Cast: Bobby Deol, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Aaditi Pohankar, Tushar Pandey, Darshan Kumar, Anupriya Goenka, Tridha Choudhury, Vikram Kochhar, Anil Rastogi, Sachin Shroff, Anurita Jha, Rajeev Siddhartha, Jahangir Khan, Adhyayan Suman, Keshav Pandit, Mala Sinha, Rupesh Kumar, Navdeep Tomar, Akhilesh Tripathi and Jigesh, Preeti Singh, Esha Gupta

Directed By: Prakash Jha

BLUF: Based on the activities of a self-proclaimed godman, Gurmeet Ram Rahim. Baba Nirala (Bobby Deol) is ruthless and relies on corrupt politicians to gain power while preying on innocent women. Baba, being a conman, hides his true intentions from the public like a pro and fools his devotees by wearing a mask of pretence. When the cops find skeletons and dead bodies buried in the Ashram property, it hints at various mysteries.Will the cops be able to unearth Baba’s crimes?

Helped along by the corrupt cops and malleable politicians, the self-styled godman of Kashipur is back as he manipulates with absolute impunity. The petty criminal-turned-preacher, Baba Nirala, manipulates the administrative and judicial systems as he becomes more powerful than ever as he delivers for his blind followers.

THE MEAT AND THE POTATOES

The story for season three takes off from the last season when one of his disciples Pammi (Aaditi Pohankar) escaped his clutches after being sexually abused by him and is now out for revenge. Baba continues his lust for power and women as he tries to track her down after killing her entire family.

Built to tell the story of a fraud Godman and their blind cult followers, this season falls short of being a Waco. Probably because the indian form of story telling is less stuble and more dramatized which makes the entire sequences a bit longer drawn out. In this season, Aashram introduces Esha Gupta as an international brand consultant with moves which makes a sorry statement for professional women. Baba Nirala is a villian and there is no ambiguity about that in the story arc.

IN THE KNOW

In Bobbywood, as Bobby’s fan call his Multiverse, Bobby Deol gets better at Nirala like fine wine, as the seasons progress. Somehow you want the bad guy to come up on top even when he does the most deplorable things on screen. The women he “treats”, or swindles or cheats or outwits do not win any sympathy from the audiences. The story telling is indeed so perfect here and Bobby so perfectly comfortable in his Nirala.

Chandan Roy Sanyal as Bhopa Singh complements Bobby extremely well. Anupriya Goenka and Darshan Kumaar do not have a lot of screen time. The story takes a concept and incidents from the real world incidents and dramatizes them well into the script. Season 3, however does not move at the same pace as the earlier seasons. That somehow causes a gap in attention even when Bobby is busy shining through the screen. Aaditi Pohankar continues to shine in her role.Hopefully Season four will speed things up.