'Kota Factory 2' is good but we expected lot more
What's the story
The second season of the widely popular TVF show, Kota Factory, dropped on Netflix Friday. Our favorite characters return with a dash of fresh faces thrown in. Armed with another batch of five episodes, the Raghav Subbu directorial begins ambitiously but you feel unsatisfied at the ending. This series is almost the calm before the storm (a potential Season 3 maybe). Here's our review.
Plot
Monochrome returns faster in Vaibhav's life than what he expected
Vaibhav Pandey (Mayur More) is now a Maheshwari student as seen in the trailer and Jeetu Bhaiya (Jitendra Kumar) has quit Prodigy to open his own institute. Pandey's urge to color his life in Season-1's last episode falls through pretty soon and he realizes getting into the best institute is not enough to crack JEE Advanced. Strong personal bonds keep him from falling apart.
Wrong message
Backdated morals: You can't preach taking mothers for granted
Coming to the intricacies, certain portrayals did not sit right with me. It is true that no matter how aware we are, we do take our mothers for granted. But when a show does not find a flaw with this systemic oppression, it's indirectly supporting the norm. So, Pandey using his mother during his bout of jaundice feels like a blow below the belt.
Hiccups
Female gaze missing, gender issues only get mentioned fleetingly
Another problem is with the conflicts brought up in the show. In one episode, Jeetu Bhaiya brings in a female teacher to bring forward a role model for female students. A fleeting mention of gender ratio in IITs and girls battling menstruation while preparing for exams (and life) are mere mentions and nothing else. Similar treatment was seen in the IIT Netflix documentary Alma Matters.
Verdict
Impact borders on good but often falls back to average
With the episodes longer than in Season-1, this season had a bigger budget, massive marketing, and yet not a great lot to say. And still, the first two episodes feel slow. The finale is somewhat cathartic but the last twist isn't impactful enough. Produced by Arunabh Kumar and TVF, Shreedutta Namjoshi's cinematography impresses. Songs are sweet but average. Verdict: Overall, it gets 3/5 stars.