POPCORN REVIEWSS

To be fair, Kull does create an ambience with the right mix of characters pretty well to begin with. The setting remains that of the Royal Palace in Rajasthan featuring the family of the Maharaja Chandrapratap Raisinggh (Rahul Vohra), a dillusional man who constantly speaks to his dead wife. This trait of his also doubles up as a metaphor for the state of affairs in the palace – all that glitters isn’t gold, in fact it is delusional to the outer world. The family is woefully in debt so much so that you witness a documentary film being made within the premises of the palace. And through the brief gaze of the documentary, you also realise the potential loopholes running in the bloodline of the Maharaja – Abhimanyu (Amol Parashar) is a drug-addicted womanizer who is mostly lusting for woman while also being debt-ridden to the point of being unable to return an amount from the mafia. He is extremely close to his eldest sister Indrani (Nimrat Kaur), whom he affectionately refers to as ‘Ma’, given how she took the responsibility to take care of him after their mother’s death. Indrani remains the most steady personality, often being ridiculed by her own father who refers to her as ‘Baanjh’ (infertile). Kavya (Ridhi Dogra) is the third sibling, the most enterprising out of the three, and the sole person looking for ways to earn some moolah for her family. She is almost at logger heads with Abhimanyu, almost being irritated at Indrani always extending her support to their youngest sibling. You also have Brij (Gaurav Arora), the illegitate son of the Maharaja, always calm and composed even when insulted by Abhimanyu. Clearly, this is a setting wherein a tragedy is waiting to happen even as these characters are shown to be worthy contenders to the throne! And ideally, I would have liked a little more emotional depth to the characters for a later payoff.

The ‘main’ conflict of the show is in fact revealed as a cold open sequence at the start of the show. The Maharaja’s body is discovered literally in a pool of blood, with the murderer who could effectively be anybody. The streak of Royals of holding onto their ‘Shaan and Pratishtha’ (respect and valour), is a thread that also acts as a conflicting one for its characters. And that is insinuated to be the chief conflict behind the murder of the Maharaja. I must add that the investigative portions are slightly lagged even while interrogating the multiple suspects in the Royal setting. This again was a bit of a shame because the setting which resembled an intimate place for an Agatha Christie classic, wasn’t fully utilized due to its indifferent writing. And when the drama further progressed, I actually knew why.

The major issue with Kull is that it resembles almost 3 seasons rolled into one. The idea of shifting from conflict to another is never a good one because it automatically makes the drama half-baked. Here, the core ought to have been the murder of the Maharaja followed by the investigation. But, the writers seemingly take just an easy way out to the point wherein the identity of the murderer is revealed even before the investigation takes its full form. The revelation is literally served on a platter – in a scene, you see all characters sitting around a TV set only for the identity of the culprit to be revealed through a camera intended to shoot a documentary. It was a clear case of half-baked writing that aimed at the lowest hanging fruit.

The politics in the drama does kick in for the better atleast when the characters begin to vye for the throne. There is a brief period when the writing gets relatively back on track even as it looks to move to the next conflict in the drama, that also includes a flashback that again didn’t land too smoothly. But the thing that works is the character dynamics between the characters, with twists and turns that double up as character motivations in the drama. This, until another shift in the conflict is marked by s woefully poor scene involving a sudden death post which the drama completely loses its steam.

What ought to have been a potential face-off between a character who was supposedly wronged, and another character who now ‘sits on the throne’ is so poorly written that the conflict never comes to the fore. The face-off is negligible even as the drama has a time-leap of 5 years out of nowhere. It is inexplicable on how three separate conflicts were rolled into a single season with the last-one being the most disappointing, given how it never lands while also being conflicted about what its identity remains. This is true even for its ending that seems rational with its morality, but almost rushed to a point (even with shifting character dynamics) wherein it literally deviates towards a tangent rather than the core conflict of a face-off that it intended to brew (and not to mention its soapy overtones too). Overall, the screenplay is very sketchy and doesn’t leave the desired mark by any stretch of imagination.