The Mediocrity Of Aarya Season 3 Is A Disservice To Sushmita Sen

This is #CriticalMargin where Ishita Sengupta gets contemplative over new Hindi films and shows. Here: Aarya Season 3, Part 1.

Three years since its inception, the cracks have started to appear in the Sushmita Sen-led Aarya

This column was originally published as part of our newsletter The Daily Show on November 7, 2023. Subscribe here. (We're awesome about not spamming your inbox!)

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BACK IN 2020, Ram Madhvani did something ingenious with the Sushmita Sen-starring series Aarya: he took a sprawling Dutch drama called Penoza and rooted it in the cultural landscape of India. Something like this is rare, given that the list of series which have been blind remakes of their international counterparts runs long. It helped that the premise of Penoza — a woman striving to take charge of her life in the aftermath of a personal loss — is imbued with a universal core. Even then, across two seasons, the filmmaker straddled the delicate line between pulp and fiction, and crafted a show that was worthy of its female lead and made her look worthy.

Three years since its inception, the cracks have started to appear. Like what is increasingly becoming the trend, the new season of Aarya will be dropped in two parts. The first four episodes are available to watch. The disjunction makes it difficult to form an informed opinion about the entire season but it is evident that this marketing decision was factored into the design of the outing. Thus the fourth episode culminates in a dramatic crescendo which feels neither persuasive nor earned.

Broadly speaking, this sentiment holds true for the first four episodes of season three of Aarya which at best is badly-made fan service and at worst, a reprisal dipped in narrative exhaustion. On paper, it thrived with promise. It opens with Aarya (a faultless Sen) finally going to the other side of law, joining her family’s drug business and embracing her identity as the drug lord. But what translates on screen is more of the same: there is Aarya shielding her family against the world, there is a male antagonist trying to get her, there are Russians out to get her (one of whom is, obviously, called Mikhail), there is a continuing discord with her mother, there is ACP Khan (a sincere Vikas Kumar) still trying to arrest her. And finally, there is a consignment waiting to be delivered.

This makes sense at some level because what we are watching is an extension of a world that has been assembled across two seasons. But this time around, the craft is amiss which is built into the mediocrity of the season. The writing (Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh and Anu Singh Choudhary are credited) is so amateur that at several points I wondered if the new season was indeed part of Aarya. For one, it leans on convenience and uses only shorthand to stack up tension. For instance, moles abound. There is one from the cops’ side in Aarya’s family, there is one from hers in the police staff, then there is another one doing his own thing. Given the world the series belongs to, this is supposed to happen but the way Aarya employs it feels derivative.

So is the way the characters have been designed. Sample this: a grieving man has set out to avenge the death of his wife. Multiple times in the series we hear a voice note from his late wife saying, “You are a good man” as if this is how long-time married couples talk. Then, he kills someone and tearfully says, “I am not a good man anymore”. Even the way Aarya has been written feels too vague to be impactful. The last season concluded with a terrific shot which foregrounded the way she has finally come on the other side. There was agency in that moment, a sense of triumph. But through the early episodes of the third season, the character uses her family as the reason and excuse for doing what she is doing, which undermines her intent and choice in the matter. In the hands of a gifted filmmaker, the sense of confusion would have transformed into rewarding ambivalence.

This is also the first time when it becomes impossible to look past the fact that the show is helmed by three directors (Madhvani, Shraddha Pasi Jairath and Kapil Sharma). Technically, it is the legacy of Aarya whose first season was directed by Madhvani, Sandeep Modi and Vinod Rawat, and the second by Madhvani, Rawat and Sharma. But the mishmash of plotlines this time around contributes to patchy filmmaking like each was trying to have their way.

It is always difficult for the later season of a known franchise to live up to the hype. Closer home, the second season of Made In Heaven unfolded with a dullness that felt uncharacteristic of the makers. Madhvani, however, had held out for long. The sophomore iteration of Aarya though uneven in parts, brimmed with ambition and audacity. None of that exists this time. What does though is an inexplicably eerie background music that is non-commitally set against any scene that has some solemnity. That none of the emotional scenes land make the moments look like a jigsaw puzzle that just won’t fit. Much like season three of Aarya.

Stream Aarya Season 3, Part 1 here.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of OTTplay. The author is solely responsible for any claims arising out of the content of this column.)

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