Mirzapur started with a bang three years ago. In the first season, we learn about the legacy of the Tripathi family. They were the rulers of Mirzapur. Munna Bhaiya is their youngest heir, while Kaleen Bhaiya is the king. In a turn of events, the brothers Guddu and Bablu end up working for Kaleen Bhaiya and significantly improve his gun and drugs business. This puts them against the wrath of Munna Bhaiya. Munna becomes more enraged when he learns that Guddu has married his love interest, Sweety. Munna conspires and manipulates his father into believing that Guddu had tried to get him murdered. Kaleen Bhaiya orders Munna to kill both the brothers.  Munna crashes the wedding that the brothers and his love interest Sweety were attending. He kills Bablu and Sweety while Guddu, his sister and Sweety’s sister manage to escape the carnage. On the other side of the story at Tripathi mansion, Kaleen Bhaiya’s father finds out his daughter in law, Beena is cheating on her husband with the house servant. He gets Beena to castrate the servant and then rapes her.

Mirzapur received amazing reviews and was loved by the audience.The signature mark of the series was well thought characters and a strong plotline. Season 2 was the most anticipated show in 2020.

In Season 2, the first episode begins with a scene of a car crash. We see Munna Bhaiya stuck in the car by a cliff as another figure looms above him. This is Guddu Pandit. Guddu pushes the car over the cliff as Munna continuously curses and mumbles “Mar denge!”

In the next shot, we see a bloodied hand emerging over the rocky cliff. Munna is still alive, now mumbling “Hum nahi marengay”

Munna takes out his pistol and points forward, and suddenly we hear Munna's friend's muffled voice say "Ye Kaleen Bhaiya hai". Now the audience and Munna Bhaiya are confused.

The scene cuts to Munna, in his room strapped to an IV. Instead of the pistol, we see him pointing the heart rate monitor on his finger towards his father.

We now realise the whole scene is Munna's hallucination. Munna regains his consciousness. His family is surrounding him. When Kaleen Bhaiya refuses to answer his question about Guddu’s whereabouts, Maqbool replies saying they are not sure what happened to him. Munna says that he feels unaccomplished since he could not successfully carry out his fathers orders to kill Guddu.

The audience later gets to know Munna was shot 5 times. Munna realizes he was extremely lucky in surviving his wounds. He has become  even more arrogant and mumbles to himself  "Hum amar hain" "Hum kaabil hain"

The scene cuts to Sharad Shukla. He has taken his place as the leader of Jaunpur, after his father’s murder by Guddu. He believes it was done on Kaleen Bhaiya’s orders. He wants revenge.

Sharad's mother is introduced playing chess. A foreshadow to her being the brains of the Shukla family.  She asks Sharad why he is getting involved with the Jaunpur mafia when he had initially wished to stay away  from his father’s line of work. Sharad replies he doesn’t want his fathers legacy to end with his assassination by two random boys.

His mothers shares that the only way to avenge his father is to fulfill his life long goal and take ownership of Mirzapur.  Tripathis have a new nemesis.

Title theme of Mirzapur commences.

In Balia, the police ask Lala if he knows of the people that caused the massacre at his daughter’s marriage. Lala lies and says he knows nothing. The man sitting next to Lala asks why he lied about not knowing Munna Bhaiya and Kaleen Bhaiya. This man is Yusuf, the father of the murdered groom. Lala says he doesn’t want the police involved as they might sniff out his opium business. He says he’ll deal with this on his own in due course.

Next scene shows two shrouded figures stealing medical supplies at night  in a dilapidated village. They enter a secluded house and begin unlocking the door. We can hear the screams and curses from inside. The two women are revealed to be Golu and Dimpy. The man screaming inside is Guddu Pandit.

Guddu is enraged and is trying to kill the doctor. We understand that the two girls have made the doctor a hostage to treat Guddu’s bullet wounds . Dimpy tries to calm Guddu down while he says he just wants revenge and asks to go back to Mirzapur.

At Akandanand’s household, Beena is still traumatised by what Babu Ji did to her last season finale. He visits her room and threatens her.

Scene cuts to Lucknow at Chief Minister’s office. CM's brother, JP Yadav visits him along with his dancer turned assistant Zarina. CM slaps him and reprimands him for not able to control the violence he had instigated in Mirzapur. He commands Yadav to fix this mess.

Back at the run down house , a villager brings a police officer to Dimpy and Golu’s hiding place.  The police officer recognises Guddu and wants to take him to Kaleen Bhaiya for a reward..  An intense struggle ensues in which Golu kills the police officer  and Dimpy almost stones the villager to death.

In the last scene we see JP Yadav having a conversation with Kaleen Bhaiya. Yadav threatens his survival and business with his political power. Yadav says he wants to punish the guilty for the violence that happened in Mirzapur. He gives Tripathi  24 hours to get Munna to surrender.

End of premier episode.

Overall this episode had a lot of short scenes; trying to knit the narrative together. It seems like more of an episode to  establish the mood and the premise, without an engaging story line. It shows how all the deaths in the last season have impacted the characters and made them harder. People expecting a similar high like the adrenaline filled finale of last season will certainly be disappointed.

Mirzapur has become darker.

Episode rating : 2/5