Summary
Shahmaran Season 2 bows out with a thematically meaningful but not entirely conclusive ending.
The ending of Shahmaran Season 2 embodies an endless cycle of human greed and ignorance, which is always a fitting theme. After Season 1’s climax laid out some of the mythological particulars, it’s up to the finale of Season 2 to provide some payoff for how those folkloric underpinnings relate to the love story between Sahsu and Maran – or perhaps how that love story relates to the folklore.
It isn’t, as usual, a totally climactic ending – Season 3 seems as likely, if not more so, than Season 2 did, especially given how unexpectedly popular Shahmaran became for Netflix subscribers the world over. But Episode 6 – the second season bows out two chapters earlier than the first – is decent enough as a conclusion on its own terms if Netflix’s fickle overseers decide the juice – or venom, in this case – isn’t worth the squeeze.
A Tale As Old As Time
To understand the ending of Shahmaran Season 2 it’s important to understand the folklore that underpins everything, so let’s briefly cover that.
The essentials are sacrifice and balance. Shahmaran – invariably a female half-human-half-snake – sacrificed her own life for the sake of humanity, in the hopes that lessons would be learned and the same mistakes wouldn’t be repeated. Needless to say, they weren’t, and they were.
The endless cycle of sacrifice pained Camsap, Shahmaran’s human lover who betrayed her – and was revealed in Season 1’s ending to be Davut – and infuriated Lilith, Shahmaran’s sister, who emerged as the Big Bad. Lilith despises humanity and doesn’t think we’re worth all the chances Shahmaran gave us.
In this series, Sahsu, a college lecturer, must bring about the understanding and co-existence Shahmaran was seeking by fulfilling a prophecy of falling in love with a Basilisk named Maran, a task made slightly more complicated by wildly frayed human-Basilisk relations and Lilith being all evil.
Let’s Talk About Lilith
A huge thrust of Season 2 revolves around Lilith trying her best to stick a wedge between Sahsu and Maran to prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled. It sounds petty on paper, but Lilith holds a deep distrust – nay, hatred – of humankind stemming back to Camsap’s betrayal of her sister, thus beginning a seemingly endless loop of unheeded sacrifice.
If Shahmaran Season 2 has a happy contour to its ending, it’s to be found in how generally unsuccessful Lilith is in her endeavors, both to separate the happy couple and to recruit others like Cihan and Abra to her side of the aisle. “Happy” isn’t the right word, since her failure is closely associated with obvious tragedy like Abra controlling Cihan’s mind to make him commit suicide instead of killing Maran at Lilith’s behest, but you know what I mean.
The rejection of Lilith and her ideas is reflected in Shahmaran herself, who condemns her sister to the well from whence she came for the good of humanity. Lilith was irredeemable and her resentment knew no bounds, so the only option was to keep her out of the way so that humans could flourish without her interference.
Sahsu Becomes Shahmaran
Another strong theme in the ending of Shahmaran Season 2 is change, or perhaps transformation, represented most obviously in Sahsu’s transition to Shahmaran by opening the doors of life, death, and wisdom.
No doors with those labels come without some sacrifice, but there’s a point to it all. In defeating Diba and reviving Maran, Sahsu proves the strength of her love for the Basilisk. In granting Camsap his peace by releasing him from an endless torment of immortality as penance for betraying Shahmaran, she made a difficult personal decision for the greater good.
But Shahmaran needs a Camsap, a devoted partner, and thus that’s what Maran becomes. With their loyalty to one another proven many times over, the idea is that Shahmaran’s initial intentions will ultimately and finally be fulfilled.
Of course, Season 2 ends with a suggestion that this might not exactly be the case. But that’s for Season 3 to unpack if we get one.
What did you think of the ending of Shahmaran Season 2? Is there enough meat on the bone for a third go-around? Let us know in the comments below.
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