The most heartbreaking words I have heard recently on any medium are said between Nikhil (Manish Anand) and Pushpavalli (Sumukhi Suresh) at a crucial juncture in Season 2 of Pushpavalli now streaming on Amazon Prime. Nikhil asks Pushpavalli why she didn’t just tell him how she felt instead of stalking him for so long. “Because you look like you, and I look like me” she says, voicing the reality of women around the world who have been told for years to aspire for love with reference to their looks.
Season 1 of the show introduced us to Pushpavalli, or Lee as Nikhil calls her. She is smart, witty and ‘fun’, but in a world of photoshopped perfection, Pushpavalli is the opposite of what is projected as beauty. Obviously unfamiliar to kindness and attention, Pushpavalli is completely besotted by the charming and kind Nikhil and follows him from Bhopal to Bengaluru. She starts stalking him in the hope of winning his affection, but things spiral out of control soon enough and Nikhil asks her to stay away from him forever.
Though she is heartbroken, we realise in the final minutes of Season 1 that she is still stalking him. Created by Sumukhi Suresh and directed by Debbie Rao, Season 2 kicks off about two months later at Pushpavalli’s engagement to Vidyuth (Vidyuth Gargi). Everyone thinks she has moved on from the ghosts of her stalking past, but the truth is quite different.
Writers Sumukhi, Naveen Richard (who also plays her friend and boss Pankaj), and Ayesha Nair reveal almost immediately that Pushpavalli is now not just a delusional woman in love. She is back for revenge and is dangerously unhinged. While her mom and Pankaj try to make sure the engagement goes off well, Pushpavalli is busy manipulating the family Guruji, her mom, Pankaj and T- Boi (played by Ashok Pathak who is continuing to help her stalk Nikhil), to make sure that Nikhil is present at her engagement. All this chaos is narrated with humour, but what isn’t funny at all is that she has deliberately hurt his mother to force Nikhil and his dad to come looking for their common Guruji at her engagement. Soon she has lied and manipulated her way back into her old job near Nikhil’s factory, and even starts working for him when he needs someone with a food sciences degree.
All this is supposedly part of her revenge, and yet she can’t help but remain truly, obsessively in love with him. Season 2 brings back most of the original cast, including some of Pushpavalli’s old roommates. Most of the actors are in fine form - however, the novelty value of the first season seems to have worn off. While we do learn new details about Pushpavalli and see her in a completely different light when she is around her poor clueless fiancé, the writers, the makers don't offer us anything new thematically or in the execution.
Season 1 wove in several issues related to women from body shaming and PCOD to being flashed by men in public; Season 2 sticks to the revenge plot alone. Without a strong subplot, and an entire previous season of stalking already done, chasing Nikhil starts getting dull after a point. Several situations seem a bit too far-fetched and unrealistic, and cause actors to start hamming their lines. I also found the repeated intercuts to her past humiliation a tad distracting after a point. Once you have given audiences a fairly long recap that’s a highlight reel of her humiliation, the repeated flashes seem quite unnecessary.
Thankfully the last two episodes pick up the pace and the psychosis, tying up all the loose threads and giving us quite an explosive finale. I especially loved a scene where a devastated Pushpavalli is weeping alone under the bed, her face lit only by the light from her phone. It triggered some painful memories of weeping in trial rooms when you just don't get your size or crying alone in your room because a classmate humiliated you about being fat.
Sumukhi is wonderful as the wounded but increasingly deranged Pushpavalli, still creeping around the one man she can’t get over. While there is a lot to dislike about her, Sumukhi plays Pushpavalli with empathy and absolutely no judgment. Quite like Scarlett O'Hara who ruins all her other relationships in her foolish pursuit of Ashley, Pushpavalli is so determined to get Nikhil to love her, she keeps turning a blind eye to all the damage she is causing others, most of all her fiancé, who is genuinely fond of her.
Manish Anand is wonderful as the charming but definitely manipulative Nikhil, who flirts with Pushpavalli one day and makes light of their past only to remind her of it negatively days later and asking her to stay away. He knows how to use her vulnerability and it’s nice to see the grey tones being added so subtly to his character. Special mention to the wonderful Shraddha playing the PG owner Vasu who is an absolute hoot in every scene, Naveen as Pankaj who should really have been given more dramatic scenes. Vidyuth as Pushpavalli’s fiancé brings a tear to your eye. His longing for her and subsequent heartbreak is a wonderful parallel to her own unrequited love.
Pushpavalli Season 1 was a path-breaking show that subverted years of mainstream storytelling, patriarchy and the male gaze. Having grown up watching men wooing women by stalking and pursuing them relentlessly, it broke the pattern to watch a young woman behave the same way, and not be apologetic about her desire at any point. While the episodes had some terrific comic writing, there was a deep pathos that sought our empathy for a woman damaged by body shaming over decades. It also forced us to face our own judgements about women who don't look a certain way, and acknowledge that somewhere deep down, we all found a girl like her chasing a guy like him a hilarious premise.
Season 2 also has some wonderful moments of both humour and darkness but since nothing has really changed with the characters or the world around them, it doesn’t have the same impact on you as its predecessor. It's still creepy, but not quite as riveting.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.