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Celebrations abound! Ben's truth is finally out and can you believe, it was not a precap cliff- hanger?!
Okay, before I get to the positives, now I will be a little greedy and claim one complaint against the CVs. I would have hoped Jalal's mindshare would have been totally consumed by Jodha- today it was split with Ruqaiyya. I know from tomorrow will be Jalal totally thinking about Jodha but in any case I will take Ben's exit today.
No matter how they would have executed the episode, I would have loved the episode for Ben's exit (or close to it) but here was a take on the top things I loved about the episode and for a change I was able to find more than 5 easily but still here is my top 5:
1. Traveling down memory lane: I loved today's episode for bringing back every Akdha scene I loved. It started with the muh dikhayi where Jalal could see only Jodha. As Jodha drank the poison, all her vachans came back to her. And the flashback of all the epic scenes including the aarthi hand holding came back. It reminded me the vintage Jodha Akbar I fell in love with and I hope the CVs realize what a high bar they have set for themselves. Nearly all the scenes they chose were not from recent episodes - its because they have not created strong Akdha scenes in recent times. Hope the CVs realized they owe us a few! I loved Jalal's tender caressing of Jodha's forehead - now I am ready for more Akdha scenes.
2. Ben spelled out the truth of Jodha, MA, and Ruqs: while i feel Ben's dialogue delivery was OTT and too loud (my mom asked me why she was screaming!) , I liked how she spelled out three truths very clearly that Jodha begum saved his life even if he did not care for him (loved Jalal's pained reaction to this), Ruqs helped her foolishly to put Jodha down, and so did MA. I think Jalal, would never had understood what Ruqs and MA did in the background otherwise. I hope Jalal comes back to this later.
3. Loved how Ruqs paid at least a little price with Ben taking her hostage. So much for thinking she would always be at her feet for making this marriage happen. Do I think this will lead to a transformation in Ruqs? Unfortunately not. Even with Ben she was selfishly asking, "humne tumhaara kya bigaada?" As if as Ruqs has helped her so Ben should not have used her- so should Ben have kidnapped Salima?
4. Jalal asked the question that was on all of our minds. What is going on here with his security and administration? Jodha is dying from poison, Ruqs is kidnapped, and Abu Mali has escaped. Imagine when he realizes even Sharif had better spies than him! Hopefully, he wakes up and smartens up now. While I think his execution orders for Abu Mali was random, I think it showed that when Jodha is hurt, he goes for extreme actions including killing his sister's husband- I think it was more for MA's silent observations of all these actions. She is afraid what will happen if Jalal ever finds out MA had hurt Jodha a lot.
5. I think there were a quite a few people who dreaded the Shehenshah on his knees since Hakim Mirza described how love brings even a Shehenshah to his knees. However, two things made it much better than I had expected: one he is on his knees in front of God and not in front of Jodha as she was struggling for her life and Rajat was just sooo good in his emotions asking for Jodha's life. I think anybody can be on his/her knees in front of God.
Wishing for some mind-blowing Akhda scenes in the coming days!
Arjun
