Rana Naidu, the official Indian adaptation of the Showtime crime drama series Ray Donovan, has returned with its 2nd season on Netflix, as nephew and uncle Venkatesh and Rana Daggubati once again make a mark with their strong performances. The series follows Rana Naidu, a professional ‘fixer’ who is hired by rich clients to solve scandalous and illicit problems in their personal lives, and he is appointed by a billionaire family this time around to solve certain internal issues. Overall, Rana Naidu season 2 maintains the flavor of the first season and will definitely not disappoint fans of Indian action thrillers.
Spoilers Ahead
What is Season 2 about?
Rana Naidu season 2 begins with a comparatively quiet moment, as Rana and Naina are flying back to Mumbai after a romantic holiday in France, and they cannot stop discussing how lovely the vacation was. To Naina, her husband finally seems to be settling for a life that she has always envisioned for him—one in which he does very ordinary things that a typical father or husband does, without getting involved in horrific crimes and nasty encounters with the law. However, Naina’s dreams and Rana’s peace are short-lived, for as soon as they land in Mumbai, he receives a terrible video on his phone. A group of kidnappers has picked up their young son, Ani, and they have sent the threatening video to Rana, warning him of the brutal fate that awaits his son.
Without wasting any time, Rana gets back in touch with his assistant, Lara, and learns that the kidnappers have been tracked to Goa through Ani’s smartwatch. The protagonist needs to fly to Goa fast, and since taking a commercial flight is not going to be quick enough, he contacts an acquaintance named Viraj Oberoi, who readily agrees to lend him his private jet. But there is obviously a catch, for Viraj wants Rana to work as a fixer for him and his family once he has rescued his son. More concerned about Ani’s safety, Rana agrees to the deal and reaches Goa, where he is taken to a local informant to find out more about the kidnappers.
This informant turns out to be Rana’s father, Naga Naidu himself, who currently runs an illegal fighting den in Goa after having left for Nepal at the end of the previous season. Naga agrees to assist in his grandson’s rescue without any hesitation, but Rana first needs to fight in the ring in order to respect a deal his father had made. Eventually, it is revealed that Ani has been kidnapped by a man named Saif, who has connections to a gang in Mumbai and runs a nightclub in Goa. The group reaches Saif’s nightclub, where Rana is reunited with his son but soon has to fight his captor. Embracing his anger and vengeance, Rana beats Saif and throws him out the window, killing the man.
Once Rana returns to Mumbai with his son, he has to meet Viraj and learn about his new job, which is to ensure the safety of a Bollywood superstar who has been signed on for the new film by Oberoi Studios. But he is more interested in the family feud between Viraj’s two successors, Alia and Chirag, as the former wants to sell off the family studio and buy a franchise cricket team, while the latter wants to make films and keep the studio running. Rana Naidu decides to take advantage of this feud and execute one last job that will earn him enough to retire, without any idea that Saif’s vengeful cousin, Rauf Mirza, is already on the lookout for him.
Is Rauf really just protecting his loved ones?
Rana Naidu season 2 makes an attempt to give its main antagonist, Rauf Mirza, some depth by making him repeatedly claim that he is similar to Rana in the way that he is only looking out for his loved ones. For the longest time, this façade of Rauf being a villain but with an earnest cause is kept up, but beneath the surface, he is really just the quintessential bad guy. From the very beginning of the season, Rauf pulls strings for his personal benefit, starting with the fact that he gets in touch with the politician, OB Mahajan, claiming that he will help him get all the votes from his locality in Koliwada, since he is a respected leader in his community. In return, Rauf wants Mahajan to get him released from jail.
Initially, Rauf makes it seem like he will become a social worker under Mahajan and rally all the votes for the politician, but his real intentions are revealed once Rauf is released from prison and he gets a rousing welcome back in Koliwada. Knowing well that he has total control of the votes from his neighborhood, Rauf announces that he himself wants to enter the domain of politics as a small-time leader and that he will be contesting the election from his constituency against Mahajan. Thus, he essentially uses the politician just to get out of prison and has his eye on the extreme wealth and power he will have once he wins the election.
Although the love, respect, and admiration that people in the neighborhood have for Rauf are quite evident, his feelings towards the people are not as simple and straightforward as he claims them to be. Rauf shows his anger against a man who had made certain remarks about him having lost all power after his arrest, and furthermore, he treats the neighborhood and its people as business opportunities. Rauf is only concerned about making enormous amounts of money, and this is why he wants to hijack the career of the up-and-coming rapper, Rehaan.
The popularity that Rehaan gains on the internet in a very short time makes it obvious that he is about to make loads of money through album releases, and Rauf wants to capitalize on the fact that Rehaan originally hails from Koliwada. Despite the boy’s humble beginnings, he had made his own space in the rap industry with the help of his friend and adoptive father, Toofan, who is a music producer. But Rauf now wants Rehaan to cut all ties with Toofan and work with him instead, as he promises to bring the rapper many more lucrative offers. When both Rehaan and Toofan express that they do not want to part ways, Rauf viciously murders them, only because they had shown the audacity of going against his wishes.
Simply put, Rauf is just a dangerous and reckless gangster who wants to accumulate wealth and power through all sorts of crimes, and he is also in the process of legitimizing his position by becoming a politician. His claim that he’s going after Rana Naidu only because the protagonist killed his cousin, Saif, is completely false, for he had always wanted to take revenge against the fixer. It was Rana, upon the orders of Mahajan, who had gotten Rauf arrested some six months ago, and so the gangster wanted to hurt him in return. Although Rauf eventually goes after Nitya in order to protect himself, he thoroughly enjoys the idea of hurting the girl and the other Naidu family members. Therefore, Rauf Mirza’s journey in this season is not one of protecting his loved ones, but of making himself more influential and seeking revenge against Rana.
