Director: Shivakar Srinivasan

Cast: Prasanna, Regina Cassandra, Aparna Balamurali, Sharath Ravi, Kanna Ravi

What caught my eye foremost about Fingertip season 2 was how the narrative comprised of different plot tracks that were hyper-connected. This might have been a coincidence, but what better way to tell the story of crimes in the digital world, a place where all our lives are ultimately interconnected too.

We meet a plethora of characters in the opening sequences and all of them seem to be battling dark demons. There is the mysterious hacker called Eclipse whose real identity is unknown. There is a food delivery executive named Venkat (Vinoth Kishan) who’s been taunted all his life due to a mole on his face. We meet the actress Priya (Regina Cassandra), who’s suffered tremendous mental trauma on account of body shaming she endured as a child. There is then the sleazy Adinath (Sharath Ravi), a womanizer and blackmailer who records and morphs private videos of unsuspecting victims. Naveen (Kanna Ravi) is an arrogant, immoral social media magician who can turn public opinion with a wave of his wand, or should we say with a click of his mouse. There’s the psychiatrist Shruthi (Aparna Balamurali) who has faced a terrible personal tragedy. And finally, there’s Arivazhagan aka Arivu (Prasanna), a cop who acknowledges he has to acquire new skills to tackle new age crimes.

In fact, the series starts with Shruthi being asked to give a presentation to a rather disinterested police department on the types of digital crimes and their effect on the human psyche. The series finale brought a smile to my face, with Arivu making a point to his superior that all the crimes Shruthi had listed out earlier had actually transpired for real in the intervening period.

Though the characters are many and crimes aplenty, Fingertip is a slick watch. This is because, quite cleverly, two crimes take centerstage and others are woven around them skillfully to spin an enthralling screenplay. One is the murder of an aged couple by a masked gang of hitmen. This crime is a personal blow for Arivu who was on affectionate terms with the couple. The other crime that gets equal screen space is the blackmail ring run by Adinath. Arivu ultimately gets pulled into this as well as his former colleague becomes one of Adinath’s blackmail victims. This is the sort of hyperconnectivity I mentioned about earlier and its so proficiently delivered by the director Shivakar Srinivasan that it’s a joy to watch.

Fingertip is not just taut and racy, but there’s also a wonderful finesse to the end product. This is mainly down to a group of fantastic technicians, not least the editor GK Prasanna whose cuts ensure clarity and an even tempo. There are eight episodes and each one is packed with surprising twists. I was a bit worried when the identity of Eclipse was revealed too soon, but even this fits into the bigger picture as the series concludes.

In spite of an intense storyline, Fingertip season 2 is never preachy. Its messaging is hard hitting but subtle. With the emergence of artificial intelligence and the metaverse, we can be sure that even criminals will evolve. All Fingertip asks of us is to firewall our brains so that we don’t get sucked in by the darker forces.

Overall rating: 3.5/5