‘What The Folks Season 3’ is the new installation to this family dramedy by Dice Media. It is a weekly web series which releases on YouTube. New episodes are launched every Saturday in this video sharing platform. The first episode of the third season aired on October 5, 2019.
Directed by- Omar Iyer
Produced by- Ashwin Suresh, Anirudh Pandita, Aditi Srivastava
Written by- Anand Bhardwaj, Ayesha Nair, Pranav Tonsekar
Running Time- 20 – 30 minutes
Starring- Veer Rajwant Singh, Eisha Chopra, Deepika Amin, Renuka Shahane, Kriti Vij, Ashish Bhatia
Plot
Season three revolves around the protagonist couple Anita played by Eisha Chopra and Nikhil played by Veer Rajwant Singh. Anita, an independent working woman, is trying to maintain a work-life balance. Whereas, Nikhil, who was struggling with his start-up in the last two seasons, is shown to have flourished this time. Amidst a lot of richness and elaborated way of living, the fly in the ointment is when parents’ intervene with “Khandan ka Naam age Badao” ideology.
Analysis
A modern – Indian drama is often hard to pull off with all the necessary ingredients like comedy, emotions, intricacies of its characters – all in the right proportion. Something which Zoya Akhtar has done beautifully in ‘Dil Dhadakne Do’. A quintessential, wealthy industrial family, resides in a posh locale of Delhi, goes cruising to celebrate marriage anniversary of the couple played by Shefali Shah and Anil Kapoor, which in actuality is hollow from within. From the periphery, the family appears to be bound together by strong relationships, where in reality, it is quite dysfunctional, and the dysfunctionality has been off the beaten track.
As an audience, you laugh, dance, sing, feel good with the characters – but somewhere you sense an underlying tension which can break out any moment – and their vulnerability equally laps you around. It is a drama which has an essence of comedy but somehow not derived from comedy – or comedy not diluted in show. And that’s how the depth of the characters does not diminish even with their larger-than-life, un-relatable lifestyle.
There is a connection in all three series. The characters have complexities which peek through, in some way, their complications come out fabricated to have some substance in the narrative. It almost appears as if the show is somewhat wrestling between the intricacies and cliched.
For instance, Anita, the modern, Indian woman who is quite successful and good at what she does has broken few stereotypes such as being older than her husband, long-distance marriage, earning more than her counterpart etc. This season has outgrown all that woman’s guilt and shifted the focus into something more cliched – ‘heir’ – which is the central conflict of the season.
However, the season is full of emotions and tender feelings which are heartfelt and sincere. Such as when Anita’s mother, Sudha, sits in her living room and stares blankly at the walls and furniture, her agony of loneliness and idealisation feels genuine. Or when Shreya, Nikhil’s sister, sets up her room just like their Dehradun’s house to make a home away from home will make you a little nostalgic. All these moments are intense and wholehearted and add richness to the narrative, but it does not blossom into something astounding or memorable but enjoyable.
After 30 minutes and 15 seconds watch, you may not think of these characters again, but you would know that those 30 minutes of your life were quite joyful.
