The cookie-cutter ‘Netflix’ theme synonymous with films like Nadaaniyan and Jewel Thief is also prevalent in the show The Royals. It is a space where fillers are used in the form of Fashion Shows designed as glam awards, or a skewed version of Masterchef spewed as a relentless sub-plot of convenience, or plenty of sex scenes playing out as an advertisement of a D*ve commercial, with horses, bikinis and sporadic characters to sum up the list (and attendance). In the fillers of the filler, there is some awkward flirting and casual advances and some more casual breakups and makeups to sum up the narrative that has an emotional quotient of a peanut. It is fluff and frivolous but completely messed up, just like the characters on offer. It is almost a fictionalized setting of the Netflix reality TV Fabulous Lives Of Bollywood Wives, except that Bollywood and Wives are replaced by Palaces and Rom-Com-coded hormonal driven singles.

Sophia (Bhumi Pednekar) is an entrepreneur living an algorithmic lifestyle that many crave for. She is first seen jogging on a sultry beach in Sri Lanka with a voice mumbling in her head ‘You Have Got This’, almost as a premonition for the viewers on the road that lies ahead. And its demo is seen through a series of events that follow – she flicks a middle finger to Aviraaj (Ishan Khattar), the soon-to-be maharaj of Morpur before casually making out and breaking up with him, all in the matter of a single night. Yet when her proposal of ‘The Royal B&B’ takes her to Morpur, the two young singles meet again – this time in exchange of money for the debt-ridden royal family, who agree to accept her offer. The timeline is 6 months – a period in which her sass and his shirtlessness play important characters, while the duo fight and makeup at the drop of the hat.

The drama is skewed with characters that literally feel like checkboxes classified in this genre – a single widow having a frivolous affair with a movie star and an ex-flame, a pot-smoking elderly who encourages people to smoke weed for a living, a gay couple who have their fates intertwined or rather sandwiched between the fates of the two protagonists, a random character named Salad who is often on the sidelines similar to the portion of salad sidelined in our dinner plates, a walking green-flag whose purpose in the show is just to witness ‘other’ red-flags hookup at his expense (ofcourse without allowing him to feel ‘guilty’). The entire setup feels like a once-upon-a-time star-studded RCB lineup that seldom delivered the goods (not this season where RCB has been brilliant, so guess there is still hope for The Royals in future seasons).

There is little to analyze here when mostly you witness the characters either patting horses or partying as a part of ‘work’ or casually hooking up or even switching dynamics of their loyalties. For instance, the reason for Aviraaj to drop his plans for New York and continue to stay as the ‘New Maharaja’ comes at such a frivolous occasion that made me hard to decipher whether it stemmed out of his own realisation or a provocative challenge as a part of Sophia. Aviraaj remains a man-child who doesn’t internalize his aura of a Maharaja. You see him playing a game of Polo bare-chested in an almost uninterested manner similar to what Salman Khan boast of in Sikandar (2025). On the other hand, Sophia is the estrogen equivalent of hyper-masculinity, a walking red-flag who sees through her ‘green-flag’ ex by seemingly gaslighting him into believing that some of her moves were ‘his’ mistakes. This, while bordering on the same skill-set of gaslighting with Aviraj, who remains conflicted about her motives. It is almost like Rannvijay from Animal (2023) minus the violence, who was also a symbol of toxicity.

The tone of the show continues to remain frivolous despite having a ‘similar’ starting point to last week’s dud, Kull (2025) that shared a similar setup. But the trajectory is distinguishable here – while the ‘Maharaja’ is killed off in Kull, the audiences’ brain cells are murdered here. This remains a real test of patience in the royal house-hold that essentially remains directionless. Neither do the plot-points work nor do the shifting character dynamics, so much so that there were large portions of the drama catering to ‘nothingness’. How long would the writing wish to cater to a skin-show, a LGBTQ commentary, a third-wheel in the principal relationship or even a vily investor, all of which amounts to nothing. I must say that this was in line with the much more prolific show Four More Shots Please (2021) that atleast had a strong emotional core of friendship tying the characters and their stories. There was a plot-heavy conflict in a similar frivolous show like Call Me Bae (2024) that made it endearing by the end of it. But here, even the chemistry between its leads fizzles out in what remains a pale shadow of a show that just caters to the glam. I mean if the portions involving a mock-Masterchef reality TV shows moments of intrigue with a judge banging the plate after tasting the food, only for him to make a U-turn, then you just know that the show essentially caters to the lifestyle genre. It is low IQ, low EQ and low WQ (Watchable Quotient) that ends on a frivolous note but not before adding a rich fashion show in the mix. And that sums up the sorry state of the screenplay here.