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The episode today hit me right in the feels- mostly frustration feels. I'll discuss the things i liked first:
Dhanak's protectiveness: Her fear when maayi pulled the trigger at raghu was not the same as when raghu tried to kill himself with poison. Neither was it the same reaction as when maayi pulled the trigger on herself. The shock and the tears were the fear of a wife about to lose her husband, not just general concern for humanity.
Maayi's Reaction: She was legit today. ⭐️ She went from annoyed at their stupid antics to angry at Raghu's reasoning, which seemed very legitimate to me. You decided to marry this girl- her dreams are your responsibility to fulfill and her own. Maayi is not obliged to help fulfill her dreams at the expense of her own belief systems and lifestyle. Dhanak has done nothing to try understand maayi and her techniques have been intrusive and self-righteous so now maayi has gone from angry to absolutely furious. And everything she said was true. now, she's really out to hurt dhanak where it will hurt. the game is set and i predict that dhanak is really ill-equipped to handle it.
Dhanak's Rebuff to Maya: Finally, Dhanak put her in her place. Its one thing to bare her sasubai insulting your navra but seriously letting any tom dick and harry do it is unacceptable. how effective what she proved was...idk. raghu raised his hand at her bidding, even if he couldnt go through with it. If he wasnt her puppet, he wouldnt even have raised his hand in the first place and would've told her off for making irrational demands. Personally, would've liked it a bit better if she'd broken Maya's face over this like Savitri would've done. 😉
Insight into Raghu's childhood and character: It clarified Raghu a lot for me. He has some deep seated traumas from being cornered into this lifestyle and the night sweats really brought that out. He doesnt like violence but he doesnt know anything else. He also has never had the option to choose what he wants. They say boys marry their mothers and Raghu really did. He replaced one authoritarian figure who forced him into one path through emotional blackmail, with another. Savitri yells and Dhanak simpers but both women manipulate the hell out of him and take complete advantage of his love. BUT in a way, his insane love and desire for Dhanak makes sense now. Dhanak's 'goodness' and her kasams arent just dhanak's merits to raghu. they are also his way out. she represents another life that he might've chosen if he had learned to have opinions and fight against the thought stream of his mother- a simple life of a hard earning man with a sweet wife who is the beacon of goodness and a house full of children. They are the fundamentals of his attraction beyond the physical. This is why Dhanak's fall from grace will not be something their relationship will be able to take. Raghu will break and we go to what's familiar when we break.
Now for the 😕
Raghu's pathetic-ness: Saala bewda hi sahi tha. Aab toh bilkul suicidal nithalla bekar biwi ka sidekick banke reh gaya hain! baath baath pe his response is just leave me and kill me...dude! do you have any sense of responsibility at all? ek aayi bhi hain, dependent log bhi hain aur ek baiko bhi! har cheez ka jawab kya yehi drama hain? and his dialogues in the episode! when he was preaching to maayi- dude! jab koi murder karta hain na use paata hota hain k woh galat kar raha hain. you knew you were doing wrong when you were doing it but you still chose to do it anyways because you saw it as right for you. i get it that love made you change yourself and your pov but why would maayi change hers? have you done anything to prove to her that an alternate lifestyle is possible? all you do is soanpapdi soanpapdi day in and out, he's become a suicidal bell boy and expects his mother to find merit in that.
Dhanak: I think Dhanak is a character who knows how to be responsible in the way textbooks and our elders teach us to be but she absolutely doesnt understand real people or real life. she's the classic itv bahu- the one who can be everything but a good wife- the basis of all her relationships in the home she lives in. but somehow thats the least of her priority. she is focused on her goals and what she thinks is right but she doesnt care to listen or understand the needs and wants of her opponent. she thinks raghu chapter is done so now moving on to maayi. yeh koi game chal raha hain kya? she doesnt even realize what she's done to raghu's life or for that matter why maayi is so difficult with her and is reacting so violently to her 'goodness'. she doesnt realize that the problem is her approach not her intentions and that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. she just wants to fix things with quick nuskas without thinking anything long term. these are people not robots robocop. dhanak has taken the most important thing in maayi's life- her son- and turned him from a sher to a suicidal nomad with no direction in life.
maayi was right- raghu is not alive. he's just a mannequin. and the worst part is that dhanak doesnt even appreciate how much raghu has let go for her. dhanak has always been exactly what she is without having to apologize for a single thing. if she had chosen ips then good for her for making the 'right choice' as a good civil servant. now she chose raghu- good for her for being the best baiko and sonbai. whereas raghu's whole journey so far has been apologizing for being himself in lieu of dhanak's vachans and her self-righteous decisions. and as a result he's basically become her errand boy. what dhanak should be doing at this point is restoring her husband's direction that he gave up for her, the same husband that she left her dreams for. instead she's turning maayi's son against her and trying to back a dead horse. Raghu is like a recovering addict. he needs attention and care. even a single grain of rice can tip his scales. he's a volatile person by nature and has never faced things without a gun in hand. but instead she's indulging maayi in what she wants.
