romance meter malfunction -- bring on the angst! - Page 2

I love reading opinions that play “devil’s advocate”. So thank you for this interesting post. 🙂 With the exception of the point on Imlie having done nothing for Aryan, I actually agree with everything you’ve said. I have to admit that I’m one of those who were incredibly touched by the confession and enjoyed how it played out. But objectively speaking, the majority of that has to be credited to Sumbul and Fahmaan’s mesmerising acting, the striking cinematography, and the fact that when these two things were meshed together, I stopped contextualising the scene in terms of the story for a moment there and internalised it as if it was a standalone scene. I actually feel you when you say that ever since the marriage track has been over, there’s been barely anything in the story truly binding them together. As we had discussed in one of your recent posts, they really needed to have spent a whole lot more time developing the arylie equation before getting to the confession point in the first place. With the story now taking a shift in primary focus to their relationship, all the more they should have spent all the screen time they had at their disposal from the moment the wedding was done up till here focusing almost exclusively on them forging a friendship, learning more about each other through that friendship, recognising changes in their feelings towards each other, their individual internal struggles to comprehend the changing nature of their feelings towards each other, their second guessing themselves, their fear, their denial, their avoidance, and then eventually their acceptance and acknowledgement. It’s a whole vital process not only to their character development, but also to enable the audience to realistically relate to them and the journey of their relationship. Instead of all this inconsequential scenes of the villains getting up to their ridiculous antics that we’ve been getting all this while. But now that the confessions are anyways halfway through with, I’d just like to hope that the makers have a better thought out, logically sound direction in mind for them hereon.

And I have to admit, I wasn’t too amused by the reason that Arpita gave Aryan to confess his feelings to Imlie either. It sounded more like a token of consolation/compensation for her troubles rather than a genuine love confession.

mistake #2. making single person passive in a relationship - and that would be imlie! I have no idea how she feels about him. does she like him because he is now her husband? (some type of "I am stuck with you and so I am attached to you") . I really don't know and that is a problem if a fan has no idea when they these characters fell in love and why. instead, it feels half-baked even more than surpita!!!! much as fans might hate narmada, I have to agree with her question -- "what has imlie done for aryan????"

in more ways than one, it has been aryan continously running behind her and offering her support. instead of solving anything, she gets herself in trouble where he has to physically rescue her and he ends up in hospital with a bandage for a few days. 😂 that has been their dynamic. she was super involved with the tripathy family and obsessed with "apne" -- she does not show that kind of passion or dedication to aryan and his kin. she does feel rather passive in many ways.

but seriously, why was he confessing in the first place? did he really need to take her to the jungle to confess? why couldn't he have done it after the cute hair swat scene? 😂

why not a simple gesture in a simple manner?? the treehouse date felt kind of cheesy.

Mango ji, Good morning! Thank you for this post.👍🏼 Saved me from writing a tiring post myself. I had been mentally tired to write anything these days and the show is not inspiring enough.

My biggest beef in the mistake # 2. I don't feel there is any buy in from Imlie. As amazing as yesterday's episode was, Imlie fell totally flat to me🤔. I felt quite happy for Aryan, as he is able to express himself what she means to him. He bared his soul to us from Day #1. As enigmatic as he was, we all knew how he felt, how deep and intense his love or his friendship was. His shiddat is very evident in whatever he did. He didn't freak me out as he was a thorough gentleman and did all he did with no expectations. He didn't hide behind anything at all. If you have already observed this, the camera mostly spanned Aryan's face, his emotions, his relief and his actions more than anything in the last two days. Not to create any conflict here on the forum, I am not sure why this was. Did they feel that the actor is much better in expressing his nuances and he would knock it out of the parkDid they want to spare a younger actress, not having to enact such emotions which require a lot of depth and understanding? 🤔 Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed great acting by Fahmaan. He has to be a seasoned actor who truly deserves whatever awards for his portrayal of ASR.

