The long-awaited second season of Special Ops, which is now titled Special Ops 2, has arrived on JioHotstar through OTTplay Premium, immersing viewers in a gripping new realm of cyber warfare and fundamental betrayal. Kay Kay Menon returns as the stoic RAW officer Himmat Singh to confront his greatest challenge yet: a wily Indian businessman, Sudheer Awasthi (Tahir Raj Bhasin), who seeks to devastate the Indian economy with an advanced cyberattack.
This seven-episode season changes gears from standard terrorism to the subtle threats of AI-based threats. The storyline begins with the simultaneous abduction of Dr Piyush Bhargava (Arif Zakaria), a key AI specialist, and the assassination of intelligence officer Vinod Shekhawat. These apparently unrelated happenings are quickly discovered to be strategic actions by Awasthi, who is seeking to infiltrate India’s digital payments systems and sell passage to global intelligence agencies.
As Himmat and his colleagues work against the clock to save Dr Bhargava and prevent the looming economic meltdown, they discover a stunning betrayal among their own ranks. Suspicion is first thrown on high-ranking intelligence officer Bakshi (Dalip Tahil), but it emerges that the real mole is Naresh Chadda (Parmeet Sethi), a trusted colleague of Himmat’s. Chadda had been leaking intelligence to Awasthi, framing Bakshi cleverly using a forged SIM card.
The climax involves Himmat’s team staging a multi-pronged attack on Awasthi’s stronghold in Georgia. The physical battle is led by agents Abhay (Muzammil Ibrahim) and Farooq (Karan Tacker), ending with Abhay ramming an explosive truck into the server room, putting Awasthi's systems out of commission. Farooq later faces off against Sudheer in a lethal duel and ends up killing him, safeguarding India’s cyber infrastructure. Dr Bhargava is rescued successfully and brought back home.
Special Ops 2, helmed by Shivam Nair and Neeraj Pandey, manages to take the franchise into the world of cyber attacks of the modern era. Though there is sometimes fractured storytelling, Kay Kay Menon’s authoritative performance and Tahir Raj Bhasin’s spine-chilling take on Awasthi make for an engrossing watch. The finale has the unmistakable realisation that this win is just a fight in an extended digital war, paving the way for subsequent installments.
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