Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram) Click for audio version
The moody Punjabi Netflix thriller ‘Kohrra’ is back with a season 2 and is quite gritty, although maybe not better. There, you’ve got the long review short. If you enjoyed the first one, high chances this second installment will win you over too.
Set in the small town of Dalerpur, Kohrra 2 follows senior cop Dhanwant Kaur (Mona Singh) as she probes a complicated NRI murder case: Preet (Pooja Bhamrrah), a young woman is found impaled in her brother’s barn. There’s no shortage of suspects, it could be the estranged husband (Rannvijay Singh), the debt-ridden brother (Anurag Arora), or a dubious dancer boyfriend Johnny Malang ((Vikhyat Gulati) with whom she made reels.
Also Read: Kohrra Season 1 Review – Slowburn Blend of Family Drama & Crime
Assisted by junior cop Garundi (Barun Sobti), Dhanwant begins to untangle a case that only grows more complex, as fresh leads surface and a string of violent incidents linked to the same family come to light. Parallel subplots explore Dhanwant’s own fraught relationship with her alcoholic husband, as well as Garundi’s domestic troubles when his wife Silky (Muskaan Arora) brings his sister-in-law (Ekta Sodhi) into their home, unaware that the two once had an affair.
Mona Singh has quietly been building an impressively varied repertoire, with some of her recent roles spanning wildly different genres. There’s the horror-comedy ‘Munjya’, one of the surprise hits of its release year, the much-talked-about masala entertainer ‘The B**ds of Bollywood’, and my personal favourite is her small yet memorable cameo as a brilliant no-nonsense doctor in the dark dystopian thriller Kaala Paani (watch is if you’re a dystopian fan) set in the Andamans & Nicobar Islands. Kohrra on the other hand is a rugged small town murder mystery tangled in complex familial relations and extramarital affairs.
Not to turn this into a full-blown Mona Singh ode, but she has certainly come a long way from her ‘Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi’ days, and she anchors Kohrra 2 with the steely grit and quiet determination of a stoic lady cop. Pooja Bhamrrah’s Preet surfaces through brief flashbacks, providing only a sketchy glimpse into the victim at the centre of the mystery. Much like the first season, the show prioritises the emotional baggage of its cops over crafting a more layered backstory for the person whose death drives the entire investigation.
A seemingly random subplot of Kohrra follows Arun, a migrant worker searching for the father who left for Punjab two decades ago and never returned. Dismissed and often mistreated in his quest, Arun’s story later shifts into a grim account of human-rights violations, which is compelling and heartbreaking, yet feels somewhat forced into the narrative. While his story is powerful in isolation, it strikes discordant chord with the rest of the series themes and deserved a more cohesive arc.
While the human-rights thread feels underdeveloped, the show leans heavily into an unrelenting gloom. Why must every cop be drowning in personal turmoil? Couldn’t we see at least a sliver of a normal, spirited Punjabi life… or more of Preet’s lively reels and messy romance? The series isn’t entirely devoid of lighter moments, but whatever colour and humour it offers is sparse, making the overall tone feel needlessly heavy.
But it’s precisely Dhanwant’s personal misery that makes Mona Singh Kohrra’s strongest presence. Living with an alcoholic husband and little emotional refuge, she buries herself in the investigation, working tirelessly to crack Preet’s murder. Her loneliness doesn’t slow her down, it sharpens her focus and fuels her dedication. Besides, there is enough family drama, disputes, debts, and emotional (and physical) clashes that push the story forward and keep you guessing the killer’s identity.
The climactic episode is tense and violent, delivering an unexpected revelation that alters the course of the case. Preet’s murder investigation reaches a definitive conclusion rather than fading into cold storage, and ‘Kohrra’ signs off with a gut punch that arrives almost out of nowhere. It’s hard-hitting, and needed more build up.
If you prefer crime stories that focus as much on the lives of the investigators as on the case they’re solving, this six-episode mini-series should work well for you.
Rating: 7 on 10. Watch Kohrra Season 2 on Netflix.
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