The After Note

Synopsis:

The investigation into the brutal murder of Preet Bajwa (Pooja Bhamrah), an NRI lady who was discovered impaled in her brother Baljinder Atwal’s barn in the town of Dalerpura, is the focus of Kohrra Season 2.

There are several possibilities, including her brother Baljinder Atwal (Anuraag Arora), with whom Preet was involved in a court battle over their family property, and her estranged husband Tarsem (Rannvijay Singha), who is having an affair with Loveleen, their children’s nanny and her lover in India whom she had recently started seeing but had fight with right before she was killed. The question emerges, who killed Preet?

Assistant Sub-Inspector Amarpal Garundi (Barun Sobti), who was just transferred and is currently working under Sub-Inspector Dhanwant Kaur (Mona Singh), a tough officer who is returning from suspension, is involved in figuring out who he killer is.

Trailer:

Review:

In the latest season, Garundi has moved on from his troubled past in the village of Jagrana and is content with the new life he has built with his wife Silky, who is eager to open her nail salon in Dalerpura, another made-up Punjabi town.

In contrast to the first season of Kohrra, which had two male police officers with varying ranks, ages, and levels of experience, the second season features a male and a female lead.

Alongside the investigation being carried out by the two police officers, we also follow the story of a boy from Jharkhand who has travelled to Dalerpura in search of his missing father. His narrative exposes the terrible realities of the treatment of migrant laborers from Jharkhand, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.

They are treated in the story as the tragedy’s beating heart rather than as props. Your nerves will be numbed by the lack of advancement and the cruel treatment of their stories!

Cop dramas are typically characterized by the antics of the protagonists going all guns blazing and their elegant entrances with carefully thought-out killings. However, Kohrra unravels this long-standing notion of turning police officers into superheroes.

If Kohrra season one addressed Punjab’s drug problem, season two focuses on another problem that still plagues the state.

The audience isn’t given anything by the conversations or the story; instead, it respects your intellect by underlining the subject matter and leaves you with thought-provoking questions!

The ensemble cast has performed admirably , ensuring that even the supporting cast seems nuanced and authentic. Viewers seeking fast-paced thrills may find their patience tested by the show’s slow pace of conclusion.

Review with Spoilers:

In her brother’s cowshed, Preet Bajwa an NRI, a social media influencer famous for her dance clips is found to have been killed. She left her husband and their children to return to India after she finds out he was cheating on her. In India, she discovers that her brother is attempting to separate her from their father’s land. Additionally, she has issues with money and relationships with the man she started seeing in India. Although there are numerous suspects, it is unclear who killed Preet and why.

In the meantime, a Jharkhand migrant laborer is looking for his father, who vanished more than two decades ago. When he traveled to Punjab for employment, he was a newborn. This boy who looks like he is in his 20s is working as a scraper at a Chinese food stand while also facing discrimination.

As the number of dead in the Preet murder case increases, the investigation becomes more challenging. In the poultry farm owned by Preet’s brother Baljinder Atwal, four workers from North India who had arrived in Punjab years earlier in search of work are burned to death. The migrant workers’ bodies were discovered in chains, and we find out they were actually the victims of bonded labor.

In addition to solving the strange murder case, Dhanwant and Garundi are also hampered by personal issues. The loss of her teenage son in a bike accident at the hands of her husband, Jagdish, haunts Dhanwant. Guilt-ridden and excessively dependent on alcohol, Jagdish makes things worse between the pair. Jagdish flees from home during a furious argument, and we learn later that he checked himself into a treatment facility. Dhanwant overhears Jagdish confessing at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that he began drinking more because his wife just stopped caring. While Jagdish gradually comes to terms with getting back together with his wife, Dhanwant makes the decision to finally move on from the death of her kid.

On the other side, Garundi’s family life is completely upended when Rajji, his sister-in-law with whom he had an affair with, unexpectedly shows up at his house. Jung, Garundi’s older brother, tells everyone at Lohrri including Garundi’s wife Silky, that Garundi is the father of Rajji’s kid since he is impotent. Silky leaves Garundi , but she changes her mind after Rajji has an open conversation with her about how much Garundi adores Silky. When Rajji has trouble giving birth, Garundi rushes to be at Jung’s side. Jung assumes responsibility and claims the infant as his own. With forgiveness, Silky sits at Garundi’s side as he takes a much needed nap.

Pressure to crack the case and make arrests grows as the two attempt to uncover the shocking facets of the tragedy.

The police pursue Pamma another key suspect in the crime, as they look into the fire at Baljinder’s farmhouse and the murders of the laborers. After a crazy pursuit, he is captured, but Twinkle, Baljinder’s wife, comes forward and confesses that she asked her childhood friend Pamma whom she considers to be her brother , to kill Preet. She didn’t want her to interfere with her children’ future by fighting for property rights. She was already coping with her husband’s financial irresponsibility and adultery. She acknowledges, though, that Preet was already dead when Pamma got to the property to kill her, so he fled.

Who killed Preet?

Later we see that, Garundi gradually identifies the mentally ill man he encounters at the police station who was brought in earlier . It was Rakesh Kumar, the father of the young guy named Arun who has been frantically looking for his father, to the extent of even killing a man because he was made to believe that Rakesh was among the casualties in Baljinder’s poultry farm fire.

On his property, Baljinder would keep the workers chained like animals. He had Rakesh Kumar as a slave. when nearly twenty years later, he was released when Preet pleaded for him. However, he was psychologically ill after years of enslavement. One day, a misunderstanding led to Rakesh being taken to the police station. Even when the police release him, he returns the next day and sits in the same location.

Dhanwant realized, Rakesh must have knowledge of Preet’s murder, as Baljinder had fired him on the day of Preet’s passing. After releasing him from the police station, they lead him to the property. Rakesh begins to move unconsciously there. Similar to how he was imprisoned for twenty years, he chains himself to the ground when he arrives at the farm where Preet was murdered.

At last, the image becomes clear, we see in a flashback to the day of the murder. Preet saw Rakesh arriving to the property in a trance and chaining himself up the night of the murder. Since he was now free, she exhorts him to take off the chains and go back to his house. Rakesh becomes upset and begins strangling her. Preet strained frantically against his firm hold, unable to break free. She falls and is impaled by an agricultural equipment (looked like a sickle ) after he gives her one more shove.

When Preet’s mother learns, she dismisses Rakesh as a simple slave who has shown no allegiance to his family, just like Baljinder did when he attempted to justify his family’s crimes against defenseless men. She is put in her proper place by Dhanwant, who claims that Preet’s death was caused by her own family. Arun and Rakesh are reunited in prison in a sorrowful post-credit sequence. Barundi gives Tarsem his previously canceled passport so he may bring his and Preet’s children back to the United States. Tarsem chooses to break up with Loveleen because he still feels bad for betraying Preet.

It is a fine sequel that allows its audience to sit with pain rather than seeking simple solutions, despite being sluggish, dark, and emotionally taxing.