Imagine someone who was the main head of comic sketches like 'Barely speaking with Urnabh' and wrote and created TVF shows mainly dealing with comedy and slice of life dramatic moments, decided to go completely dark and create one of the darkest human survival series ever, forget just being most darkest in India. Yup, this is literally coming from team of TVF, the writer Biswapati Sarkar, show runner Sameer Saxena and producer Saurabh Khanna! No wonder this isn't a TVF production but Posham Pa Pictures after the split. Kaala Paani, set in Andaman Nicobar is easily amongst the best series made in India yet.
In this year itself we've seen many terrific series coming out, be it Asur 2, Scoop, Jubilee, Farzi, Guns n Gulaab, Aspirants sequel and spin offs, now Kaala Paani. Biswapati Sarkar has taken a complete dark turn and wrote something forget from TVF guys making this, even Anurag Kashyap couldn't think of making something so depressing. The lightest and perhaps most TVF part of this series was its first episode, with some gags around and then the gags disappear and everything else gives us COVID lockdown feel, except in an island and caused due to water issues. The LHF bacteria symptoms also seemed horrifying, to the extent it freaked me out whenever someone had hiccups or even looking at water how terrifying it would be. Only major plot hole I could say was why didn't they show what would happen if the water was boiled.
Nevertheless the dark and Ominous atmosphere put everyone in terrifying situations, almost every character had a dark back story, some of the part seemed unnecessary and some characters were sidelined which too should've been avoided. Nevertheless other parts were beautifully shown, especially the Oraka Tribes and the faith they have, why they're worshipped and what happens to them in the end was truly unexpected. But what really stands out besides Andaman and Oraka tribes are the characters complexity portrayed. You could feel for some characters, despise others and some places even question for such minor actions can cause major consequences. The cinematography and setting might give some people a reference of Dark, the grounded approach and unimaginable situations for the protagonists, except unlike Dark that takes sci fi turn this one remains as grounded and humane approach as possible. Another thing that stands out is the social message, saying in the end it's the Nature and Humanity that will win over everything. Also flipping the switch analogy even gives us a choice what would we do, a bad decision or lesser bad decision. The themes were beautiful.
Performances wise almost everyone did a pitch perfect job, it was all about how characters were treated. Mona Singh was the Main Character in this series, whatever anyone says just for one episode she deserves at least best actress nomination. Yes I said one episode because she was given a Ned Stark treatment in this Kaala Paani, except it happens in first episode itself! The world was shocked seeing Ned Stark die in first season of GOT, Mona Singh's death is even more shocking killing her in first episode itself! While Mona Singh was developed as the lead, doesn't mean any other character gets side lined later on, as every other supporting characters take center stage and become the leads. If Mona Singh is Ned Stark of this show, Vikas Kumar as Santosh Savla is the Walter White to Heisenberg, except in lesser timespan even more extreme. Reason because in the start of the series Santosh was afraid of asking for water in the plane, the introvertness was relatable especially coming from my own experience or getting publicly humiliated by your own son. Just because of someone else's selfishness Santosh finds himself in worst situation possible, losses his wife Gargi(Sarika Singh another great but short performance), loses his innocence, from pure vegetarian to killing a snake just to eat its egg and then finding himself cremating his own son not as his father, the character arc went even more menacing and killed the very person who saved his children's life. While Santosh goes through the most depressing and horrifying situation, Vikas' acting was commendable as well, watch out for the scenes when he cries his heart out, or a heartfelt scene with his son Gucchu who hates being called that and prefers Parth, knowing his wife is going to die, to learning of Parth's death, to finally getting to see his daughter Kaddu and finally killing Jyotsna, the arc was deadlier than Bre Ba did. The other best written character was Sukant Goel's Chiranjeevi, how he was introduced as an extremely flawed character, even in dire situation seeking to extort money from Savla family to seeing his friend die, later learning about Oraka tribes and then his own origins and why his family dedicates their life to Oraka. While I was satisfied by his character getting complete arc, I wish there were more scenes of his and his brother Vineesh, who deserved more scenes with Jyotsna as well. Coming to Arushi Sharma as Jyotsna, definitely she had darkest backstory, some of which seemed unnecessary like divorce part or her friend dying. Maybe her leaving her profession was only sensible backstory needed because it took her only one episode to overcome her inner demons, but her saving Gucchu and Kaddu was heart wrenching as well. While it was needed for Santosh to go full breaking bad, Jyotsna shouldn't have got killed, especially when Vineesh and Ritu were depended on her and the plant later turned out to be Jyotsna's plant she had planted in childhood. The other major character was Ritu, again and unneeded backstory but her being the savior was needed as well, I'm glad Ritu who was almost overlooked and dismissed as junior was improved upon and developed better. The other antagonizing character who changed for good was definitely Amey Wagh as ACP Ketan Kamat, the Marathi police officer who seemingly had a backstory why he turned from good to evil till you realize he can never be a good person and was always villainous. Only if he hadn't bribed his way out for powerful businessmen in this the entire series hadn't had taken place, and how he was the absolute evil guy, till he learns the actual reason for the bacteria to comeback and his change of heart especially for Ritu turned him into positive guy and got himself beaten up. Finally he got his favorite masala jazz flavor was what symbolism really meant. Hated him in the start and loved him in the end. Only problem with Amey Wagh performance was it seemed way too similar to Ritiesh Deshmukh's acting if Ritiesh was young, which shouldn't be a complain but Amey should have his own identity instead of mimicking Ritiesh. Ashutosh Gowarikar, almost had no change in character arc had only one conflicting scene that was the last episode. Not much about him is needed yet his small one dimensional role was good and subtle, yet standing tall. Rajesh Khattar, another one dimensional typical rich evil business tycoon had some meaty performance in last episode when the big reveal comes just to land the helicopter how such a big pandemic broke out was unimaginable yet seemed to make sense due to how COVID came out. Sarika Singh as Gargi, Poornima Indrajith, Chinmay Mandlekar and other supporting cast having smaller roles but leave impact one important scenes
There were many performances that I might've missed to mention, especially cast from Oraka Tribes, they all were short but exceptionally well. Kaala Paani has some plot holes but it is definitely the amongst best series made this year. Going with 8/10.
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