Daldal

In ‘Bhakshak’, Bhumi Pednekar’s Vaishali Singh busted the wrongdoings in a shelter home. In ‘Daldal’, her character is face to face with a victim-turned-assassin from the same place. Before you accuse us of letting the cat out of the bag, let it be said that the seven-episode crime thriller is not exactly a whodunit. Early on, by Episode 2, we know who the killer is. So, it’s the why and how which is more significant. Suresh Triveni, who gave us the delightful ‘Tumhari Sullu’ and ‘Jalsa’, is the creator of the series.

A tale of damaged people caught in a psychological swamp, Daldal is a thriller that is more keen on uncovering the motivations behind the crime than on who committed it. The plot follows DCP Rita Ferreira (Bhumi Pednekar) investigating a series of gruesome murders while confronting her guilt-ridden past and a patriarchal system that projects committed female police officers as mere showpieces.

I like how Daldal opens. A woman is seated with her older friend at a local bakery. She does not look pleased; they’re discussing a love poem written by a boy across from them. Her friend teases her. They’re used to his lecherous gaze. Suddenly the two women get a call and leave. We soon learn that they were actually ACP Rita Ferrera (Bhumi Pednekar) and sub-inspector Indu Mhatre (the ever-watchable Geeta Agrawal Sharma) waiting to raid a brothel in Mumbai’s red-light area. The boy was actually a student, because Rita had infiltrated the area as an undercover teacher. It’s one thing for Rita to pretend to be someone else, it’s another for the series itself to pretend that she’s someone else. After the raid, we see her come home to a fiancè cooking dinner. He brings her some wine. We expect her to soften. Within seconds, we learn that this is, in fact, a couple on the verge of separation; one of them is moving out. This is a recurring trick — it shows us the expectation panel before hitting us with reality. It’s like even the camera is not in on the illusion: it bakes the average Indian viewer’s conditioning and gaze into the film-making. This extends to the end of the episode. The dual identity of a killer is revealed; the victims, too, seem to be older males who hide behind the veil of virtue.

Serial killers are flooding Mumbai. Just a couple of months back, Madhuri Dixit was hot on their heels in the web series ‘Mrs Deshpande’. Now it’s Bhumi Satish Pednekkar’s turn to do the same in ‘Daldal’. Both women have dark pasts, both confront their demons while navigating the quicksand of the present, in which good guys, bad guys and ill intentions wallow: by now, these tales, despite differences in plot and place, feel almost templated.

Daldal, adapted from Vish Dhamija’s novel Bhendi Bazaar, is a crime thriller created by Suresh Triveni, written with Sreekanth Agneeaswaran, Rohan D’Souza and Priya Saggi, and directed by Amrit Raj Gupta. The seven-episode series on Prime Video revolves around DCP Rita Ferreira (Bhumi Pednekkar), a Mumbai Police officer investigating a serial killer. Rita is introduced as brooding, humourless and emotionally sealed off. Violent when provoked, shaped by childhood trauma, Rita is also nursing the fallout of a broken engagement.

Daldal opens in a Mumbai that you rarely get to see. We are thrust into this psychological crime thriller, where a stoic female cop character hunts for a serial killer with a penchant for gallows humour. The series itself is grim and serious, with nary a moment of levity. Let’s dive into Daldal, its plot and ending, which will be explained here.