'Sacred Games 2' review: Nuclear bomb is ticking and don't you dare hit pause while watching the gritty show!

At the stroke of midnight after 405 days, fans of Sacred Games decided to balidaan (sacrifice) their sleep! Reason: All the episodes of Season 2 was streamed at August 15, 2019, 00:00 hours. If you remember the end of Sacred Games season 1, of course, you should remember that Saif Ali Khan's character (Sartaj Singh) discovers a bunker in which he finds Trivedi lying unconscious or rather dead. But Ganesh Gaitandone (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) had said only Trivedi will be saved! Boom! That was the end of season 1.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

I managed to watch the first three episodes amidst working because even God knows how impatient Sacred Games makes a person. The first episode is titled Matsya (fish) indicating the fist avatar of Lord Vishnu. The episode also starts with a fish getting boiled and then served to Gaitonde, who is trapped in no man's land after being released from jail. On the other hand, Sartaj discovers Trivedi's body and he is indeed dead. There comes one of the biggest revelation made after a year!

Episode one seemed like re-introduction of characters who are alive and are getting gathered together so as to take the season and the show forward. The second season doesn't waste time getting on to the business of what will happen in 25 days. 

Then comes one of the deadliest and the most-awaited characters of the show - Guruji played by Pankaj Tripathi. As a calm, composed, well-read godman, Guruji's character got my attention at the first go. Gaitonde listens to his tape where he talks about Matsya, which in the end he realises that Guruji narrated him his own story. In present times, Sartaj starts researching on Guruji and his ashram but finds out that he is no more. But he gets an appointment with Batya (Kalki Koechlin), who takes him to the path he already walked and scarred him for life.

An alive Trivedi along with RAW Agent Kusum Devi Yadav (Amruta Subhash) meets Gaitonde and takes him to Mombasa in Kenya to make him kingpin of that area until Mumbai is resurrected after 1993 bomb blasts. There in Mombasa, Gaitonde changes his name and becomes Vivian. He reunites with Bunty and Kanta Bai over the phone and tells him to operate Mumbai directly from Kenya.

After Kuku, it's Jojo (Surveen Chawla), who with her no fear of death leaves an impressive mark on Gaitonde. Surveen knows her part well and aces it perfectly.

Sartaj impresses his senior officials much to the dismay of Parulkar and Majid. He is appointed as the senior in the squad to solve the whole fiasco created by Gaitonde before he killed himself. Sartaj gets to know that his father Dilbagh Singh was one of them who suggested Guruji's ashram to Gaitonde after he constantly called him. 

Trapped, by all means, Sartaj in this season has come out stronger, braver and is making sure that no one who comes near to him gets killed like how Katekar and Anjali met their fate.

Anurag Kashyap directed the Gaitonde part like the first season and he has maintained the rawness perfectly. Meanwhile, Neeraj Ghaywan has stepped into the shoes of Vikramaditya Motwane for Sartaj's sequences. His freshness and shaping up of those sequences are truly amazing.

Despite the story running parallelly, viewers won't be left confused or puzzled, courtesy crisp editing by Aarti Bajaj.

Nawaz and Saif are two backbones *literally* of the show and are amazingly supported by Pankaj, Kalki and Amruta.

Until now, Sacred Games 2 has not made me hit the pause button until I had to write about it.

Time to go back and binge-watch!