C-16
The season finale of Breathe: Into The Shadows begins with the aftermath of an altercation at a hotel as Shirley runs into Abha who offers to drive her home. Only, when Avi’s car pulls up he doesn’t realize that J has been seeing her. After an awkward drive home, Abha learns more about Avi’s limp from a neighbour and heads up to see him. Only, he’s clearly not Avi but actually J. Kabir drives to the Boarding School but en-route receives a call from Meghna explaining how she doesn’t want to leave India but her Father is insisting. After hanging up, be begins questioning the various teachers and researching more about Avi’s time in the school. Eventually he learns the truth about J and Avi’s split personality. As he phones through to Prakash to let him know, Zeba happens to be listening and takes control of the situation to find Avi and arrest him for being the Ravan killer. When they get to Avinash’s house however, no one is home. As it turns out, Abha is actually out following Avi to figure out what he’s doing. Unfortunately it’s here she sees him in the car with Shirley where the two kiss. Crushed, she continues on to watch what Avi is doing and stays in the shadows as Avi arrives at the abandoned theatre. Hiding until he leaves, Abha finally sees what J has been doing all this time. On the monitors she notices Siya and Gayatri and eventually manages to free them after wrestling with a returning J. At the same time, Kabir outwits Zeba and takes control of the operation once more. Using the location tracker, they too make it to the abandoned theatre just as Abha, Siya and Gayatri spill out the back door. A stand-off ensues, leading to Siya being held captive by J as Kabir and Abha try desperately to get through to him. Eventually it’s Siya who does, telling him she’s scared and allowing Avi to come through and let her go. Kabir then captures and arrests Avi. 3 years later we see Avi is in prison and Abha now free from Bad Uncle’s presence. She questions him over how she’ll know whether J will come back but right now he doesn’t know either. As the episode closes, Shirley meets J in prison and hands her a slip of paper reading “C-16”. As she walks away, Avinash makes it up on stage to perform but it’s obviously not him – it’s J. With the ending we receive it leaves things wide open for a possible third season but given what we’ve received over these 12 episodes it’s questionable over whether we need or want this. Compared to the first season, this follow-up has been a tonally confusing and messy affair with a second half undermining some pretty good foundational work early on. The final stand-off feels messy and contrived too and all of this boils down to some pretty wobbly motivations for J and Avi. A shame for sure but Breathe is a series that’s run out of air long before the end, stumbling over the finish line after this bloated second season.
