Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Indian Matchmaking Season 2’ on Netflix, Where Sima Taparia Returns To Match Indian Singles

After the success of the first season of Indian Matchmaking (which even managed to spawn an upcoming spinoff for the Jewish community), the series is back with a second season of matchmaking young Indian and Indian-American singles. Does the show pick up where it left off and offer more to the conversations it started in the first season?

INDIAN MATCHMAKING SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Cityscapes of India showcase all the splendor, color, and excitement of an Indian wedding. Sima Aunty is in attendance at one of her clients’ weddings.

The Gist: Following Sima Taparia, a successful matchmaker in India, the series follows various clients of Sima’s as they go through the matchmaking process — from sharing their preferences and criteria to meeting families and going on dates.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? At its core, the show is similar to any dating show that has a third party involved in picking and choosing dates for the participants, like the old Bravo series The Millionaire Matchmaker, for example.

Our Take: Season 1 of Indian Matchmaking was groundbreaking. Following Mumbai-based matchmaker Sima Taparia, the series followed young singles in America and in India as they looked for love via old school methods. It opened conversations about arranged marriage and dating with criteria, and even provided a jumping off point for talking about caste and bias within the South Asian community.

It’s extremely disappointing, then, that Season 2 does not pick up on the threads that Season 1 began. There is no effort to expand the clientele to include people of different backgrounds, choosing instead to recycle similar storylines to the first season. The only new angle that the new season offers is a woman in her late thirties named Shital, past “marriageable age” according to Indian aunties, looking for love later in life. Her experiences feel fresh and prompt conversation about ageism in our culture. But unfortunately, Shital is the only new client whose story feels interesting enough to follow.

Season 2 also chooses to bring back three figures from Season 1 — none of whom are still using Sima’s services. It’s a bizarre choice that makes the show feel very disjointed: none of these people’s journeys feel integral to the show’s premise or message. For a show about matchmaking, it’s puzzling how little success Sima’s business seems to have.

So, while Season 1 was a strong, fun and insightful look at arranged marriages in contemporary times, Season 2 drops the ball.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Nadia’s mixer moves to an after-party, and in a confessional, Nadia admits that she hit it off with a guy named Vishal.

Sleeper Star: Arshneel, a cardiologist from Cleveland, is good natured and fun, and feels reminiscent to the teddy bear Vyasar from season one.

Most Pilot-y Line: “First comes marriage, then comes love,” Sima Aunty says about arranged marriages, bringing her central philosophy into focus.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The second season loses its focus and doesn’t make good on correcting the shortcomings from the first season.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.