Title: Rana Naidu Season 2
Directors: Karan Anshuman, Suparn Varma, Abhay Chopra
Cast: Venkatesh Daggubati, Rana Daggubati, Surveen Chawla, Sushant Singh, Kriti Kharbanda
Where: Streaming on Netflix
Rating: 3.5 Stars
The gritty, noir-tinted Indian adaptation of Ray Donovan returns with eight episodes that vacillate between high-octane action and lukewarm family drama, leaning hard on Hyderabadi Hindi, brooding masculinity, and a heavy dose of "fixing"—morally, financially, and occasionally, anatomically.
This season picks up where it left off, with fixer Rana Naidu (Rana Daggubati) drawn back into the underworld after his son’s kidnapping. Navigating political predators, vengeful dons, and his erratic father Naga, Rana wrestles with simmering emotional tension that rarely delivers a fully satisfying payoff.
Arjun Rampal, as Rauf—the "King of Worli"—slinks in like a feline with a vendetta, adding flair and menace to a show that often forgets its stakes. He’s joined by the caricatured and easily written-off politician OB Mahajan (Rajesh Jais), a dull Inspector Naveen Joshi (essayed by a bland Dino Morea), “Auntie” Anjali—a gangster with more hairdo than character—and Rajit Kapur, who lends quiet menace as the Oberoi patriarch, pulling strings with unsettling calm amid the chaos.
The show thrives not when it's posturing as a testosterone-laced crime epic, but when it slows down, breathes, and lets the quieter stories flicker. The love arcs of Tej (Sushant Singh) and Anna (Ishitta Arun), and Jaffa (Abhishek Banerjee) with Tasneem offer genuine emotional resonance—especially Jaffa’s heartbreaking confession: “I want to be the best daddy in the world, but how to be, I don’t know.” That’s when the show pulses with vulnerability beneath the grit.
Rana Daggubati’s performance—clenched jaws and gravelly silences—might serve as eye candy for fans but leaves little room for complexity. Venkatesh’s campy volatility tries to inject humour but often lands with a thud. Meanwhile, the Oberoi siblings—Tanuj Virwani and Kriti Kharbanda—shine in their limited screen time, as do Madhav Dhingra and Afrah Sayed as Rana’s kids. Yet the show never lets them rise beyond supporting props.
Visually, the show is slick—gunfights, sweeping cityscapes, and designer brooding, all delivered in high-definition glory. But if aesthetics could substitute for soul, this series would be a masterpiece. The series oscillates between titillating and tiresome; by episode three, narrative fatigue begins to creep in. Despite the impeccable action choreography and money shots—Rana becomes a 500-crore stakeholder in a cricket team, no less—the story feels like a paint-by-numbers revenge fantasy masquerading as a family saga.
In the end, Rana Naidu Season 2 is less a second act and more a rinse-and-repeat cycle of betrayals, bullets, and brooding. It begins with a promise and ends with a punch, but somewhere in the middle, it loses its heart—only to reclaim it, briefly, in its final throes. Watch it for the chaos, stay for Jaffa and Tej, and brace for yet another “last” job, as it’s clear the series is not quite ready to hang up its boots.