Why does Tej go to prison because of Naga?
Tej’s stance on life and crime has always been very different from that of his father and his brother, as he is the most ordinary and also sane-minded among the Naidus. Tej sticks to running his stunt studio until his struggles with Parkinson’s worsen and he is told by the doctor that he needs to have someone by his side at all times. This is when Ana re-enters his life, after having left in season 1, and she gives Tej hope of a beautiful life together in Portugal. However, the man obviously needs a large amount of money to move to Europe and settle there, which is why he intends to sell off the studio and use the proceeds to do so. But the property is still under Rana’s name, and so Tej has to ask his younger brother to transfer it to his ownership.
As it so happens, Rana has been using the stunt studio to launder the money he earns from his fixing jobs, and so he refuses to sell the property. This revelation terribly hurts Tej, who has always been very morally upright and careful about not committing any crime in his life. Yet, Rana involving the studio in his dark deeds means that Tej is also unwillingly involved in crimes, and he is left shattered after learning of this. But the urgent need for a considerable sum of money in order to move to Portugal still looms large over his head, and so he decides to team up with his father, Naga, which does not turn out to be a clever choice.
As rightly stated by Naina later on in the series, Naga Naidu is really just a less sophisticated and knowledgeable version of Rana, meaning that he has a similar inclination towards committing crimes, but he is not as familiar with the ways of the modern world, particularly because of having spent a long time in prison. Therefore, Naga’s plans are not as sharp or effective as his son’s, but he still manages to somehow get the job done. This is exactly what happens during Naga and Tej’s burglary at the Oberoi Studios, when they sneak into the office to steal money from the safe. Unable to crack the safe’s code, the men decide to steal the entire safe and wait for 12 hours until its lock resets, which leads to a great deal of trouble.
In their attempt to escape, Naga ends up shooting a guard, and since hurting people was never an option for Tej, he stays back by the guard’s side trying to help him. Fearing that he will get caught, Naga flees the scene, abandoning his son for the umpteenth time in his life, and Tej is arrested for the attempted burglary and the assault on the guard. Unlike the others, Tej does not ever spill the truth to the police and instead just silently starts serving the punishment for crimes committed by his father. He is even cornered by the other inmates in one instance, and although Tej has all the skills and the strength to beat them up, he refrains from doing so. This mistake by Naga has far-reaching consequences, as Rana eventually has to agree to work for Viraj Oberoi just to ensure that Tej is released from prison.
How does Rana help Alia take over her family business?
From his very first visit to the Oberois’ mansion, Rana figures out that he can take advantage of Alia’s ambitions to ensure a fat retirement check for himself and live the rest of his life in peace. His plan is to help Alia go against the wishes of her brother and father and sell off the studio to buy the franchise cricket team. The first step is to ensure that Viraj is absolutely fed up with his film studio, which has already been incurring heavy losses for quite some time now, and Rana manages to do this simply by not doing his job. Despite his very first job for the family being to protect the Bollywood superstar, he intentionally slacks off and even possibly ensures that the actor is beat up by the husband of the co-star he is having an affair with. With the lead actor out of the picture for weeks, Viraj’s film cannot be made, and so he has no choice but to give up on the film production business.
Alia is now free to buy the cricket team, but the director of the league stops the sale because he does not want a business family like the Oberois, who have numerous allegations of corruption against them, to enter the cricket league. When Alia and Rana try to force their hand, the director presents them with a file that details all the financial corruption that the Oberois have been involved with, which means that this file needs to be wiped next. Rana manages to do this as well by creating a distraction at the office, breaking in with Lara, and removing the file as well as wiping all records on the computer. This is enough to convince the director that he cannot stop the sale by any means, and so he agrees to let Alia Oberoi buy the Mumbai cricket team.
However, their problems do not go away, as Naga starts working for Chirag, who does not want his sister’s franchise cricket plans to succeed, and so he steals the crucial file and hands it over to the media. If the contents of the file are exposed to the public, then Alia’s image will be tarnished, and she will no longer be able to buy the team. But Rana stops this expose by making a deal with the journalist, giving her a far juicier piece of news—about OB Mahajan having had his sister-in-law and mistress murdered. Naturally, the journalist drops Alia’s file, and in this way, the team finally becomes hers. Although the captain does create an obstruction initially by refusing to sign the contract, Rana irons this problem out as well by threatening the player.
Rana does all of this to get a lucrative 5% stake in the cricket team, which amounts to some 5 billion rupees, and Alia agrees to the deal, since it is genuinely a negligible amount for her. However, Viraj intervenes in this deal and eventually gets it cancelled, for he simply refuses to share the immensely expensive shares with the fixer. Therefore, Rana indirectly gets on the same page with Alia at the very end of Rana Naidu season 2 and has Viraj’s murder of Paritosh exposed to the police. This results in Viraj Oberoi getting arrested and sent away, while Alia becomes the new owner of the family business. But it is not very clear as to whether Rana had ever handed over the file detailing Alia and her family’s dark deeds, and it is possible that it is still with him. Therefore, it might be quite possible that Rana will use it to gain control over the Oberois in the next season, as he will surely be on the lookout for one last job with a grand paycheck once again.