Poor and unrealistic portrayal of criminality in Mumbai: I harp on it everytime I know. Things dont have to be realistic but at the very least they can use the setting to create some drama and angst. the cvs are doing a terrible job of portraying and using the setting. Yeh ho kya raha hain yaha pe? Criminality koi joke hain kya? I dont think the cvs understand the nature of being a don in mumbai- mumbai mein hafta wasooli, kidnapping aur chori karke koi don nahi banta. infact ek adh murder se bhi koi don nahi banta. in the underbelly of mumbai, where the glamour and money of bollywood and the ambani types end, ek adh murder toh hote rehte hain. the kind we dont even know about cos they are simply not important enough to breach the sense of security of the yuppy middle classes of the city. dara dhamka k, daru peeke aur non-veg khake, yaha koi don nahi banta. koi bhi muh utha k ayega aur woh don ban jayega...its laughable.
this is the city of haji mastan, arun gawli and dawood ibrahim. chalo they dont want to get into too much grit here, but lets atleast keep things real at a bablu bhai level (even he was laughably mild but atleast they showed him and vidya tai being brutal-ish). par yaha toh don ko joke bana diya. maayi has held so much power without committing a murder? same with aslam, batli, maya and saku tai. and if they have, is there any going back from that? then what is the point of all of this? what will they do? go straight laced say 'hail mary' and out? even with raghu, the character has got to be grittier and more aggressive! hes always been playful about his criminality, but that never made him any less dangerous. he may not have been willing to murder in cold blood but short of that he'd do pretty much everything. i distinctly remember an incident right before they got married- when dhanak found out about raghu's dhanda and she saw him beating the bejeezus out of a guy. usually a girl's hands are adorned with mehendi before her wedding and dhanak's proverbial mehendi was that guy's blood spilled by raghu. i thought it was a brilliant allegory for their upcoming nuptials. crime is not comic or fun and games. it can be humorous but in a dark sense. nothing less. its also not so easy to just walk out. raghu toh chod dega but the people he's meddled with, will they leave him? Maayi knows this, dhanak despite of police training and raghu despite of being in this profession for years, seems to be naively unaware of these simple realities.
HIGHLIGHT OF IT ALL: Maayi's game. The only reason I am actually kind of looking forward to this show still even after the last few weeks of being kind of disappointed. The question was why is she making Dhanak don. My PREDICTION: I dont think this is a short term game. It is true what they say- nobody knows a child better than their mother. and maayi knows raghu and exactly what dhanak means to him. khada sona- his pot of gold at the end of a very dark tunnel. what she's cutting is not just raghu and dhanak but the light and hope she brings to his life, she's cutting his weaknesses as a don. because a raghu without hope will be the worst of him, one that'll give into his worst impulses and walk the path of darkness with conviction.
She has challenged dhanak to her games where Dhanak doesnt even understand what the stakes of this game is- its not her sasubai's moral compass. Maayi is under no obligation to keep any commitment made to a sonbai she doesnt give two hoots about. Its Dhanak's husband and marriage at stake here. Maayi put the saafa on Raghu's head first because she knows that it will go to Raghu once she wins this game and he will wear it willingly. Dhanak has no hope in the world- you can never win a game you dont know the stakes for. Your motivations and strategy will always be wrong. Raghu had said it once- tujhe ankhe parna nahi aati, duniyadari k mamle mein tu zero hain. Dhanak is really terrible in understanding people and their motivations. i mean maayi clearly said it- 'mere bete ko mere khilaf bhadkaega tu'. but she's too stubborn and caught up in her own plans and motives to actually hear her. She'll loose this game and she'll loose raghu before she can even blink.
Maayi's game of russian roulette was a test, to see if dhanak cares for her son as a husband. Maayi has realized that she and dhanak now share the same weakness, but he can only really belong to one of their paths, maayi's path where he was destined to rule or dhanak's path where he has no direction or identity. so maayi has set the stage for the shikar. she will hunt their relationship and that will break dhanak and her (over)confidence in the relationship she is barely investing in. I'm not saying it will happen immediately in the aftermath of Dhanak's decision to be the don, she will give some explanation to Raghu for now. But these explanations will add up till his trust is shaken and then that'll be it.
For now, I'm disappointed- raghu is a standing crying joke- dhanak will be ips, dhanak will be don, dhanak will be wife and dhanak will be daughter-in-law. and somehow, even after all of this her dreams will sustain. everything's changed but she remains nonchalant about everything. so the question then is- what will raghu be? just her husband? she's given him kasam after kasam, essentially manipulating him the same way that maayi does and left him nowhere now. it was a sad episode and it'll be the turning point of their relationship. raghu is done, now its dhanak's turn to save the relationship. lets see if she can put her relationship with her husband above this arrogant mission she's taken up.
Over and Out folks. Sound off below!
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