For a while now, I've been wanting to watch more Indian TV, but it felt like everything that was being recommended to be was too gory for my tastes. I mean, I'm just never going to watch Mirzapur, y'all. Even if it has both Ali Fazal* and Vikrant Massey**.
But I did watch Made in Heaven last year, and thought it was fantastic. And then after being beaten over the head about Family Man, especially after the new season dropped, I decided to give it a go.
I really liked the first season, even though I thought it could have done more to be a little more balanced in how the grievances of a community can lead to certain decisions. But it was well written, well acted, gripping, and ended on a cliffhanger that meant I had to keep going into Season 2.
And boy, was I irritated by Season 2. So here, for your reading pleasure (all three of you) is everything I didn't like, plus some stuff I did.
{{Mandatory spoiler alert for those who haven't watched the show yet, and intend to at some point}}
Let's start with the good stuff, actually.
- The aerial shots of Delhi! Absolutely gorgeous. Almost all the shots throughout the show were gorgeous in general, but obvs my heart lies with Delhi the mostest. There were two in particular - one of all of Connaught Place, and another of the buildings around Raj Path - that if anyone can get hold of for me, I will be eternally grateful.
- Dhriti and Atharv. Specifically, the actors who played those two. Pitch perfect, and so very delightful. Every scene with them, especially Atharv, was just a joy to watch.
- JK. I started out disliking him right off the bat, because if you're a guy who tries to flirt with the new recruit on her first day because she's female, you get a huge black mark in my book. However, his character arc was probably one of the best on the show.
- The most randomly delightful*** thing about Season 2, however, had to be Sambit's relationship with tea. The scene where he's pouring tea for everyone and it runs out by the time he's able to pour for himself, the scene where he pours it and then has to take a call, and then ruins it by soaking his Parle G for too long, and the scene where he turns down the offer of tea altogether because he's so stressed. *chef's kiss*
But then.
I went into the show knowing the two things that a lot of people were upset about. And both of them were a doozy.
- When you've studied psychology, and half your closest friends work in mental health, you can't not find the therapist they showed to be utterly terrible. For a show that depicted Suchi to be a psychology professional, who worked on an app for mental health, you'd think they would have at least bothered to get the actual showcasing of therapy to be a little better.
- And then there was the brownface. Look, I can be superficial in my media consumption. I don't always get upset by things like brownface. I should, but I don't. But this time. It wasn't just that they did it, when they didn't need to, it was also that they did so obviously and badly. Every frikkin' scene with Raji had her skin practically shining because the makeup was so very over the top.
- And I have to admit, I also found Raji's character pretty annoying. How much of that was caused by the colouring, versus the other way around, I'm not sure. But it was like they couldn't decide if her facial expressions were supposed to be constantly worried and nervous, or steel-faced and resolved. Her expressions kept flip-flopping between the two, often in the same scene, and ended up distracting me way too much.
Sundry other thoughts:
- Why, oh why, is there a rule that there can be only one competent woman per season of a show? Zoya was one the best parts of the first season, because it was quite refreshing to see a woman come into a job and just get the job done. Also I was coming close to shipping her and Milind. But then she's gone from Season 2 (and eventually so was Milind, which was just gutting), and while Umayal was just as delightful, it's just so frustrating to watch shows do this all the time.
- I have to admit, I came close to shipping Raji and Shahid a bit. Very Romeo and Juliet, that relationship seemed.
- Do rebels make a lot of money somehow? Those homes in London and Normandy were fan-CY.
- It was very unclear for most of the show, to me at least, what exactly Sri's family knew about his job. By the end, it seemed like Suchi did know the truth, but that made her reactions even more bizarre. Yes, you can be upset about how much time he gives to the job, and how it takes away from family life, but not once in the entire show did she seem to express any concern or curiosity about his safety. He constantly made reference to paperwork, even when he was travelling to other cities, but she clearly seemed to know more towards the end, and it was just all very disorienting.
- Also, Sri was just an ass in the second season. Yes, I get that Indian men must never express feelings or show emotions or talk to therapists about their private life, and all that jazz. I didn't have a problem with any of that being depicted, I got the character. But the man's daughter was kidnapped, almost killed, and covered in blood. He hands her off to a co-worker to go after a terrorist - said coworker, by the way, was right next to him in the next scene, so who on earth took Dhriti to the hospital I don't know - and was far more concerned about the terrorist's death impacting the mission than what he had tried to do to this daughter. Maybe I'm just not patriotic enough, but that's just a level of assholery I can't deal with. The man showed more concern and actually asked more questions about JK's condition than he did about his daughter.
- And finally, I'm sure this show was very realistic and all. In which case, maybe our country needs to invest in some bulletproof outfits for its investigative agencies? It kind of seemed like these people landed in shootouts fairly routinely; some sort of protective gear might help? Just a thought.
I think the reason I'm irritated enough to type out a whole post about this show is that it had so much potential. The cast was mostly excellent, the storylines were gripping, and the writing was close to being really, really good. But I got too irritated by the little things, which ended up adding up to getting in the way of a lot of the positives.
*who apparently doesn't show up in the search results if you search for "mirzapur cast"?
**who was conspicuously missing from the season 2 trailers I saw, which led to text a friend asking - "look I'm never going to watch this show, tell me if he's gone." Her non-answer was answer enough.
*** delight/delightful is my word of the day, apparently.
