A honest but disturbed cop sartaj singh(saif ali khan) one day gets a call from underworld don ganesh gaithonde(nawazuddin siddiqui) that Mumbai is in danger and will get destroyed within 25 days. When sartaj manages to trace gaithonde's hideout, ganesh shoots himself. Rest of the show is how sartaj singh finds about the conspiracy behind the Mumbai attack and whether he could save Mumbai before the 25th day or not. Also, the show focuses on ganesh gaithonde's journey from being Mumbai's don, his links with sartaj's father dilbagh singh and the events which led ganesh to call sartaj for help.

Directed by vikramaditya motwane(season 1 saif's portion), neeraj ghaywan(season 2 saif's portion) and anurag kashyap(nawaz's portion), the whole show is entertaining because of the character of ganesh gaithonde. My attention is gripped when they focus on gaithonde's portion. There are some actors who are born to play gangster roles and nawaz is one of them. There is full fledged story of gaithonde right from his childhood, to his work in a hotel and how he leaves there and goes to smuggling and kills the boss there, enters mumbai and comes to garbage mafia, his love story with cuckoo, marriage with subhadra, being incarcerated in jail, coming to kenya forced to work under a raw agent, meeting a spiritual guru and getting fascinated towards his sinister plans, another relationship with jojo, his redemptive side to save Mumbai, its all shown without any need to demand more. Saif as sartaj singh is probably the only positive character in the series. He is someone who wants to do his duty sincerely but the corrupt system doesn't allow him. In season 2, he is given the chance to lead the case but his humanity is put to test whether this world deserves to be saved actually. He briefly joins the ashram's world but redeems himself.

There are also interesting female characters like raw officer anjali, jojo who is a suicidal pimp, zoya/jameela who is a illegal migrant, raw agent yadav, batya and kanta bai. Also there are other great characters like bunty,katekar, parulkar, bhonsle, trivedi and Malcolm.

Season 1 was like an engaging crime thriller but season 2 was more philosophical than a thriller but i was invested in the ashram episodes too. As i said, i was invested when gaithonde scenes are there and least interested in sartaj singh scenes. And i didn't like the open ending, i am not saying them to show them defusing the bomb and a happy epilogue but at least it could have ended with the password being correct.

On the whole, sacred games is an interesting crime thriller which you could give it a chance.