Screenwriter, showrunner, and now co-director of Kohrra S02, Sudip Sharma has mastered the art of writing loud silences on page. Like Garundi (a scene-stealing Barun Sobti) bumping into his brother, Jung (Pardeep Singh Cheema) at his sister-in-law’s baby shower, and offering him a drink. Everyone except Garundi is able to read the room here. In the first season, the low-level cop is shown to be groomed by his sister-in-law, Rajji (Ekta Sodhi). Jung (shown to be impotent earlier) knows this child isn’t his — and even though he’s aware of his wife’s transgressions, he can’t seem to look it in the eye anymore. Jung tells his brother he wants to go to a Gurudwara and offer ‘seva’ (service) to the almighty. Jung is clearly perturbed by Garundi’s presence, but is too consumed by his own shame to address it. Similarly, a few scenes later, a heavily pregnant Rajji is living with Garundi and his wife, Silky (Muskan Arora), battling morning sickness. Garundi helps her stand upright in front of a sink; their sudden proximity only dawns on both once Silky enters the scene and interrupts it.Sharma has been one of the most studious writers of the OTT era, showing rigour in an era when executives are encouraging more filmmakers to phone it in. It’s this rigour that shows up in the second season of Kohrra – when cop procedurals are dime a dozen, and have become vanity projects for female stars looking to reinvent themselves as ‘actors’. It’s fitting that Sharma and his co-director Faisal Rahman pick Mona Singh – a solid actor in her own right – to fill the shoes of Suvinder Vicky’s astounding turn as Balbir Singh in the first season. Especially, in a time when any big name would give their right arm to work with Sharma. It’s incredible how Sharma and his crew remain true to their original vision – not trying to dilute the success of the first season. Much like the first season, even season two begins with the murder. But the goal of Sharma’s show isn’t so much to find the killer, it’s to point out that such deaths are only a fraction of the visible fallout of a deeply unjust society. Preet Bajwa (Pooja Bhammrah) – a woman separated from her husband and children settled abroad, is found dead in a cowshed by her mother. As SI Dhanwant Kaur (Mona Singh) and Garundi assume charge of the investigation, we discover the knots around Preet’s seemingly ordinary life. An ongoing divorce case, a property dispute with her brother’s family, a runaway lover who tried to cheat Preet out of some of the cash she stole from her husband’s business – there are too many suspects. If all this wasn’t enough, there was the stigma of a woman asserting herself against the society’s patriarchal forces – which makes many of the people around mourn her conditionally, citing in their statements that Preet may have ‘deserved’ it – and she was always headed down the path of doom.Sharma and Rahman maintain a firm grip on the proceedings, with most characters and their dissatisfaction being allowed to breathe on screen. Even the most ‘secondary’ characters are completely humanised in the narrative here – including Preet’s sister-in-law, security guards working for Preet’s brother, one ‘other woman’ who isn’t villainised despite not having a speaking part. Rannvijay Singh, playing Preet’s estranged husband lacks enough texture as a character in a show that is otherwise careful about showing empathy to its characters. There’s a track of a young migrant labourer (played by Prayrak Mehta) from Jharkhand, who looks shoe-horned into the series. He’s roaming around Punjab – with a 20-year-old photograph of his missing father, who had come in search of work. This is the only part that sticks out in an otherwise seamless show – where contrivances are made in order for the son to find out to his horror, how his missing father’s story fits into the murder investigation at large. The character is searingly performed by Mehta, trying to distract us from how conveniently one bread crumb leads to the next. However, it’s possible to acknowledge both Mehta’s brilliance and the subplot’s tentativeness.A still from Kohrra Season 2.The series is carried on the shoulders of Dhanwant Kaur and Amarpal Garundi, who transcend the buddy-cop mould, who have friction in the beginning only to find their rhythm eventually. Much like Garundi, even Kaur has her own backstory of grief. Suspended for a clerical error on an earlier investigation, it’s implied that her reinstatement is a sympathy posting after she loses her son in a road accident. Trying to pick up the pieces of her life in its aftermath, Kaur also has to deal with an alcoholic husband, Jagadish (Pradhuman Singh Mall) — who seems to be trying to find an answer to his grief at the bottom of a bottle. Rarely has a role made better use of Mona Singh’s stillness, than in Dhanwant Kaur. Sobti, who did the unthinkable by playing the perfect foil to Suvinder Vicky’s character in season one — looks on even more assured footing here. His scenes with his wife, Silky, are some of the most charming romantic scenes I’ve seen. Kohrra 2’s ultimate thesis might not be bold – unlike what Sharma attempted in Paatal Lok’s first season. But I have a feeling it has less to do with Sharma, Gunjit Chopra and Diggi Sisodia’s contained ambitions, and more with an environment that doesn’t want to ruffle feathers of thin-skinned troll armies. Despite its ‘safe’ moral — Kohrra S02 is still a damning indictment of a society built on patriarchal structures and caste/class privilege, consistent with Sharma’s oeuvre at large. More than a procedural puzzle, the new season consciously ties a murder to broader fractures – caste, labour exploitation, and grief. The result is less a conventional thriller and more a meditation on Punjab’s long history of violence, both systemic and personal. At the end of Kohrra S02 – the murder might get solved, but the societal rot that made it inevitable remains. *Kohrra S02 is streaming on Netflix