Amazon Prime just launched (Sep 22) a mystery drama series called "Hush Hush"
A quartet of friends (rich and famous) have their lives going on as usual. Until, at a party, things go horribly wrong for one of them. The others also get drawn into it. A man dies. And you have a full scale disaster on your hands.
Then onwards, it is a spiral. It is also a discovery for 3 of the friends that they may not have known the 4th (Juhi Chawla as Ishi) well at all. Ishi is found dead at her home, presumably death by suicide. After that, so many layers of her life unravel that it becomes harder and harder for them to remain loyal to her, and cracks begin to show.
It is a curious quartet of friends.
Ishi - Juhi Chawla - the power broker who roams around in the corridors of the high and mighty. She has powerful friends and equally powerful enemies.
Saiba - Soha Ali Khan - the journalist who gave up her risky job to start a family. As talkative as Ishi is measured.
Dolly - Kritika Kamra - the youngest - bubbly Punjabi girl whose MIL has only one aim in life - get an heir out of Dolly for their khandaan.
Last but not the least, Zaira - Shahana Goswami - a very successful designer who has 2 problems in her life: An old flame and a psychotic assistant, who really can't be trusted.
The case is investigated by a brilliant yet non worldly wise inspector called Geeta (Karishma Tanna). During the investigation, she finds out that Ishi was actually an orphan. And she has left everything she owned to her friend in the orphanage (Ayesha Zulka as Meera). Meera now runs a girl's orphanage along with her husband.
Why did Ishi die? What was it amongst her many scandals that finally got her? Why are people after her friends who try to unravel the mystery behind her death? Did the dead man have many friends who are out for revenge or is there more than meets the eye?
The overwhelming feeling that one gets while watching this season is "With this much talent, this is all you came up with?" There's a brilliant lineup of actors and supporting actors - other than the main ones there's Benjamin Gilani as Dolly's FIL, Vibha Chibber as ACP Madhu, Geeta's boss.
But you still get a feeling that in the planning of having multiple seasons, you got short changed in this one. The serial promises to take off to great heights, but never does. You have things used as check boxes - f*** being thrown around generously, same sex relationship, etc. But it feels more bolted on than part of the original structure. Gurugram is the setting. But you never get a feel of the place, like any good series gives you. See Patal Lok for what a brilliant job looks like in making you almost smell the place it is located in.
3 directors have directed this - Tanuja Chandra, Kopal Naithani, Ashish Pandey. Maybe too many cooks did spoil the broth.
The relationship between Ishi and Meera is so complex. But it never gets its full due.
The tension between the friends - with Saiba doubting Ishi's character and Zaira blindly supporting her dead friend - is half baked.
Karishma Tanna is supposed to be a middle class Haryanvi. But she looks like she just took off glamorous clothes and wore middle class ones. Ayesha Zulka is much better in looking the part of a (relatively) poor woman.
It is Juhi Chawla's first OTT foray. She seems to have gotten a raw deal as far as her character handling by the makers goes.
The only part which really was done well was the evolution of Dolly. From a overwhelmed by MIL, keeping her mouth shut woman to an assertive, independent thinker, her evolution is the best.
Also Benjamin Gilani going full scale MCP during his tirade against Dolly and her friends to his employee was refreshing. Although he did use the phrase "self actualized women", which was like the "Love Storiyaan" part of the Kesariya song in Brahmastra.
The one thing that will entice me for Season 2 is that one of my favorites - Jaaved Jaafri - enters at the very end as a CBI officer who will now lead the investigation.
