PremiumMaharani Season 3 Review – A revenge drama, interesting approach and lack of Huma Qureshi
In Maharani season 3, Rani’s absence becomes more of a bothering bone than an intriguing plot device.
Last Updated: 12.12 AM, Mar 07, 2024
It’s been three years since Bhima Bharti (Sohum Shah) was killed by Naveen Kumar (Amit Sial) and his associates to snatch the position of Chief Minister of Bihar from Bhima and his wife, then CM Rani Bharti (Huma Qureshi). Rani was falsely accused of killing her husband and thrown into prison. Naveen is now the new CM who has whitewashed his entire existence, while Rani now sits inside the prison and prepares for a big endgame she is cooking in her mind, and there is a liquor cartel and a team of femme fatale on the loose. Maharani streams on Sony Liv.
Maharani Season 3 Review:
Creator Subhash Kapoor and his team of writers, including Singh Nandan and Uma Shankar Singh, have had a very interesting journey with the character of Rani Bharti. What started as a borrowed soul show inspired by a real-life episode from Indian politics (Rabri Devi becoming CM of Bihar in 1997 after husband Lalu Prasad Yadav’s arrest) found a voice as it deviated and became a mostly fictional tale in season 2. By the end of that season, we saw Rani’s immediate competition, her husband, arrested. How do you take the tale ahead when the woman literally has no anchor in the world outside prison? Because even when in competition, Bhima was always her unacknowledged golden ticket.
Maharani Season 3, directed by Saurabh Bhave (taking over from Ravindra Gautam and Karan Sharma), grapples with this same problem from the word go. The men outside have built a world without the woman they are scared of by locking her in jail, and she sits behind bars, constantly refusing to file for her bail warrant. The way season 3 begins and blooms in the first two episodes is almost like Subhash, Singh, and Uma (the writers) sitting around a chessboard with two of them playing and the third taking notes to turn it into a show. How else do you explain a season that has the most number of deaths, including pawns of Naveen and Rani? So you know there is enough mettle in the writing because it is pretty confident in what it is doing until a very decent stretch.
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The approach is quite interesting because now the show wants to go away from Rani to see the impact of her absence and then her ghost-like presence. It all works because even when she is not in the room, there is an aura of her fear even in the most influential. This explains a lot about how a woman who was once called illiterate is now a femme fatale for the very world that was looking down on her. Maharani is very interesting up until this point. But what really ends up making the strength of the show look like its weak link is episode four where Rani, played by Huma Qureshi, goes entirely missing for the most part of it. This soon becomes a pattern for the rest of the four episodes to follow, and from the fifth onwards, Rani’s absence becomes more of a bothering bone than an intriguing plot device.
Now that I have seen the entire show, I know there is a reason for her absence and that she was always up to something big in the background while these men were thinking she is done. But for a viewer, the show is about ‘Maharani,’ and if Rani is missing for the better chunk of the show about her, it doesn’t reflect well. To many, the endgame might just feel like a bleak redemption for an investment that was almost 6 hours. It is like you lure in people for Maharani, and she only has a cameo in her own show. I cannot give a possible angle to how a different approach could have helped more of Huma to have been included in the show, but more of her would have definitely done wonders to an approach that did have the potential to make for a very good third season.
Add to this that the entire season, due to this very take, feels like a long build-up that will give you much more of Rani when it reveals the big twists. But to our collective shock, the big twist is actually the end of the season, and there is nothing with Rani beyond that as of now.
Huma Qureshi continues to be the powerful performer that she is, and now she understands Rani to be, naturally moving around like the character effortlessly. Even in the screen time that is not even half of the last season, she makes us feel the power her position in this system holds, and that is some victory. Amit Sial can now walk through parts where he is expected to play a politician. Vineet Kumar walks in with a strong resume to easily play this part. The rest of the cast does what is given and doesn’t ruin anything.
The music in Maharani Season 3 is fresh and very interesting. It adds another layer to the show as the songs are not just added for breathing gaps but have something to say through them. The first track of the season titled Kaun Bola Ban Hai is a satirical track about the liquor ban in the narrative and lands so well. Music director Rohit Sharma, Mangesh Dhadke in the background score, and Dr. Sagar on lyrics have done a great job.
Maharani Season 3: Final Verdict
In Maharani season 3, Subhash Kapoor puts as much of his brain as he can, but forgets to add ample of his ‘queen’ in a show about that queen.
Maharani season 3 is now streaming on Sony Liv from March 7, 2024. for more reviews and content related to the world of streaming and films, stay tuned to OTTplay!