‘Aarya 2’ review: Sushmita Sen is put to work in super-busy new season

Aarya 2 is all about deadlines and soon-to-be dead lives. The Russians, annoyed at being denied the Rs 300-crore drug stash due to them, issue an ultimatum. A corrupt police officer who wants to be paid off is similarly losing her patience.

As for Aarya (Sushmita Sen), the glamorous mother of three forced to become a dealer after the murder of her husband Tej, the hourglass is fast running out of sand. Aarya is pushed to the limits of her endurance in the second season of the Disney+ Hotstar series, which is a remake of the Dutch show Penoza.

Aarya 2 demands that viewers too display the same levels of Herculean patience as its heroine and navigate an obstacle course of throwbacks, twists, revelations and old Hindi film songs.

At the end of the first season, Aarya had taken off with her brood for New Zealand. She had implicated her father Zorawar (Jayant Kripalani) and brother Sangram (Ankur Bhatia) in Tej’s death and handed over a pen drive containing incriminating evidence to narcotics squad officer Khan (Vikas Kumar). A threatening message from the Russians just as she headed out set the stage for a follow-up.

By choosing her family over her conscience, Aarya finds herself back within the same loathed bunch she had…

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