- Date of Release: 19 December 2025
- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Language: Hindi
- Watch On: Amazon Prime Video
Four More Shots Please! (Season 4)
Introduction
Imagine stepping into a bar for a drink – something that you savour in every sip of it. The drink arrives and it is fancy – with a dash of basil and a cherry on top, tempting as ever for you to consume and attain nirvana. Just then, your friend call for shots – a bitter tequila with salt and lemon on the side. It remains a starter of sorts before you enjoy your main spirit. But the shots keep coming – four more, and then some more and more – so much so that you suddenly feel pukish and want to throw up. Your primary drink remains untouched while all your shots are threatening to splash out. The reviews won’t tell you this – the ‘Four More Shots Please’ franchise suffers from a similar fate. A desi attempt at the S*x and the city show, it captured the ravishing vibe of the city of Mumbai through four girls – two in their twenties and two in their thirties, even as they stumbled upon various silly, frivolous and meaningful encounters along the way.
For an Indian consumer, it was a difficult show to digest – almost refusing to awaken to this form of women empowerment that had non-conformist tones to it. I remember sticking by my thoughts on how much I had enjoyed the show back then, an ode to my twenties wherein relationships were equated to mistakes, only to shape the person I am today. But come the fourth and final season, I couldn’t help but think on how the show refused to grow up – tackling the same kind of issues that the characters had faced in the first season. It is messy alright but without a subtext that very much formed the fabric of storytelling in the previous seasons.
Story & Screenplay
The fourth season of Four More Shots Please almost gave me an impression that the writers were on a notice period, given how sketchy and frivolous the final round of shots turned out to be. As a viewer, I expect arcs and conflicts tagged to the characters even as they mature over seasons – for starters in the previous season, I had liked Damini Roy’s (Sayani Gupta) political subtext lacing her character that cut through the confused outlook that she had to life. That meant, she had a personality beyond the frivolous nature of her relationships. But the sole conflict here is buried in the garb of frivolousness that sees her wanting to start a podcast while living a life of guilt-stricken solitude through her 30s. Where is the conflict?
Likewise, the same conflict is riddled with a couple more characters on the show – Umang (Bani J) and Anjana (Kirti Kulhari), both seeking their Mr/Mrs (they/them) Right while otherwise being a part of the crowd. The idea to skew their personalities wasn’t such a good idea – Anjana, despite being a lawyer is hardly found in courts or her office, often sees starting a steamy affair with her next-door colleague Rohan (Dino Morea), or randomly wanting to learn Salsa. Her s*xcapades define her loneliness something that felt woefully one-dimensional when viewed through the lens of women-empowerment. I really don’t have an issue with this, but if this is made her only identity in the concluding season, it undoes a lot of the issues that the show stood up for including that of strained relationships or Anjana being a single mother. Don’t get me wrong, she is allowed to have all the fun she wants to – but she needs to have a life outside her relationships too.
Likewise, Umang faces her set of issues too in the want to meet her soulmate through the dating apps. This, while she fares a little better than Anjana with respect to finding a partner who would identify with her identity of a queer. This, even as the writing aimlessly brings her closer to a few women in the most uninteresting and inorganic way possible. I legit think an as*xual character was introduced just for the representation sake, and breaking the pattern of every character having a chance to hookup with other characters. Yes, the writing felt as frivolous as that.
I can’t help but think that the (relatively) best arc was reserved for Siddhi (Maanvi Gagroo) who finally marries her prince charming Mihir (Rajeev Siddhartha), only for trouble to creep into her marriage starting with intimacy. Again, the gaze maybe bordering on being problematic – almost being guilty of passing off a serious problem like a comedy. But atleast there was some substance to her arc that ranged from infactuation towards Ashokaditya (Kunaal Roy Kapur), Damini’s brother to cracking jokes on her husband and her relationship as a part of her standup comedy, much to the dismay of Mihir. At a point, you can feel the distance (literally speaking) between the couple that threatens to derail their relationship.
