Maamla Legal Hai 2 review: Our Patparganj-based kisse kachcheri ke are back, and we’re here to tell you that Maamla Legal Hai 2 is all round better– funnier and crisper.
It’s tough to do a serio-comic show around legal matters, but Maamla Legal Hai pulled it off with just a few hiccups. This time around, the court com has ironed out the kinks, and except for the odd episode which doesn’t land, it builds on exactly that tone which drew us in the very first time, which allowed us to marvel at the human condition, with all its complexities, anxieties, insecurities, and happy oddities, without getting all heavy about it.
The second season starts from where the first left off (with writing credits split between Kunal Aneja, Syed Shadan, Mohak Aneja, and Tatsat Pandey), with our cutting-corners-smart-cookie-vakeel Tyagi finding himself in a judge’s hot seat. He is left wrestling with the kind of dilemmas those worthies have to take in their stride, especially when it comes to that hardest block of all– delivering a hanged-until-death sentence. The penitent man in the dock is just 24, but does his youth, and the prospect of a life in prison, mitigate the heinousness of the crime?
Yes, there’s one episode (there are eight in all) which bravely does go there– two young people murdered, with the perpetrator showing remorse, and two devastated sets of parents– smartly leaving the gory details to our imagination. Kishan, who has always been good at broad comedy, lifts his conflicted Justice Tyagi by revealing a deeper, more thoughtful side to his persona.
The rest of the cast, which endeared themselves to us in the first season, is doing just fine too. Sujata Didi (Bisht) and Mintu (Batra) find themselves ensconced in a prize chamber that used to be Tyagi’s, and snappily circle around each other till they find a convivial middle ground. Anant Joshi is as sprightly as he was in the first season, and the fancy-schmancy Harvard-returned lawyer Ananya (Grewal) learns how to do pro bono without feeling all righteous about it.
Picking on the lighter side of things has the advantage of leaving us smiling, which is what most of the other episodes do, some served with a side of thoughtfulness: there’s one in which an unwitting triangle — two men and a woman, triangulated by desire and convention — is left fighting over a prize property in south Delhi. There’s another in which a mother-in-law-from hell tries very hard to drive a wedge between her son, a total mama’s boy, and his wife (played by Prasanna Bisht, so effective in Chiraiya as the newly-minted bride), which show us the insides of a family court and the over-the-top dramas that can happen in there.
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The cat-fighting between two female lawyers, with Kusha Kapila as a new addition to the cast, as nattily turned out as Naila Grewal, feels more like a distraction than anything else. How a criminal stayed hidden in plain sight, featuring Dibyendu, trails off, and an episode in which rats are accused of having polished off loads of marijuana (I read a news report on a similar incident from a Gujarat maalkhaana just a couple of days back, so these adventurous rats are clearly all over the country!) lacks a certain edge.
The good-natured bickering — who gets a coveted iPhone, who doesn’t get a party invite — amongst the group of judges makes up for it, though: what else can you do but crack up when people you think of as stern judgement-deliverers play games of oneupmanship. Or shall we dub it judgemanship: don’t call us out, please, as most judges are still male: the lone woman in the well-appointed judges’ chamber shares a tip about smiling. A judge can’t risk a smile at anyone or he/she can be accused of bias: does that mean never being able to smile, if you preside over a courtroom?
The crazy levels of babugiri and bureaucracy which creates layers of responsibility — everyone pointing fingers at everyone else, no one taking any accountability — finds an echo in a terrific episode involving the proverbial ‘act of god’ with a moving end: a poor vendor handing out a plate of freshly-made kachoris, which are then eaten with relish in a high chamber. You are left with a lump in the throat, but keeping in tone with the show, things move briskly on, without milking the moment.
A special mention for the sparring between the excellent pair of Bisht and Batra, schooled by the calm and collected Rajoria who’s been there, seen everything, and still has wisdom left to spare. Vijayant Kohli’s smarmy rivalry with Kishan, Brijendra Kala’s practiced drollery, and new entrant Dinesh Lal Yadav Niharua’s hilarious supplicant, whose burnt-armpits-with-a-dodgy-deo are a character in themselves, Anant Vijay’s fondness for a specific brand of samosas — all demand our attention.
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I wished there was more space created for Tanvi Azmi, though, as she comes on for a blink, and disappears, just like last time. And, also, just for those who will miss him, there’s no Yashpal Sharma this time around.
But the rest of it stays enjoyable: maamla mazedaar hai. Bring on the third season, quick.
Maamla Legal Hai 2 cast: Ravi Kishan, Nidhi Bisht, Naina Grewal, Anant Joshi, Anjum Batra, Vijay Rajoria, Amit Vikram Pandey, Kumar Saurabh, Kusha Kapila, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Vijayant Kohli, Brijendra Kala, Dinesh Lal Yadav Niharua, Tanvi Azmi
Maamla Legal Hai 2 director: Rahul Pandey
Maamla Legal Hai 2 rating: Three stars
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