It was as if I was watching my friend or my sibling🤗 getting their love which they have desired for so long and feeling happy for them. Like how I would have said, I hope the other person( Imlie here ) also feels the same way, but really don't care about the other person ( you know what I mean, not in a mean way, but kind of detached, not knowing them), as I have no relationship with that person.😳

@Green..... I grudgingly have to agree to this as well. If Aryan is my sibling, I would have shut down all that Imlie is being credited for..... like what? She cured pyrophobia and ended Aryan's dard? I mean how? The hijacked revenge track because of some people, Aryan's wajood ko hila kar rakh dia💔 you just can't give credit for that to Imlie. As a viewer, who watched that revenge investigation track of Imlie, barring a few dialogues from Imlie, it felt like she was investigating to clear patrakaar rather than help Aryan or Arpita. In the writers misplaced zeal to keep Imlie's feelings ambiguous ( may be keep us on the edge of our seats?), when the revenge track got derailed by people's exit, whatever Imlie said about " doing it for Aryan" felt like last minute lip service.

Yes, she did bring a different perspective, a breath of fresh air, an innocence, her awe about life, a distraction to Rathore family, like how an innocent baby or a puppy brings to a stale, tense atmosphere😃. These are all inherently her qualities, who she is that made a difference to that family. But to say " Imlie has done so much to our family" had me scratching my head🤔 Do you know what your brother has done to Imlie, Arpita. I mean, I know it is not a balance sheet of who does what, but, still, mein rakhti hoon na😈

I did feel very bad for that young girl's grief in the dyeing ghat that day. I felt happy for her being ecstatic when she received Aryan's invitation to go out👍🏼 As I feel that she deserves to be happy. I however, didn't like the fact that " yeah, I know you are crazy for me, let me twist you a little more" attitude. May be I am nitpicking here. A girl who had gone through so much, coming from a background as hers, with her mother being a single mother, her being raised amidst constant atrocities by the nakli naani, her ex-husband being a bigamist, she would have had a blind spot of " I can't get love that easily, certainly NOT from THE ASR"She may have developed finer feelings for Aryan( I mean, who doesn't if somebody does so much for you and is in the role of your husband), but would have been afraid to give herself that permission because of self doubt. And therefore, I assumed that she was ecstatic as her husband was taking her out. But, NO

The point is, we have felt every emotion, we were there at every turn with Aryan's trajectory of his fondness, friendship, his mentorship, his fiercely protective instincts and finally his love towards Imlie. Pata hi nahi chala how one blended into the other. This is what happens na in real life? ❤️But none from Imlie. She went to the extent of saying " I will have to bear with him" 👎🏼 Like what the heck🤢If any of us knew that " bearing an ASR like person" is our fate, we would die a thousand times and live again to bear this fate khushi, khushi se😎

OK, where am I going with this? Not sure, just had to empty out my bhadhas With her constant jaap of T family and patrakaar as her apne despite all the atrocities and humiliations she was served and her refusal to break ties with them physically or emotionally, I don't know how she will look in the future. Like for eg: she chooses to leave Aryan or the Rathore family for whatever reason, I will be the first to say" WTH"💔

@Pink.... I generally don't care for these dressed up confessions. I prefer a more natural, spur of the moment confessions👍🏼 So, yeah! I didn't care for it.

I have a lot more to say about the creep Baba. But, will stop now. I am repulsed by words and phrases" organic, positivity, universe, hum wahi kiye jo humein sahi laga" etc. 😵

OK, ji, I will stop now instead of rambling on and on........😊

I didn't give 100% to romance meter malfunction only because of FK and sumbul's acting. that said, I really can't ignore the flaws of the arc. I am not mad that I feel cheated but I do feel a bit let down from the show. I love logic in writing and I want to be immersed in a story. give me magic so that I don't notice all sorts of other things beside the plot. if you give me proper writing, I will ignore all the absurdities and just enjoy. however, if writers write stupidity in the middle and then give a great scene, it really gets a meh from me.

I was laughing at the treedate for various reasons.

#1, if you are going to be building on stilts, there is no way the logs are so thin that you can just tumble over. that is super bad construction.

#2, I was cracking up they built it next to a mud swamp. that is super bad for foundation and even a non-engineer will have some sense to build it a little far away? and mud swamps just have mosquitoes and so before any confession, they are more likely to be swatting insects and battling pre-dengue. 🤣

#3, I was dying when they showed jo cutting the wood. this was obviously written by some city folk who have never ventured into the forest. do people realize how quiet it is when there is no traffic? 🤣🤣🤣 you can hear someone approaching just by their walk because it is so quiet. and I am supposed to buy that these two were so busy being romantic they never heard an axe? 🤣🤣🤣

Conflict is missing in present arylie but I feel they deserve it the confession part atleast . I know they r deprived of a storyline coz of the stupid exit and a major Chun of actors a conflict but I am ok with the confession part .

