Netflix ‘Delhi Crime’ Season 3 Review - Terrific Actors In A Disposable Crime Drama

If the third season of Delhi Crime had a tagline, it would have been, "Appearances can be deceptive." (Spoilers ahead) A police officer examines a family photograph and wonders how the people smiling in the picture could hurt their own daughter. The woman had left her severely injured child in the hospital, and the husband is accused of being violent. Because of the wife's actions, we hear a line about how someone can walk away from the person they truly love, the person they truly admire (this line is not-so-subtly applied to Rasika Dugal's Neeti Singh, who is going through a divorce). A man who goes by the name of John Gupta buys girls for his prostitution business, yet he's also a family man with a wife and daughter. But who supplies John? Surprisingly, it's a woman—Badi Didi (Huma Qureshi). The person who helps her fulfill John's demands also turns out to be a woman (Mita Vashisht). Once you grasp what Season 3 is doing by, well, "breaking general expectations," it becomes easier to figure out who might have actually hurt the girl left in the hospital by her mother. What's more, it's revealed that she isn't really her mother at all.

What director Tanuj Chopra wants to convey is that reality is different from fiction, that the bad guys around us don't have the word "CRIMINAL" tattooed on their foreheads. This is why, when DIG Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah) meets Badi Didi at a restaurant, she thinks the latter is just an ordinary human being with low sugar. Chopra's gaze in Season 3 is bleak and natural. He doesn't provide a conventional, happy pat on the back, which one usually expects from such a crime drama. A mother reunites with her children, but still doesn't get a happy ending with all of them (keyword: all). A woman is granted a place in a government facility, but the kid she really loved is no longer with her. Another woman tells Neeti that while she was saved from prostitution, she now lives with an abusive husband. "Hum yahan jeena sikh gaye hai," she says, and her words hit you like a thousand-watt electric current. These words also reflect Chopra's gaze in a sense. He, too, observes his world like a man who believes people have grown accustomed to the rot. Chopra suggests that it's impossible to fully clean the system. The devil is so omnipresent and powerful that if you cut one head, another will pop up in its place — or somewhere else. You can remove Mita Vashisht's character, but then what about Badi Didi/Meera? Vartika can arrest Badi Didi or kill her, but then, what about John Gupta? And if one were to successfully get rid of all three characters, then what about the society that encourages the practice of buying women as brides for men? And how many of these men, who physically abuse their wives and consider them as birth-giving machines, can the police officers kill or put inside prison?

Chopra knows that it's a tough battle. Hence, he becomes impotent. He doesn't film this story like a motivated, aroused filmmaker. His eyes are unmoving and sober. He seems to be saying, "This is what it is; change doesn't come so easily with one rescue here and one arrest there." Chopra doesn't sell dreams. In fact, he isn't selling anything, except for a flicker of optimism. That, too, comes at the very end, through a line that feels suffused with plenty of coldness. That coldness is part thought-provoking, part stimulating when it originates from Chopra's viewpoint. However, it also seeps into the narrative and the filmmaking, which is why the third season of Delhi Crime always remains distant. Chopra firmly stands in the present. When he cuts to flashbacks, he does so briefly to establish a link between the girls Vartika encountered in the past and those she will find during the ongoing investigation. That link, though, is quite feeble and delivered as a bald exposition, with the help of Chandni (Yashaswini Dayama), who is in journalism just so she can ask Vartika about that old case to trigger flashback visuals. Vishal (Denzil Smith), Vartika's husband, is upset with Vartika when she fails to show up for a meeting. He thinks it's the least she can do, considering the resources she has been given by the senior authorities. Vartika, though, doesn't want to waste her energy on "face time." For her, every moment not spent on the field will prove terrible for the victims. It's an interesting argument, but Chopra neither expands on it nor returns to it. How do Vartika and Vishal...move on? The conflict and the points that emerge from it remain untouched, undigested. For instance, Vishal accuses Vartika of failing to delegate professional work. Does Vartika agree with him? Does she consider his opinion?

The first season of Delhi Crime was emotionally shattering — it was a punch to the gut. It was also...enough. We didn't actually require a second season, and the third one feels disposable. What keeps Season 3 afloat is a cast that truly inhabits their characters. I liked the camaraderie between Vartika and her colleagues, who treat each other like family members. A highlight of the season is a moment when Neeti finds herself unable to sit before Vartika — her deference to the DGI has become instinctive, almost physical. If Season 3 is a patient in the ICU, the terrific actors are its oxygen cylinders. Without Shah, Dugal, Rajesh Tailang, and others, Delhi Crime, this time, would have been colorless. The crime itself, though, feels generic, bland, and devoid of absolute horror. Badi Didi's actions reek of movie tropes. Her feelings for a colleague render her a bit human, but Chopra doesn't offer a compelling reason for her behavior. Badi Didi is delusional. She also suffered severely in the past. However, there is a wide gap between Badi Didi, who was physically tortured, and Badi Didi, who exploits women with the pretext of giving them a job. Chopra could have fleshed out this character; yet he doesn't because, for him, the fact that Badi Didi takes this particular route is enough to label her a villain. Chopra says that explanations don't matter, since what's wrong is wrong. With Season 3, he has given us a show that offers plenty to think about. However, as a cinematic experience, this Delhi Crime is eligible for punishment for weakening the image of a series that initially arrived like a storm. Like Badi Didi, Chopra becomes careless and shoots himself in the foot. He should have quit while he was ahead, three years back. 

Final Score- [4.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times