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Breathe: Into the Shadows (2020)

Breath : Into the Shadows Review.

I have not seen the first season of Breath. So I might be missing some character connections, but this new season is more or less standalone.
Breath : Into the Shadows starts well enough. The first 2 or 3 episodes have a good pacing but soon the series starts to drag on. Episode after episode goes by and nothing much happens. This seems like a story meant for 6 or 8 episodes, which has been stretched over 12 episodes.
Having said that, the last episode is SUPER DUPER rushed. While scripting, do these people not plan out thing or do they shoot / edit on the fly without the script? How do so many shows end up with a super rushed last episode while the previous few episodes had nothing much going!

Let come to the plot.
In a kidnapping / crime thriller, the plot is everything. It is primary and everything else is secondary. We have seen many kidnapping drama in Hollywood and Bollywood. This starts out as one and evolves into some sort of mind game / serial killer drama, which then turns into ‘Aparichit’ somewhere towards the middle of the series.
Beyond the basic premise, the hodge podge of a plot doesn’t make a coherent series and the tone of the series is all over the place. It is nice to blend multiple genres but only if it all comes together at the end. Which this series really does not.
Also the last episode is so rushed that it seems like there is a missing 13th episode which ties up all the left over threads neatly.

Acting.
Abhishek is a competent actor who is totally miscast here just for his sheer star power. He is unable to portray the subtleties of his character. His acting is ham fisted and there is zero nuance to the whole performance. Someone, such as Manoj Bajpayee with his caliber of acting was needed here to portray the main character.
Nitya Menen plays the wife of the lead character. She is fine in her role. She isn’t given a lot to do in the series other than to act depressed. Barring the one episode where she pretends to be a lesbian to seduce a victim, the entire series only has her to fill the gaps and she doesn’t come across as a real character with real emotions. She only says or does things the script requires her to do, to progress the plot forward.
Amit Sadh as Inspector Kabir Sawant leads the investigation. I have not seen the first season so I do not know his back-story. His love interest in this season suddenly disappears over a phone call as if the director / writers forgot to write her exit and ran out of budget to film her departure. As for the inspector himself, he seems clueless in the beginning before suddenly developing Sherlock level skills and becoming super-duper smart at the end. Yet his own ongoing story of police brutality / inter departmental rivalry is suddenly abandoned in the last episode.
Saiyami Kher plays a hooker named Shirley (lol). I still have NO CLUE why she was in the series other than to provide her some form of employment. Her character does nothing, has no say in the proceedings and seems more of an abandoned side plot from a 'horny teenage coming of age' film than this series.
Hrishikesh Joshi plays Prakash Kamble, sidekick to Inspector Kabir. His own side plot is also suddenly aborted and nothing much is made of it as the episodes go by. So why did they even waste screentime on it?

Overall.
This series is such a drag that even to recommend a one time watch is a hard sell.
If you were waiting for a really well done, competent and tight crime / kidnapping thriller, this is definitely not it. The plot goes haywire, the acting is fine, but the characters are left in the lurch as the writers waste time over side plot which end up being ditched towards the end.
Rating : 5/10. Amazon really needs to get its act together and stop making shitty shows.

P.S : If you are wondering, what happened to the kidnapping plot, don’t worry, just as I have ignored it in my review, the writers of the show have also ignored it for the rest of the show.

P.P.S : If you are wondering if the plot twists are at the bare minimum, satisfying enough to see the series, the answer is NOPE. The twists make less sense than an abbas mastan flick and the logic of the entire plot is totally senseless.