, probably with exception of Disney+Hostar’s Dahan, has shown ambition of this sort. Regardless of the result, and the somewhat underwhelming production values at times, the thought deserves its plaudits.
The second season isn’t as twisty as the first, but it is probably richer in its detailing of a conflicted, narcissistic genius. We see Shubh graduate into adulthood, as the people chasing him, contend with their own mistakes and flaws on the side. From educative prophesying, the show this season turns into an obsessive chase to stop the impending from happening. From mystery, we have suddenly, and largely successfully, changed gears to a procedural. Thankfully, Asur retains its knack of literalizing every conceit with riddles, virtual or actual. Clues are discovered inside bodies, as ancient aphorisms translate to methods that propel the madness forward. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for its audacity to follow through on its ideas, Asur in its second season remains, uniquely, eminently watchable.
Asur 2 is streaming on JioCinema since June 1, 2023.
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