When Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti’s series dropped on Prime Video in 2019, it was a marriage of substance and style. During the four years that we lay in wait for a follow-up, every other show dreamt of a match like this one. Finally, Made In Heaven S2 is here, promising grandeur, entertainment, and an avalanche of talented performances, headlined by Sobhita Dhulipala and Arjun Mathur. And it looks good? Yeah, sure. But if this show we love has taught us anything, it’s to look beyond the flashy exteriors. So once the heady euphoria of finally getting what we want wears off, you can spot that Made In Heaven 2 exhibits all of it: the cracks, the chinks, the signs of tiredness and superficiality. Like one relationship trying too hard to fulfil every emotional need. Or an Indian wedding with too many functions.
Created by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti, and directed by the two, along with Alankrita Shrivastava, Nitya Mehra, and Neeraj Ghaywan, Made In Heaven is produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani’s Excel Entertainment and Akhtar and Kagti’s Tiger Baby. It features Sobhita Dhulipala, Arjun Mathur, Jim Sarbh, Kalki Koechlin, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Shashank Arora, Mona Singh, Trinetra Haldar, Vijay Raaz, Ishwak Singh, Manish Mishra, Yashaswini Dayama, Zayn Marie Khan, Dia Mirza, Radhika Apte, Mrunal Thakur, Pulkit Samrat, Sarah Jane Dias, Shibani Dandekar, Imaad Shah, Neelam Kothari, Sameer Soni, Sanjay Kapoor, Reena Wadhwa, Parvin Dabas, Siddhant Karnick, Mihir Ahuja, amongst others.
In Season 2, Tara (Sobhita Dhulipala), embroiled in a divorce battle with Adil (Jim Sarb), who is now with Faiza (Kalki Koechlin), is an outsider again, losing her access to the rich and famous. Karan (Arjun Mathur), in a post-Section 377 India, might be free to love whoever he wants. But his mother still doesn’t accept it, nor does his orthodox old-money Delhi clientele that has taken their business elsewhere. Made In Heaven is struggling to make a profit, and 10% stakeholder Jauhari (Vijay Raaz), brings on board his wife and shrewd businesswoman Bulbul Jauhari (Mona Singh) as an auditor to cut corners. She keeps a hawk’s eye on accounts as well as people, much to the chagrin of Jazz (Shivani Raghuvanshi) and Kabir (Shashank Arora), who dislike her meddling. Another new addition to MIH, is their new production head Meher (Trinetra Haldar), a trans woman, whose CTC makes a huge dent in the company funds, but whose bold ideas and strong voice make it worth it.
And then, there are the weddings. This season features nine weddings (and a funeral, or two), tackling themes like colourism, domestic abuse, same-sex marriage, polygamy, inter-caste marriage, a full-blown Bollywood foreign destination wedding, and even… erm…. a sort of sologamy.
Also Read: As We Wait For Made In Heaven Season 2, Here’s A Season 1 Recap
Don’t let Season 2’s seven-episode truncated lineup fool you into thinking you’ve been served a smaller helping of your favourite dish. With each episode’s runtime over an hour, and 2 main and 4 secondary lead characters to explore, along with the wedding party in each episode, there’s plenty to fill you up. Maybe even overwhelm you with the sheer volume of all it’s trying to cram in. The length is felt. Pretty soon, you start picking favourites, getting slightly annoyed when the story strays from them to others.
Is it boring? Hell no, ma’am, this is Made In Heaven. I was invested. The season opens with an episode that is giving everything: absurd rich people shenanigans, gorgeous outfits, the highly anticipated acting debut of designer Sabyasachi (he served elegantly), and the perfect counter line from Shivani Raghuvanshi’s Jazz, who says “You can’t do fashion in this office!” Season 2’s first half almost lives up to our expectations, balancing entertainment with commentary. The second half raises questions. Did so much need to happen in one season? Do we need so many characters? Why were the lives of the secondary leads so unnecessarily complicated?
Jazz and Kabir’s relationship tested my attention span; I wanted something different for them this season, especially for Jasmeet. Bulbul starts off perfectly entertaining, a middle-class Delhi woman with a sharp business sense, who couldn’t fathom why on earth people would pay so much for pink champagne. I thought, great, that’s comic relief, an antidote to the extravagance and hypocrisy of the crazy rich Indian weddings. Then she gets engulfed in something so grave that everyone forgets what she was around to do. Meher gets a run-of-the-mill ‘kiss a bunch of transphobic frogs before you meet Prince Charming’ arc. It’s sweet, and I love what this show does with LGBTQ+ characters and the raw intimacy it depicts in queer relationships, rarely seen in other Indian shows.
Both Mona Singh and Trinetra Haldar deliver strong, imposing performances. As parts, I like their characters. But their drama only adds to the show’s already heavy emotional baggage. Unlike Season 1, where Tara, Karan, and Jasmeet’s arcs intertwined or drew parallels, with Kabir’s commentary an overarching link connecting everything, this season everyone feels disconnected.
