The context of the first season comes in handy to understand the shaky premise that the second season, Breathe: Into The Shadows is built upon.

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In the first season of the show, a seemingly innocent football coach and father (R Madhavan) kills organ donors in order to escalate his six-year-old son's name (who is terminally ill) on the organ recipient list. Also starring Amit Sadh as police inspector Kabir Sawant (who reprises his role in the second season), deals with a tragic past while solving the case. As a pulsating narrative, the show worked and balanced itself out as it navigated on the fine lines of moral ambiguity leaving the spectator thrown off and unable to sympathise entirely with either the killer or his victims. 

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Directed and co-written by Mayank Sharma along with Bhavani Iyer and Vikram Tuli, Breathe: Into the Shadows is a thematic sequel that introduces us to Dr. Avinash Sabharwal (played by Abishek Bachchan), a psychiatrist who is often consulted by the crime branch and his wife Abha Sabharwal, (played by Nithya Menen) a chef at a luxury hotel. The couple is hit by a tragedy when their 6-year-old daughter Siya is kidnapped. 

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In the 'usual' abduction cases, a ransom call is expected within the next 48 hours of abduction, Avinash worryingly notes from his experience of handling cases with the crime branch, as shown in an irrelevant short stint at the beginning of the series. In their daughter's case, no contact has been established for nine long months at a stretch, this is what the trailer tells you as well. 

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This peculiarity becomes the plotline for the series. When the kidnapper, a masked man with a limp, finally sends out a parcel that gives hope to the parents, it also comes with underlying conditions that involve murdering people. The show goes on to explore how far the parents go to get their daughter back but fails to set up the apparently 'unprecedented' circumstances that await them despite spending four episodes on the setting up the context. It fails to convince the spectator that a seemingly sensible couple has run out of all rational options available to them.  

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Avinash soon figures that he will have to murder 10 people to get his daughter back, with each victim representing the ten heads of Raavana (emotions like anger, fear, lust), as the show follows the trope of adding a mythological angle (seen in shows like Sacred Games, Asur) to make the plot more complex. However, as the season progresses, the mythological connection becomes a redundant angle added to the narrative. 

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This, although, is only one of the examples of the many intervening subplots in the show, with little to no significance to the narrative and unconvincing flashbacks conveniently plugged in to justify the progression of the plot. The writing falters in keeping the multi-layered narrative taut as it moves forward, leaving the 12 episode series to partly become a chaotic mess. 

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Avinash Sabharwal as the center of the show ironically has the most underwritten character that the show could've potentially explored, delved deeper into, and yet what we get instead just doesn't sit right or feel plausible enough.

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But the show does have its merits. The casting for all the supporting characters has been done impeccably. From the jealous inspector Zeba Rizvi (played by Shraddha Kaul), an insecure police officer to Saiyami Kher as Shirley, a *** worker and the two sub-inspectors who constantly compete to become Kabir's right hand.

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But the one character who saves the show is inarguably Amit Sadh. Sadh's haunting composure and all-consuming screen presence make his agenda a worthy one to root for. 

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In some scenes, Sadh conveys his character's conviction without any words. With a traumatic past and 6 months in jail and a troubling liver, Sadh pulls off an effortless stint.

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Other than that, another commendable aspect is the fact that from Abha's job as a chef to manic pixie Meghna's support group, all women have defining careers in the show, details that the script attempts to involve in the narrative in an engaging way.

The show also attempts to end on a symbolic note, showcasing the merging of two realities of when the mask and the person behind it become one which if fine-tuned could have been a striking climax.

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With the 'C-16' cliffhanger in the epilogue, the show quite possibly could return with a sequel to the story.

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