The writing tries to cash in on the nostalgia by bringing in a variety of the characters from the previous seasons, mostly in the form of exes of all characters. The tone wishes to be consistently breezy but it also ends up being frivolous given the sleazy undertones that it employs in trying to stir up the comedy. I didn’t twitch an inch for a start, something that was rather uncommon for me during the previous seasons of the show that progressively began to deteriorate. Yep, it felt like one shots too many!
On the plus, I liked how some of the resolutions in the final episode had some heart tagged to the situations created – be it Umang reminiscing about the what-ifs while witnessing her exes wedding, or Damini quietly wanting a patch-up with Jeh (Prateik Patil Babbar), or even the frivolous patch up between Mihir and Siddhi. I am not going to lie, it did feel dreamy alright. And therein lay the spirit of the finale that needed to build on this very tone right from the start. In the same breath, it needed to have an emotional undertone to atleast justify the maturity of the characters as opposed to a frivolous and sleazy tone. Sleaze wasn’t the issue, the lack of emotions were, in a season finale that was forgettable at best!
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues might be intended to be non-conformist, and while they aide in breezy conversations, the lines lack the fizz here. The music is indeed beautiful while complimenting the effervescent undertones of the drama. The BGM is decent but overtly used through the drama, almost with the itch to aide every frivolous emotion in the scenes (even in quieter ones), something that tilted the drama towards being slightly manipulative in what it wanted its viewers to feel. The cinematography adds grandeur and scale to the drama, with some beautiful wide-angle shots that capture the spirit of the different cities that the show’s landscape extends to. In fact, you can see the city of Mumbai having aged through its four seasons, although I would have loved a searing parallel with respect to the characters too. But the aesthetics are definitely in place with the use of calming pastel shades that compliment the ambience of the drama, and the luxurious attires of the characters.
The editing pattern by Antara Lahiri is crisp, and it kind of gave the show a lighter feel, something that I mean in the positive sense given the lack of a solid plot here. The editing successfully keeps the drama on the surface with some smart transition cuts that doesn’t allow the drama to get bogged doen while giving an impression that it is breezy. The reality though might be far from it, from a writing point of view. Directors Arunima Sharma and Neha Parti Matiyani don’t really blossom here, while being unable to lift a non-existential plot beyond the written material. The flair of constructing a scene by building on emotions was just not the case here, making the direction rather fragile and forgetful from the characterization perspective too.
Performances
The performances are decent by the members of the cast. Talented actors like Sushant Singh amd Simone Singh are hardly there, this time around. The old timers in the form of Lisa Ray as Samara, Milind Soman as Warsi and Ankur Rathee as Arjun are fairly decent with their performances here. The newbies Ayesha Kanga as Chandrika, Niharika Lyra Dutt as Erica, Plabita Borthakur as Dubori and Anasuya Sengupta as Shai have their moments to shine. Rajeev Siddhartha as Mihir, Dino Morea as Rohan and Kunaal Roy Kapur as Ashokaditya deliver marginally over-the-top but fairly enjoyable performances here. Prateik Patil Babbar has looked as his most comfortable self on this show as Jeh, and he continues his restrained form here.
Bani J as Umang is pretty good to witness here although she does stumble in a couple of dramatic scenes, particularly when the pitch of her voice needs to be raised to convey a specific emotion. Kirti Kulhari is a really talented performer but as Anjana in this season, she hardly has any moments to showcase her craft – mainly due to the written material of her character. The same goes for Sayani Gupta who is restrained as Damini alright but her character feels woefully underwritten. Maanvi Gagroo as Siddhi is affectionate while showcasing a fair streak of vulnerability that often cuts through the frivolousness of her character, making her a standout performer – this time around.
Conclusion
The fourth and final season of Four More Shots Please might seem breezy, but it woefully stumbles with the writing, where the plot seemed to be on a notice period. Credit where due to the makers for realising the shelf life of the franchise – but unfortunately, they chose to end it abruptly on a whimper. Yep, I guess that was one shot too many – No More Shots Please! Available on Amazon Prime.