Also Read: Made In Heaven 2 Premiere: Sobhita Dhulipala, Shibani Dandekar And More Celebs Who Grabbed Eyeballs
These characters’ personal struggles overpower and give episodic stories little space to flourish. At one point, there are two weddings in one episode! Towards the end, the weddings, which were an interesting detour on the way to the main characters’ stories, start feeling like fillers. The same-sex wedding is fantastically planned, sure, but the emotional pull is missing and the messaging becomes preachy. The conflicts are easily resolved, and the dialogues, which in Season 1 were subtly incisive and touching are swapped for more obvious, performative ones that just don’t have that bite. The social commentary in Season 1, though preachy, cracked sharp like a whip, and cleverly subversive; in Season 2, it continues to be relevant but strikes obviously, like an obnoxious hammer.
Season 2 made me miss the lightness of Season 1, which gave a wide enough berth to its wedding storylines without compromising on lead character development. I get it, Season 2 is where these characters step out of their illusions and live in the real world. All’s not shiny anymore. But the show forgets it used to be fun, shocking, and sexy (Aaah, I miss Tara and Adil!), leaning a bit too much into its preachiness and “Everything and everyone is messed up” vibe, minus the dark humour and sensuousness that came with it. It’s why the ending then feels like a tired cop-out, minus the punch that Season 1’s finale delivered. Apart from looking fantastic, there’s no frame from Made In Heaven Season 2 that stands out in memory for its sheer audacity and throbbing subtext, like so many from Season 1.
Also Read: 9 Times Made In Heaven Held Up A Mirror To Society’s Patriarchal And Homophobic Mindset
Though it might seem like it’s suffering from a case of high-functioning anxiety, Made In Heaven 2 is still a product of some of the best in the business. And it stands on the strong bones of its first season. The season has its moments, some crackling dialogue that would make you raise your whiskey glass, and social commentary drawing from instances that most of us would recognise. The jibes at Bollywood and the rich and famous are pointed, and often hilarious. The double standards pinch. The writing once again nails the social setting and within it, the individual identities of the many, many characters we meet.
Take Adil Khanna for example, who has some of the funniest lines, which Sarbh delivers so nonchalantly. Or when Sobhita’s Tara tells Jauhari that they can’t get rich clients because their cars won’t fit into the narrow lane where the new MIH office now is. Made In Heaven has a knack for capturing the essence of superficial, rich-people speak, and how the have-nots, in turn, react to the class difference. It continues to hit the spot with it. The Bollywood wedding and the Bollywood Wives cast crossover episodes have the most fun because they are the least preachy.
Sobhita remains the most captivating presence on screen, and no one can steal Tara’s thunder when she gets her claws out. Arjun is just as effective in the emotionally charged scenes, which his Karan has plenty of this season; the poor guy just can’t catch a break. Shivani Raghuvanshi, Shashank Arora, Jim Sarbh, and Kalki Koechlin—a special mention for Vijay Raaz and a returning Vikrant Massey—are impressive as ever. The guest cast is loaded and effective. Radhika Apte as a Dalit woman fighting to reclaim her identity amidst caste prejudices makes a powerful point. An earnest Zayn Marie Khan opens the season well as the bride who buys into the fair & lovely prejudice of Indian society, which thinks too much brown is not beautiful. Dia Mirza isn’t a bride, but her story is deeply moving. The women of Made In Heaven cut a poignant figure. Mostly.
The one area where Made In Heaven continues to, shall I say, make profit, is how it looks and sounds. The production design, costumes, the locations, are beautifully captured in every shot and set to music that gets the mood just right; it is all dripping beautiful details. The Dalit wedding has my heart. The show is a looker and makes you crave the money that could finance a wedding (or a show), MIH style. Absolutely no notes!
Also Read: What To Watch This Week Of August 7 To 13: Made In Heaven S2, Heart Of Stone, OMG 2, Gadar 2 And More
Verdict
I will never not be a sucker for those final wedding shots staged to look perfect, and a bit too much sometimes, trying to hide the symptoms of our inflicted society. It’s exactly how I feel about Made In Heaven 2. I revisited Season 1 right before bingeing Season 2. And I’m afraid, I could pick a favourite.
Season 2 is good, great even in some moments. But the season never really soars to touch the greatness of its first outing. It’s weighed down by its runtime and excessively overweight emotional baggage, and the need to weave in every social issue within a ten-mile radius into its plot. This attempt to cram too much and too many characters in its 70-minute episodes has the show displaying signs of exhaustion, unable to do justice to all that it takes on in the end. The result is a season that packs a lot of substance, but nothing that’s truly statement-making. Nothing that screams peak Made In Heaven. It’s like a wedding with too many functions that it didn’t need.
All episodes of Made In Heaven Season 2 are currently streaming on Prime Video.