Prathyush Parasuraman
Maharani Season 3 is an exercise in exquisite mush-making to give us a political drama that is dull as rocks with some half-baked veins of truth. we’re left with in this third season is mush, devoid of either shape or centre.
The central throughline is proving the innocence of Rani Bharti, reminiscent of Rabri Devi, wife of former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, while also veering away from that parallel because of the glamour that Huma Qureshi effortlessly commands.
The writing, bordering on the banal at best, comical at worst, never makes space for a victory. The show drags its feet in one of the most lethargic attempts at political drama.
Rani's absence from the screen is not supposed to indicate her absence in the political life of the world, but this kind of observation only makes sense if her absence through the show is erased by a later presence so witty and wily that the show emerges, finally, but at least it does.
The scenes in the local parliament, the exchange of speeches that are supposed to be fiery, are so damp and shredded, the raucous raised so shrunk in energy, sucked out of any of that vitality, any of that cunning meta vim which makes the genre both delicious and reflective.
Some meandering metaphors, a local idiom, some grandstanding, some razzmatazz staging — the show loves its unearned top shots — to say what, sometimes, could have just been a dialogue, or a glance.