Broken but Beautiful Season 2 review: Harleen Sethi, Vikrant Massey make love messier — and even more intriguing

Language: Hindi  A long time ago, Phil Collins’ mama supposedly told him, “You can’t hurry love, you’ll just have to wait” . As clichéd as it sounds, truer words could not have been spoken, or sung. [caption id=“attachment_7726261” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A still from Broken but Beautiful Season 2. YouTube[/caption] At times though, it takes two people a long time to accept what is staring them in the face. There are circumstances, there is bad timing, and sometimes, it is just a matter of listening to your head over your heart, something we are all guilty of most of the time. These are tropes that have been exploited by the romance genre for eons, be it films or books. What then, sets one romantic story apart from another? It has to be a personal connection for the reader or viewer, with the story being told. When Broken but Beautiful surfaced a year ago, we were introduced to two broken people helping each other heal. The characters were messy and flawed but one shipped them anyway. They were two people with sizzling chemistry, who are meant to be together but life always gets in the way. The much-awaited sophomore season of the show has more of the same but with enough twists and turns to keep you cursing Sameera and Veer. And the minute you find yourself going, “What the hell is wrong with these people,” you know you are hooked. This season opens to Sameera (Harleen Sethi) and Veer (Vikrant Massey) 625 days after we last saw them. He has moved to Bengaluru to get a fresh start, learning to make wine. And surprise, surprise… he has also found love with Debbie (Anuja Boma Joshi), a sommelier and his business partner.   Sameera, in the meantime, seems to have finally gotten over her toxic obsession with her ex (Jitin Gulati). She has red highlights in her hair, a new therapist (Mukul Chadda), and an even newer outlook to dating and relationships. She gets reunited with an old school friend Ahaan aka Mushroom (Gaurav Arora), who is besotted by her.   As the season progresses, it almost seems like Sameera and Veer have exchanged personalities in the time they have been apart. He does not understand moderation, and loves too much. Debbie feels smothered in their relationship but Veer is so perfect in every other way she does not say anything to him. At the other end of the spectrum is Sameera who is seemingly afraid to fall in love again, and is overly cautious about letting anyone into her life. When she gets a whiff of things getting serious with Ahaan, her instinctive reaction is to bolt. Ahaan has his work cut out for him.   Just as you think that our almost-a-couple has moved on from each other, fate (and some good writing by Reshu Nath) brings Veer and Sameera back together. Sparks fly when they are together in the same room but there is no ignoring the fact that they are now in relationships with other people. And once again, you are left wondering, ‘Will they or won’t they?” The storytelling is contemporary with buzzwords like ghosting, self-love, and me-time thrown in for good measure. The characters have ‘cool’ jobs, like event planning, pub-running, and wine making. What makes the show relatable, though, is how it handles messy relationships between people, and even messier situations. It takes almost getting married, mixing alcohol with anti-histamines, and a phantom pregnancy, for one half of this star-crossed couple to realise what they have is love but it might be too late. Vikrant expectedly delivers a powerful performance, but it is Harleen’s performance that really catches one’s eye during this season. She has grown as an actor, and delivers a great rendition of a woman struggling to come to terms with what she thinks are toxic levels of attraction. Gaurav and Anuja are great additions to the show while the rest of the support cast is impressive. The other thing that gives this show uniqueness is its original music. Soulful and contemporary, songs like ‘Boureya’ and ‘O Saajna’ have no shelf life, and a certain timeless quality about them.   Broken but Beautiful is a great example of why streaming content is forcing its way onto more screens as people break away from the jaded television fare they have been subjected to over the past three decades.   Broken but Beautiful Season 2 is produced by Sarita Tanwar, and directed by Harsh Dedhia. It is now streaming on ALTBalaji and ZEE5. Rating: *** Watch the trailer below