Some shows entertain you. Kohrra unsettles you, like a thought you cannot unthink. Season 1 did that to me. It had the grit of a real place, the ache of real people, and a central performance I did not just admire, I grieved when it disappeared.
I fell in love with Balbir Singh, played by Suvinder Vicky. Not because he is “likeable”. He is not written for applause. He is written like a man who has carried too many unsolved nights inside him. When Kohrra Season 2 arrived on Netflix, and Balbir was not there, I felt the absence in my body before I could explain it in words.
Season 2 brings a new commanding officer, Dhanwant Kaur, played by Mona Singh, and yes, it is a legitimate creative choice. But it changes the emotional physics of the show. The story still lives in misty Punjab. The questions remain about family, shame, masculinity, class, and the costs we hide behind “respectability”. Yet the pacing and heft shift, and for me it becomes slower, sometimes stretched, and occasionally too aware of its own darkness.
Let me break down both seasons, without turning this into a plot dump, and with the psychological lens Kohrra quietly demands.
Kohrra Season 1: a murder mystery that doubles as a study of grief and masculinity
The premise, in plain words
Season 1 opens with a brutal discovery: a bridegroom is found dead in a field just two days before his wedding. The investigation pulls two cops into the mess, Sub-inspector Balbir Singh and ASI Amarpal “Garundi” Garundi (played by Barun Sobti). The case links to the wedding ecosystem and to a missing foreigner, and the show steadily reveals how many people can be complicit without ever holding the weapon.
Main cast you should know (Season 1)
Kohrra Season 1 is anchored by:
- Suvinder Vicky as Balbir Singh
- Barun Sobti as Amarpal “Garundi” Garundi
- Harleen Sethi as Nimrat Kaur (Balbir’s daughter)
- Rachel Shelley as Clara Murphy
- Manish Chaudhary as Satwinder “Steve” Dhillon
Key supporting names include Varun Badola, Saurav Khurana, Vishal Handa, and others who populate the town with believable motives.
Why Balbir Singh works so well (and why I miss him)
Balbir is not the heroic cop who “solves the case”. He is the father who cannot solve his own home. He is the man whose authority in uniform does not translate into intimacy with his child. There is a strained relationship with his daughter Nimrat, and it quietly points to a larger Indian truth: we often raise children with duty, not with emotional safety, then wonder why love feels like a negotiation later.
As a life coach, I watch Balbir and think of the many clients who are competent everywhere except in the rooms that matter. They can manage a team, handle a crisis, negotiate a deal. But they cannot sit with discomfort without becoming sharp, silent, or controlling. Balbir is that portrait, and Suvinder Vicky plays him with a kind of restrained devastation.
Why Season 1 feels fast even when it is slow
Kohrra Season 1 has a measured pace, but it rarely drags because every scene either tightens the case or deepens a wound. It understands a psychological truth: mystery is not only about “who did it”, it is about “what did this town normalise for years so that this could happen”.
It is also why the show lingers with you after the credits. The ending is not just resolution, it is reckoning, and the aftertaste is moral, not merely narrative.
Kohrra Season 2: a new case, a new boss, and a slower burn that sometimes burns too long
The premise, in plain words
Season 2 shifts location and leadership. Garundi is posted away from Jagrana to a new station, working under Dhanwant Kaur. A woman is found dead in her brother’s barn, and the investigation spirals into family conflict and small-town power.
Main cast you should know (Season 2)
The core faces of Kohrra Season 2 include:
- Mona Singh as Sub-inspector Dhanwant Kaur
- Barun Sobti returning as Garundi
Also highlighted in Season 2’s case web: - Pooja Bhamrrah as Preeti Bajwa
- Rannvijay Singha as Sam, Preet’s husband
- Anurag Arora as Baljinder, Preet’s brother
There is also a cameo by Jaideep Ahlawat.
The replacement problem (it is not Mona Singh’s fault)
Let me say this cleanly: Mona Singh is not the problem. In fact, Dhanwant Kaur is written as restrained, firm, and sharply contrasted with Garundi’s more instinctive style.
The problem is that Balbir was not just a character, he was the show’s emotional barometer. Season 1’s fog was not only weather, it was Balbir’s inner climate. When you remove that, you can absolutely build a new centre, but it takes time for viewers to bond. Season 2 expects us to care at Season 1 depth, with Season 2 familiarity. That is a tough bargain.
Why it feels slower and sometimes dragged
Season 2 leans into atmosphere and layered subplots. It can feel extremely slow at times, with a relentlessly gloomy tone. There is also a parallel track involving a young man from Jharkhand searching for his father who migrated for work two decades ago, a potentially powerful social thread that, for me, occasionally competes with the main momentum rather than amplifying it.
Here is the psychological irony: Kohrra is good at showing how trauma loops. But when pacing loops, the viewer’s attention starts doing what the human brain naturally does under prolonged uncertainty. It disengages to protect energy.
I found myself thinking, more than once, “I get it, we are in fog.” And when a viewer starts negotiating with the show, the spell weakens.
What Kohrra gets deeply right across both seasons: the psychology of secrets
Kohrra is at its best when it exposes how Indian families, across classes, can become institutions of silence. The show repeatedly hints at the private bargains we make to keep the public story intact. In coaching rooms, I hear the same logic dressed in different clothes:
- “We did not talk about it because it would ruin the family.”
- “We stayed quiet because society would talk.”
- “We moved on because confronting it would break us.”
Kohrra’s achievement is that it refuses to romanticise this. It shows the cost: intimacy starves, rage grows teeth, and people learn to perform goodness instead of living it.
Season 1 lands this with sharper force because the personal and procedural threads feel tightly braided. Season 2 still carries the theme, but the braid sometimes loosens.
My verdict: Season 1 is the benchmark, Season 2 is watchable but less piercing
Kohrra Season 1 is a standout Punjabi noir with performances that do not “act” so much as inhabit. It respects the viewer’s intelligence and trusts discomfort.
Kohrra Season 2 is competent, often compelling, and occasionally profound, but slower and at moments stretched. It asks for patience where Season 1 earned urgency. The new boss dynamic is interesting, yet Balbir’s absence leaves a hollow where the show’s bruised heart used to beat.
If you loved Kohrra because it felt like truth, you will still find truth in Season 2. You may just have to walk through more mist to reach it.
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