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The first season of Voot Select’s The Gone Game, with its four crisp episodes, felt like a breath of fresh air in times when repeated viewing of older shows was the only other option (The show released during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic). The shot-at-home series won me over with its innovative storytelling, standout performances and smart directing. But, as much as I loved season one, The Gone Game’s scattered, banal and boring second season killed a lot of that adulation.
In The Gone Game Season 2, the crew moves out of the confines of their homes. If the first season had a sense of purpose and vision, the second is directionless and chaotic. There is no proper plot structure and the last episode, which lets the cat out of the bag, makes it certain that there never was a meaningful structure. In one scene, Advocate Chaudhary (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) is threatening Amara Gujral (Shweta Tripathi Sharma) to tell her father Rajiv Gujral (Sanjay Kapoor) to return his money. In another, he is helping Rajiv in escaping murder charges. I wish they could, at the very least, decide their character’s alliances.
The Gone Game Season 1, released in 2020, revolved around a seriously ill Covid-19 patient Sahil Gujral (Arjun Mathur), who goes missing from the hospital. Later, it is revealed that he is dead. Now, if he died of Covid or someone kidnapped him or murdered him, such doubts around his death made for a gripping watch. The climax hinted at a bigger purpose at play behind the entire hullabaloo around Sahil’s death.
Everybody who tuned in to The Gone Game 2 was expecting to find out: Where is Gujral, why did he fake his death, what was his plan, why did he conspire against his wife, and where does he plan to go next. It’s a pity that the writers didn’t think these were pertinent questions that deserved answers.
Despite a lacklustre treatment, the actors of the five-episode series try their best to lift it up with their performance. While Sanjay Kapoor, Shweta Tripathi Sharma, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, and Shriya Pilgaonkar prove the brilliance of their craft yet again, new addition Harleen Sethi, as CBI officer Sharmila Gupta, comes across as a versatile actor after her turn in AltBalaji’s Broken But Beautiful.
All things considered, if you are fine with watching a predictable murder mystery, then The Gone Game Season 2 is for you.
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