Delhi Crime Season 3 Review — Sucharita Tyagi

When Delhi Crime Season 1 came out in 2019, people sat glued to their screen, as something shifted. A new style of glossy yet gritty, highly polished AN highly researched police procedural entered the zeitgeist. Creator Ritchie Mehta won awards in India and abroad.

6 years later, the show’s 3rd season is its weakest yet, now devastatingly executed more as second-screen viewing experience, a mere shadow of the unflinching idea it once was.

Let me explain why.

This season, the crime largely moves OUT of Delhi, headquartered in Rohtak, Haryana. Huma Quresh is Meena aka Badi Didi, who runs a human trafficking business, specialising in young, underage girls. Under the guise of social work, Badi Didi and her subordinate, Kalyani played by a masterful Mita Vashisht (she is so good), quasi-kidnap girls from vulnerable families from all over the country, supplying them to whoever pays the highest price. Meena clearly has seen tough days herself; right underneath the garish, bright, cheap lipstick, a scar is visible on her upper lip. She uses make-up like a shield almost, teaching the kidnapped girls how to deploy superficial beauty to entrance men, her own eyelashes covered in multiple layers of mascara, long and pointy, like poisonous tentacles. The effect is chilling.

On the other side is the Delhi Police team that regular viewers will be familiar with. In an exposition-laden voice-over, DCP Vartika Chaturvedi, played by Shefali Shah explains how she has left her family behind for a posting in Assam, where she discovers another side of this smuggling operation. Again, the crime isn’t really HAPPENING in Delhi. The idea forming here is that she will now fight against the system that’s trying to keep her away from the political centre of Delhi. The design is to get the viewer to believe this season might unfold atop a race against time, bureaucracy and apathy.

However, that is not to be. Like I mentioned above, Season 3 feels more like a background TV show, despite once again attempting to centre rampant crimes against women. Season 1 title meant so much. It wasn’t just that the CRIME that took place in Delhi, rather it was a hard, unforgiving look at how the city enabled that crime. The circumstances and people that lead to a sexual assault so heinous and unimaginable, news media around the world were talking about it. The city was the crime scene because it was an enabler. Further layers explored why. It was an all-around empathetic and brilliant way to humanise the city and some monsters it nurtures, an evil almost too big for the system to comprehend, let alone defeat.

This season, the setting keeps changing, from Rohtak, Assam, Muzaffarpur, Surat, Mumbai and more, even a detour to Thailand. Each time the setting changes, helpful text, almost fills the entire screen TELLING you,ki where the are, again and again. Almost aware you’re probably not paying attention, so let us just keep reminding you what’s going on. In effect, it soon begins to feel like a big budget of Saavdhan India. The closest it comes to examining the deeper collusions and psyche of its righteous heroes is when Rajesh Tailang picks up Shefali Shah in an Ambassador car. She is surprised the car works, to which he says “thodi bohot dekh-rekh karni padti hai, phir chal jaati hai.” The police system, like the car itself, is a little broken, but functional, but most certainly outdated. Had the show leaned into these deeper implications, we’d have something profound.

That’s not to say it isn’t watchable, it is. Episode 1 is straight-up riveting, the trafficking case unfolds briskly, all actors incredible. Soon enough things sort of turn, checklist-y. CCTV footage appears exactly when its needed, each clue leads neatly to another, things progress without friction, struggle, or any even chaos, honestly.

It doesn’t help that Huma Qureshi’s Meena, the big baddy here, only gets a bare bones back story, and her lackey Kusum, played by Sayani Gupta isn’t even afforded that. There are hints that Meena’s right-hand man, and MAYBE occasional lover is probably military trained or an ex-policeman himself; he refuses to shoot another man wearing a cop uniform! What could have lead him down this dreadful path? What happened for this person to mistrust the law and upend it so mercilessly, go over to the dark side, how and why is he so loyal to this woman who doesn’t treats everyone badly? The thread is never pulled, you never find out. The same is true for a new cop, Simran Masih, a fab new addition that could have brought a youthful presence into a slow system, shaking it up from the inside. But director Tanuj Chopra doesn’t allow this character’s journey to feel very meaningful either. Rasika Duggal, a powerhouse of a performer, is relegated to a few clues and plot points and one emotional scene with her ex-husband, without a closer look at her journey in the setup.

3-ish episodes in, Delhi police emerges as always just being very competent in this sort of sanitised world of crime. The frames are lit dramatically, shot cinematically, but the close-ups don’t take you inside these upholders of the law. No corruption, no sexism, no casteism, barely any incompetence on display. I hesitate to use the term “copaganda” flippantly, but here, it might be fitting.

And listen, realism doesn’t require brutality or violence. But just because police violence isn’t glorified, it doesn’t mean that it does not occur, and that the institution operates wonderfully. Extra-judicial aur utopia ke beech ki mundanity mein realism hota hai. Tension in a dramatic TV show can only be created if there is doubt.

See in an algorithmic Netflix manner, the show is gripping, you will want to watch one episode after another because it IS on auto-play. Toh go check it out and if you figure out who the mysterious “bhai ji” is, who Meena owes money to, jiska khatra bana rehta hai hamesha. Agar pata chaley, toh lemme know the comments!