When was the last time you saw Pankaj Tripathi working on screen?
Arguably one of the brightest stars of the streaming era, whose stratospheric rise began with the first season of Amazon Prime Video’s Mirzapur (2018), Tripathi’s USP as an actor has always been his seeming ease – or the way he breathes life even into his “auto-pilot” performances.
While playing versions of himself in several Hindi films and shows, very rarely does Pankaj Tripathi give a performance whose artifice one can see through. A significant chunk of Tripathi’s Kaleen Bhaiya is powered by his regal costume, his throne and his assured demeanour. In the third season, one can almost see the production challenging Tripathi to resurrect this character minus any of these crutches.
After being near-fatally injured in the second season, Tripathi’s Kaleen Bhaiya spends the first few episodes of the third season in coma, slowly finding his footing as the season goes on. He does not have the same footprint as the earlier seasons, but what remains palpable is how hard Tripathi is seen working to fill his character outline. The strained dialogue delivery (because he is the metaphorical injured lion), the stiff body language, and the red gamchha (towel) around his neck almost seem like Tripathi is parodying his own ‘ease’ in some scenes.
Mirzapur has always been a fascinating show to dissect.
A heady concoction of high and low art, the series invokes staples of a pulpy Prakash Jha hinterland story, fused with the whimsical humour of Anurag Kashyap’s Wasseypur films; a dash of Coppola, Ram Gopal Varma and Shakespeare thrown into all this. Even in the midst of all its ‘inspiration’, Mirzapur has nearly always managed to be its own thing with rich, colourful characters and dialogues, who can be surprisingly introspective when the time comes.
A still from the third season of Mirzapur.
The first season of Mirzapur was successful because of how much of it felt like a wink at genre fans of the gangster crime drama. The second one, despite its disjointed-ness in certain portions, took some brave swings at what was a story of eternal revenge. In the third season, it was time for Mirzapur to forge its own path forward without looking at other films/shows, and the result is its most tentative season yet.
Starting off in the aftermath of the finale of the second season, most of the season hinges between Guddu Pandit (Ali Fazal) and Sharad Shukla (Anjumm Sharmma) vying for the throne of Purvanchal, and another track occurs between Bharat Tyagi (Vijay Varma) and Golu Gupta (Shweta Tripathi Sharma) – who are trying to settle scores for the blood bath that happened at the end of season 2, where Shatrughan (also played by Vijay Varma) shot his twin, Bharat, and then took on his identity.
If it sounds convoluted, it’s by design. This is exactly the kind of B-movie plot twist that the makers of Mirzapur relish. In a hilarious scene in the third season, as Shatrughan pretends to be Bharat, a scene from Farhan Akhtar’s Don (2006), where the titular Don is shown taking the place of his lookalike, plays in the background. It helps that Akhtar (and producer Ritesh Sidhwani) are the producers here too, but it showcases how much fun Mirzapur can be when everyone hits their mark in the show. Alas, in the third season, such moments are rare.
A still from the third season of Mirzapur.
The third season goes around in circles as Guddu stakes claim to be the rightful heir of Mirzapur. Sharad, who sneakily shipped Kaleen Bhaiya and nursed him back to health, is also a contender. Golu is doggedly pursuing Kaleen Bhaiya, Shatrughan is trying to adjust to his new life as Bharat, while fixating on how he’s going to get his revenge on Golu for her deception. Ramakant Pandit (Rajesh Tailang), Guddu’s father, is intent on serving his sentence for killing a cop, who was going to kill Guddu in a fake encounter. Chief Minister Madhuri Yadav (Isha Talwar) announces her vision of turning Uttar Pradesh into a bhay-mukt (fear-free) state, scheming with cops to bump off local baahubalis. Bina Tripathi (a creepy Rasika Dugal) has her own eyes set on the throne for Mirzapur after having undergone indignities in the first two seasons.
A large part for this dip in graph has to do with a variety of reasons:
First, the character of Sharad – who takes the place of Munna Tripathi (Divyenndu). As Sharad, Anjumm Sharmma is never quite as colourful, cheeky or captivating as Munna. He’s straitjacketed into a character without any unusual flavour. Similarly, Isha Talwar’s Madhuri Yadav is an acting assignment that seems to be feeding off of Katrina Kaif’s role in Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti (2010).
A still from the third season of Mirzapur.
It’s a flatly-written role, performed even less memorably. Vijay Varma as Shatrughan pretending to be Bharat, is reliably trusted with doing some vile things in the company of sex workers, but the showrunners seem to treat his character and story with selective amnesia. And it’s most clear when the entire climax takes place without the slightest mention of the Tyagis.
Shweta Tripathi Sharma as Golu is a good mix of vulnerable, acute and acidic. But one of the season’s biggest disappointments is the arc of Guddu Pandit. Fazal’s is one of the longest and most committed arcs in Indian streaming, and it’s hard watching it go off the rails in the third season. As a haunted Guddu searches for more interiority than he’s ever done, Fazal dials up the theatrics to Al Pacino proportions. To the point, where Mirzapur S03 never quite reciprocates the love and effort of Fazal’s sincerity, making him look silly in more than one scene.
Credit where it’s due, Mirzapur is still ‘binge-able’. It continues to have cheeky, compelling dialogue that riffs on current affairs, a few characters worth investing in, and a landscape revolving around peoples’ lust for power.
It will never not be an intriguing premise for a show. But the third season of Mirzapur doesn’t have the ruthless efficiency of its first two seasons. It’s safe to say that Mirzapur has overstayed its welcome. It’s no longer the hungry underdog, but an overfed, spoiled veteran, resting on its past laurels. To paraphrase Golu from the third season, when she sees through Shatrughan’s lack of a plan as he holds her captive and tortures her, Mirzapur S03 pretends to know where it’s headed. The sad part is: it doesn’t.
