Sacred Games 2 Is Now Streaming on Netflix in India, and Available for Offline Download

Bhagwan me mante ho? [Do you believe in God?] Because your prayers have been answered. The long-awaited Sacred Games season 2 is now streaming on Netflix in India and across the globe. (It was released at midnight, with Netflix likely making an exception owing to its popularity and the fact that Thursday is a national holiday in India.) As with other Netflix content, the show is also available for download for offline viewing. Like the first season, Sacred Games 2 has a total of eight episodes, which pick up with Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan) right where we left off, as the Mumbai cop tries to thwart a potential nuclear attack that he uncovered at the end of last season, after being put on the trail by the gangster Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui).

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There are several new cast members that are part of Sacred Games 2, including the likes of Kalki Koechlin (Margarita with a Straw) as Batya Abelman, a long-time follower of Guruji (Pankaj Tripathi), who has a much bigger role in the second season after a cameo appearance in the first. Amruta Subhash (Gully Boy) also joins the cast as RAW agent Kusum Devi Yadav, in a role that has been gender-flipped from Vikram Chandra's book that the show is based on. Additionally, Ranvir Shorey (Khosla Ka Ghosla!) plays Pakistani intelligence officer Shahid Khan. Harshita Gaur (Sadda Haq) has been cast in an undisclosed role.

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In addition to the aforementioned Khan, Siddiqui and Tripathi, returning cast members for Sacred Games 2 include Neeraj Kabi as DCP Parulkar, Aamir Bashir as Inspector Majid Ali Khan, Sameer Kochhar as SPI Markand, Luke Kenny as Malcolm Mourad, Elnaaz Norouzi as Jamila / Zoya Mirza, Jatin Sarna as Deepak “Bunty” Shinde, Shalini Vatsa as Kanta Bai, Girish Kulkarni as Home Minister Bipin Bhonsle, Chittaranjan Tripathi as L.K. Trivedi, Surveen Chawla as Jojo Mascarenhas, Vikram Kochhar as Mathu, Saurabh Sachdeva as Suleiman Isa, Richa Kapoor as Prabhjot Kaur, Neha Shitole as Shalini Katekar, Anupriya Goenka as Megha, and Suhas Sirsat as Constable Kamble among others.

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Behind the scenes, Masaan director Neeraj Ghaywan has been roped in to helm the Sartaj track, while Anurag Kashyap continues as director for the Gaitonde storyline. Kashyap is also an executive producer on the series alongside Chandra, showrunner Vikramaditya Motwane, and head writer Varun Grover.

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Grover had a new writing team on season 2, which includes Dhruv Narang (Gormint), Nihit Bhave (Hey Prabhu!), and Pooja Tolani. Sacred Games 2 is a production of Reliance Entertainment, which had a 50 percent stake in Phantom Films and took over after the latter was dissolved late last year.

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Here's the official synopsis for Sacred Games, via Netflix:

“A policeman, a criminal overlord, a Bollywood film star, politicians, cultists, spies, and terrorists—the lives of the privileged, the famous, the wretched, and the bloodthirsty interweave with cataclysmic consequences amid the chaos of modern-day Mumbai. The series is based on the critically-acclaimed, best-selling novel ‘Sacred Games' by author Vikram Chandra.

“The story focuses on Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan), a seasoned and cynical Bombay police officer, summoned by an anonymous tip one morning, a voice which promises him an opportunity to capture the powerful Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), criminal overlord of the G-Company. As the stakes mount and Sartaj seeks knowledge of his prey, it becomes clear that the game the two players thought they were engaged in is in fact part of a much larger scenario, one that expands beyond their city.”

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All eight episodes of Sacred Games season 2 are available on Netflix. New seasons of Netflix shows are usually released at 12am PT — that translates to 12:30pm IST from mid-March to early November — but Netflix brought the release time forward to 12am IST (Thursday) for Sacred Games 2.