Yeh Meri Family Season 2 Review: The series Juhi Parmar as Neerja Awasthi, Rajesh Kumar as Sanjay Awasthi, Hetal Gada as Ritika Awasthi, Veena Mehta as Dadi and Angaad Maahloy as Rishi Awasthi. The TVF Original Series was created for Amazon miniTV by Sameer Saxena and directed by Mandar Kurundkar. There are a total of 5 episodes of 30 minutes, approximately.
Yeh Meri Family Season 2 Review Contains No Spoilers
Plot Summary
Yeh Meri Family Season 2 is set in the winter of 1994. The weather is chill outside, but the Awasthi house is always on fire (not literally). Siblings Ritika and Rishi leave no chance to anger their short-tempered, strict mother and school teacher, Neerja. But to balance the heat, there’s Sanjay, a calm, laid-back father. Sometimes, all it takes is a hug from the family to warm your heart.
Is the new season packed with the 90s essence as it was in 2018 with the Summers of 1998? Let’s find out.
Yeh Meri Family New Season Review: Discussion
As a 90s kid, I never imagined that one day, there would be a show that would make me reminisce about childhood. I was overwhelmed with emotions when the first season of YMF came out. The series reminded me of the good old internet and social media-free days. It also served as a reminder that the simplest times are truly long gone.
TVF often manages to touch our hearts with their honest and feel-good stories. But with Yeh Meri Family Season 1, they made an entire generation of young adults miss their childhood terribly.
The first season received a splendid response, so it is natural for the fans of the show to have the same expectations for the new season. After the summers, it was the winters that gave us the time to bond with our loved ones. From morning laziness to the stress of exam results, the life of a school-going kid has never been easy! The new season manages to capture these elements aptly. But it doesn’t have the same effect or 90s flavour we saw in the previous season.
Amazon miniTV’s Yeh Meri Family Season 2 tells us the story from Ritika’s point of view. She is the elder teenage daughter of the Awasthi couple. The sibling love-hate equation between Ritika and Rishi is adorable and fun. But the writing of Ritika’s character seems like it was a role for a grown woman. I understand that the makers wanted to show her as a “mature” older kid. But it often felt like Ritika was robbed of her childhood innocence. Maybe I just wanted her to be a child who’s still in school and doesn’t have to think and behave like an adult.
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Played by Hetal Gada, Ritika Awasthi is written as the typical “good girl” in an Indian family. At such a young age, we see Ritika prioritising the needs of others around her, even if it means not getting what she really wants. In the trailer, we see how Ritika wants her room, which is not so uncommon when a girl is growing up. But the conclusion to this need is very daily-soap-like.
The entire post-heartbreak sequence in the New Year’s episode is quite unrealistic. It’s the 90s, and these children are still in school. Indian parents will accept not scoring an A in every exam. But boy problems at such a young age? Well, the happy ending and understanding from a strict Indian parent can only happen in the movies.
The story of the Awasthi family doesn’t feel like it’s from the 90s. If we pick the characters and respective plots and show them as a 2023 family, the only difference would’ve been telephones getting replaced by mobile phones. The constant mention of Aishwarya Rai and Kiran Bedi, the names that made it big back then, feels forced.
Yeh Meri Family Season 2 Review: Final Thoughts
Overall, Yeh Meri Family 2 tries hard to be a 90s story with Ludo, a Vespa scooter, radio transistors, blank calls and telephones. But you need more than these things to transport you back to the simpler days. The realistic approach, nostalgia and touch of that era are missing. The altruistic nature of Ritika, a school-going teenager, leaves one disappointed.
The show is now streaming on Amazon miniTV.
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