Netflix ‘Kübra’ Season 2 Review - Worse Than Season 1

Çagatay Ulusoy has to be the only good thing about Kübra. Characters in the series often refer to his Gokhan as charming, and you end up agreeing. Ulusoy has a pure, innocent face that resembles the face of many self-proclaimed TV saints. You can see why people would get attracted to him and be hypnotized by his kind eyes. Gokhan looks so clean you feel as if he has removed all kinds of impurities from his body. His skin glows beautifully, so much so that his outward appearance appears almost angelic. Gokhan reminds you how many people overlook their idols' flaws if they look appealing. Looks can kill.

In this second season, Gokhan continues to fulfill his divine duties. We know he has no direct connection to God but an AI (Kübra). His followers, however, are kept in the dark. They follow him inside a bunker, eagerly awaiting their orders to do something for Gokhan and society. Not everyone is a diehard lunatic. Ali Riza (Cemalettin Çekmece) criticizes Gokhan's actions, and Gokhan's sister, Gülcan (Ahsen Eroglu), observes that everyone now sees Gokhan with fear, not reverence. Gokhan, in this second season, stands in the middle. He can either fall towards the good side or the side of the evil. Gülcan, Gokhan's wife Merve (Aslihan Malbora), and his mother (Nazan Kesal) prevent Gokhan from turning into a complete megalomaniac villain. He talks about stirring up trouble and then solving it to show everyone he is a savior, but he also cries in his wife's arms and says he is a terrible person.

Kübra's intentions are quite clear. It conveys that you should not trust these so-called god-men. Run away from anyone who claims to be in direct contact with the almighty himself. On top of this, the series attaches a warning regarding the AI threat. How, in the modern digital age, the computer is the master manipulator. The machine is a god that can see everything, do everything, and create anything. Are these topics new or original? No. Then again, many movies and shows have been recycling clichés for decades. What matters is the way the elements are presented to the audience. Is Kübra exciting? Does it have a bold style? Does it hook you from the beginning to the end? No, no, and no.

Kübra Season 1 was just released in January this year. Now, within a few months, Netflix has given us a second season. Take this as an instance of quantity over quality. It's absolutely apparent how the writers so quickly managed to provide us with this new season. Their story takes the most obvious routes; the characters do what you expect them to do, which is why there is no room for intrigue or surprises. When Merve follows Gokhan and makes a deal with the police, you instantly predict where she will end up. Ali Riza verbally attacks Gokhan and is confined within a room, so you think he will make things complicated for Gokhan. Alas, he is simply thrown inside a prison. Take the scene where Gokhan's mother meets her maker. While she asserts she wants to wait for her son before going inside the safety zone, you wonder how dumb this character must be if she is expecting her son to arrive from the direction of gunfire. Forget her; why don't the other men tell her that her son can come from another route, so she should just come with them? Even Gülcan's decision to leave the bunker loses its dramatic power because we see it coming from a mile away as her boyfriend, Serhat (Aytek Sayan), earlier "casually" talks about settling somewhere else. And when you consider the mother and wife's death, it becomes clear that soon, the sister too will meet a tragic end. The aim is to remove love and warmth from Gokhan's life so that he can be entirely painted with either kind strokes or raging madness.

The series takes the most disappointing, the most underwhelming decisions. It goes out with a whimper. It's funny how easily Kara (Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan) manages to tail his suspects. Onur Ünsal, as "mad genius" Berk, comes with cartoonish behavior. His wild, uncontrolled arm movements accentuate his evil nature (this is how uncreative Kübra is). The first season of Kübra was sorely unexceptional, though I still vividly remember that moment when the city, at first, is consumed by a blackout and then immediately a mosque lights up, thus deepening Gokhan's faith in God. Directors Durul Taylan and Yagmur Taylan don't do anything even remotely memorable in the second season. The images here are weak, bland, and devoid of inventiveness. The directors half-heartedly point the camera toward their actors and the onscreen action, draining the energy out of the whole production. It seems as if Durul and Yagmur were forced at gunpoint to make this new season. Or perhaps they were threatened by artificial intelligence.

Final Score- [3/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times