coz maybe it may lead to future conflicts in thier journey.

double-posted by mistake

Originally posted by: mango.falooda

let me give you a hug! 🤩👏

this, 100% -- I understand the actor leaving messed up everything but would have loved to see what you described. I also enjoyed the marriage track because of the intense push and pull. so it feels very anti-climatic since then. them randomly confessing for whatever joy? okay, I just want them to break up so we can feel that intensity again. 😁

Yess I am team break-up as well ..But in a way where they are still in each other's face 24x7 serving angry looks to each other. Would hate for a separation track where Imlie leaves the house and their scenes together are cut down considerably.

I also think the pregnancy track is the worst possible way to create a break-up though. If it turns into Aryan doubting Imlie's loyalty, it's going to make him seem like another AKT, when the entire point of the story so far has been to show how he is different and better. Which is again why I don't like how rushed everything is. They should have spent more time on creating conflict from inner turmoil before a confession instead of serving us a random pregnancy track.

mili - I totally agree with you; aryan is a very passionate person and so we have been getting signals for a while that things are changing for him. so it makes sense that his confession would have a feeling of explosion and drama. however, for imlie? am sorry but the writers totally dropped the ball. I think they wanted it be ambigious for a long while because she was getting divorced and the optics for many of the audience would felt weird -- how does a woman go from one man to another with hardly any time lapse? or maybe the writers wanted a triangle situation where she went back and forth till she finally chose one guy?

the other problem is that imlie had far more passion and drama when it came to tripathy family and how she just had to save their house. we can all remember her "apne!" dialogues and drama. so her muted reactions to aryan just makes me go "hmmm".. it makes me ask "is this a rebound?"

and I had the same feelings as your reaction to arpita -- I am not sure what she has contributed really toward his life. it is because we have not seen him really work on his grief. there was no step by step. the idea that she exposed the villain behind arvind's death and that gave him instantaneous relief -- am sorry, even cold medicine does not give immediate relief. 😂

Originally posted by: stardust_0

Yess I am team break-up as well ..But in a way where they are still in each other's face 24x7 serving angry looks to each other. Would hate for a separation track where Imlie leaves the house and their scenes together are cut down considerably.

I also think the pregnancy track is the worst possible way to create a break-up though. If it turns into Aryan doubting Imlie's loyalty, it's going to make him seem like another AKT, when the entire point of the story so far has been to show how he is different and better. Which is again why I don't like how rushed everything is. They should have spent more time on creating conflict from inner turmoil before a confession instead of serving us a random pregnancy track.

because my feel is that neither of the actors want to play parents as of yet -- my guess is that she is going to have a miscarriage and both of them are going to blame each other and tear each other apart for the loss. that is one way to create angst from a random pregnancy track. if done well, it can be riveting angst. if badly written, just rona dhona.

Originally posted by: mango.falooda

same! he ruined the show and its potential. I don't understand how you can come in there and not even be present for 50 episode and have an ego issue over being the lead. my guess is he was incredibly difficult that they couldn't hold him to the contract. not professional at all.

Oh absolutely he gave that vibe tbh . Its not even he was a great actor who was not recognised. He was given his chances he failed . I don' t buy his narrative that he didn't know adi will turn negative that was literally the way story was progressing. On top of that the fake trends. He is actually lucky that it is not ekta show she would have made sure he doesn't get work .

I personally feel sad for team, actors and writers , they already had story planned that to a great one dealing with second chances and processing grief. But just bcz of one person all that went down the drain. I especially feel sad for aryan's character and feel robbed as a viewer bcz the way fahmaan acts he would have killed it.

Also i actually think their initial plan during Purandass track was to make adi guilty but due to actor they had to change it.

Ahh it hurts everytime i think what could havr been but i still want show to do good bcz team and actors deserve it.

All i can hope is that now with the equation changed they atleast got something to.work.with. lets hope the coming track might help them get back their footing.

Mango ji, nice take. For me, post original AKT, the show started to go in trial and test mode, continuity is lost from episode to episode. Imlie is never shown to pursue her dreams except for words.

However, I still love and take it as it comes because I love FK and ST's acting. Their bonding and chemistry is such a pleasure to watch. I have stopped using logic. Dont care about yellow foundation or Imlie's choice of sarees and accessories, the only black shirt that Aryan has..All devils left unpunished.