City of Dreams Season 2, Ep 1 & 2 Review: Politics in Gaikwad household gets bigger, not necessarily better

City of Dreams 

Cast: Priya Bapat, Atul Kulkarni, Eijaz Khan, Sachin Pilagaonkar 

Director: Nagesh Kuknoor 

Streaming Platform: Disney+Hotstar 

The latest webs series to hit the streaming space is the second season of Nagesh Kuknoor's City of Dreams. Returning after its first season in 2019, part two of the show takes forward the political feud between the Gaikwad family. Priya Bapat, who plays Poornima Gaikwad, takes the center stage this time as she is all set to become Maharashtra's next chief minister.  

With her brother Ashish (played by Siddharth Chandekar) dead and father Ameya Rao Gaikwad aka Saheb (played by Atul Kulkarni) paralysed, we get glimpses of how Poornima Gaikwad's journey to the top has not been easy. And now that she is at the top, the first two episodes share a glimpse of how she thinks with her heart and then her mind in matters of political importance. 

The first two episodes of City of Dreams establishes this new world and new dynamics in the Gaikwad household of politics. With Ameya Rao Gaikwad not running the show anymore, it gets us acquainted with Poornima Gaikwad's style of politics. 

Recurring stars from season one including Eijaz Khan, Sachin Pilagaonkar and Sushant Singh. Unlike season one, Eijaz Khan gets a lot to experiment this time around as he is now an encounter specialist cop-turned politician. Director Nagesh Kuknoor takes the City of Dreams season two a notch higher. 

In the second season, the scale is much grander but despite the length of the first two episodes very little seems to happen. With mayanagri Mumbai serving as a crucial character and not just a place in the series. The city's people, culture and politics are the highlight of this show. 

However, while Kuknoor tries to establish this new world of Poornima Gaikwad, the screenplay does appear to elaborate this. From her never-ending work hours to dramatic dialogues, there's little that feels reals about her newfound political stardom. The first two episodes fail to establish anything concrete apart from Poornima's response to a tragedy and waiting for her father, the paralysed Ameya Rao Gaikwad to make his next move. We hear her and  former CM Jagdish Gurav (played by Sachin Pilganokar) multiple times saying that her father will make his move, only to get contradict their own point. 

Kuknoor's take two with City of Dreams is definitely bigger in scale, but takes its own time to get things going. From Poornima Gaikwad's guilt of killing her own brother lurking around to Ameya Rao Gaikwad's fall from glory, City of Dreams season two does have new elements but lazy writing and over the top dialogues in the first two episodes drags it down. 

ALSO READ: Sachin Pilgaonkar on working with National Award-winning filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor for City of Dreams 2