The Family Man 3

In episode four of the third season of The Family Man – Srikant Tiwari (Manoj Bajpayee) gets nostalgic. He asks JK (Sharib Hashmi) if he remembers Kareem – a dissident Kashmiri student who was killed in the first season because of Srikant’s misplaced suspicion. I might be reading too much into it, but it almost felt like creators Raj Nidimoru, Krishna D.K. and Suman Kumar were getting wistful about a time during the first season when there was endless possibility.

Gifted actor Jaideep Ahlawat is not the only common factor between the second season of ‘Paatal Lok’ and the third outing of ‘The Family Man’. At first glance, the plot too seems achingly similar. The storyline is set in the beauteous Northeast — Nagaland, to be precise. A peace accord with the rebels is in order and a grandfather-grandson conflict forms a solid leitmotif. Despite these familiarities, creators Raj & DK are on top of their game once again.

The Family Man Season 3 starts from where Season 2 had left off, with top TASC agent Srikant (Manoj Bajpayee) finding himself embroiled in a snowballing crisis in Nagaland. The stakes are higher than ever. Serial bombs have claimed lives. A major casualty can be the high-profile ‘Project Sahakar’, which we are told is on the verge of being signed by ‘all rebel leaders’ in the North East: it is an initiative close to pro-active PM Basu’s (Seema Biswas) heart, meant to address long-standing grievances, and hold out promise of lasting peace and prosperity.

A high-profile summit between Delhi and North-East India — the ‘mainland’ and the ‘margins’ — is around the corner. Nagaland is the sensitive face of this summit. The region is divided between rebel factions who distrust the centre and older statesmen who bat for peace and integration. A veteran leader is killed. Officers from outside arrive to lead an uncertain investigation featuring political strife, local divides, drug dealers, foreign forces, covert business interests, historical trauma, traitors, scapegoats and shifting loyalties. A secondary character dies, making it personal for the grief-stricken protagonist; his allegiances are questioned, and he is suspended. There is a mole in the midst. A little orphan searches for belonging. A conspiracy unfolds beyond borders and within governments. Our hero in a dysfunctional marriage must clear his name without compromising on his moral fibre. But enough about Season 2 of Paatal Lok.

Things are personal this time in The Family Man 3. Everyone is fighting or seeking revenge for a personal loss, and everyone has a clear agenda. Manoj Bajpayee returns to Prime Video’s popular web series The Family Man as the smart, quick on heels and very middle-class Intelligence officer Srikant Tiwari. In the third season, Srikant is finally forced to spend time with his family- and protect them at all costs- while solving an intricate geo-political case and even clearing his name from a crime that he never committed. Naturally, the stakes are high, and The Family Man 3 weaves a very elaborate plot involving some old characters and lots of references from previous seasons.

A middle-class intelligence officer juggling high-stakes national security threats with his chaotic family life. When The Family Man sauntered into our living rooms in 2019, it offered a fresh take on the spy genre, one that eschewed existing clichés. It raised the bar for Indian OTT thrillers, with Manoj Bajpayee’s nuanced performance anchoring the narrative.

Blending humour with heart, marrying honesty with ingenuity and melding the geopolitical with the personal has been the trademark of The Family Man. It is a formula that has worked for the eyeball-grabbing, almost-cult series across two seasons. Except that none of it has ever felt like formula. That is primarily — if not solely, in many instances — been because of its Everyman protagonist. Manoj Bajpayee’s Srikant Tiwari aka “The Family Man” has never been a conventional secret agent. His looks are deceptive and his ticking time-bomb of a mind is masked by an otherwise imperceptible demeanour, but every time The Family Man has come perilously close to falling prey to convention, its unconventional hero has pulled it back. That also forms the bedrock of its latest season, one that has been feverishly anticipated ever since the curtains came down on its sophomore outing four years ago.