Summary
Shahmaran Season 2 is of roughly analogous quality to the freshman outing, boasting solid performances and serious drama against a fanciful mythological backdrop.
The first season of Shahmaran was surprisingly good, especially considering it had a premise that I actively laughed out loud at. Lest we forget, this is a love story in which one of the stars is half snake, and Season 2 of the adaptation of ?ah-? Mar is equally silly on paper. But the sneaky genius of the Turkish Netflix series is that it’s played totally straight. Despite its highly unusual circumstances, it is fundamentally a well-acted and produced love story.
That the first season was renewed didn’t come as much of a surprise to many of us. Netflix’s open-armed content strategy has gradually revealed the generally high quality of Turkish television, and people enjoy shows from the region in relatively large numbers. The ending of Season 1 also lent itself to a continuation, with many late reveals contorting the story’s popular shape.
This is where Season 2 of Shahmaran picks up, with Sahsu and Maran’s relationship still being the core arc, but Lilith, sister of the titular Shahmaran, emerging as a calculating, manipulative villain. This story structure gives the six-episode second season – down from the freshman outing’s eight – a more logical throughline, but it continues to suffer a little from less-than-ideal pacing.
I complained about this show’s lackadaisical energy in my review of the first season and I see no reason not to complain about it again here. Now that I think about it, a great deal of that review also applies to this follow-up. The patience of Season 2 can border on indulgence, but the drama is anchored by strong performances and rooting in real-world terms that don’t allow the more fantastical elements to feel too divorced from humanity.
It feels like a slightly more expensive season, too, which matches a slightly more expansive mythology. Genres are once again spliced – mystery meets fantasy meets familial drama – to surprisingly well-balanced effect, and there are visual and thematic indulgences, but it remains a deeply human story.
Serenay Sarikaya and Burak Deniz as Sahsu and Maran, respectively, are clear stand-outs in the cast, proving to be more than just pretty faces – though they do remain very pretty faces – in a churning plot that threatens to leave them behind now and again. Turkish TV remains refreshingly patient and serious even when it indulges in pop genres on the world’s largest streaming platform, so that’s a unique claim it can – and should! – be making for itself.
Through that lens, it’s no surprise that Shahmaran was renewed for Season 2, and one wouldn’t be especially shocked if it ends up being renewed for Season 3, too.
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