Masaba Masaba season 2 review: Nicely tailored Netflix show now resembles a cheap Dharma knockoff

In season two, you can almost observe the screenwriting gears turning mechanically as the team of scribes — Sonam Nair, Nandini Gupta, Punya Arora and Anisha Raisurana — practically perform cartwheels to contrive new ‘challenges’ for Masaba to overcome.

Chief among these is a will-they-won’t-they situation that Masaba finds herself in (again) with her business investor love interest Dhairya, played by Neil Bhoopalam. Dhairya is basically a saint, and after a point, you begin to wonder if he’s too good for Masaba, who comes across as rather selfish this season. He’s respectful, patient, and empathetic — almost to the point of being unbelievable — as he expertly avoids the traps that the script lays out in front him. It’s almost as if the writers are luring Dhairya into a sting operation with the sole purpose of proving the ‘not all men’ argument. Why? I don’t know. Probably because, to complicate matters further, the show introduces another man — this one, Fateh, is the opposite of Dhairya in every way imaginable — and shoves Masaba into an unnecessary love triangle.

Conflicted between the angelic Dhairya and the douchey Fateh, Masaba goes on an aggravatingly long journey of self-discovery that offers little reason for viewers to stay invested. She’s the only person in the world, for instance, who doesn’t seem to realise that Fateh is bad for her. And it makes no sense for her to indulge him for as long as she does. For their storyline to work, Fateh needed to have been written with more nuance, and less like a glaringly obvious red flag. The only reason that this goes on for as long as it does is not because Masaba is otherwise foolish — she used to be emotionally mature actually — but because the script requires her to stupid.

It’s one thing for Masaba to repeatedly assert that she’s capable of making mistakes — this is okay, everyone makes poor decisions — but for the show to not examine the consequences of her selfishness, especially when it affects those in her orbit, is off-putting.

Not only does Masaba routinely dismiss her mother this season — an early outburst provoked by a pregnancy scare is particularly pointless — she is also a terrible friend to her BFF Gia. Played by a game Rytasha Rathore, Gia — midway through season two — suffers a bout of depression. After barely paying attention to her for episodes on end, Masaba descends to Gia’s rescue when she is at her lowest, and promptly proceeds to make the conversation about herself. Both Masaba and the show feel that she should be forgiven after simply suggesting that Gia visit a therapist. But that’s not enough of a reason to absolve her of her behaviour, is it? Gia would’ve probably arrived at this decision herself; what she needed, instead, was for her friend to be there for her. Instead of giving her the contact details of a therapist, Masaba needed to accompany Gia to one. Neither Gia nor the show confronts her about this.

Even a last-minute realisation that audiences will easily anticipate revolves around Masaba, who is clearly suffering from Main Character Syndrome. Again, this is fine. It’s fine for a character to be delusional and self-centred. But the show needs to call them out on it. At no point does Masaba Masaba inform its protagonist that she has been terrible to people around her; too self-involved to pay attention to their lives, even though they’re deeply invested in hers.

In addition to these story issues, there also seems to be a marked decline in the quality of filmmaking this season. For some reason, every moment is peppered with cringe sound effects — as if the show underwent a makeover supervised by David Dhawan between seasons. There is also an extended music video montage that goes on for way too long, as do several other scenes. The penultimate episode, meanwhile, can be a case study in how not to write romantic comedies. It’s so contrived. Masaba Masaba could’ve been the new Little Things for Netflix, but thanks to the off-the-rack vibe of season two, it’s more like a Dharma knockoff that’ll soon find itself in the discarded pile if it doesn’t get its act together.

Masaba Masaba Season 2
Director – Sonam Nair
Cast – Masaba Gupta, Neena Gupta, Neil Bhoopalam
Rating – 2/5