Season 3 belongs to Jaideep Ahlawat who, despite the not so well-etched character, owns Rukma and gives the confrontation with Srikant Tiwari the missing edge of the earlier two seasons, observes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
It's tough being Srikant Tiwari, chief agent (spy) at the TASC.
On one hand, he has to lie to his family constantly in order to protect them (so he thinks), and anyway, when he says the truth, they don't believe him.
On the other, there is his work that constantly puts him in the line of fire, throwing challenges bigger than before.
So in season 1, we saw Srikant and sidekick J K Talpade thwart a chemical gas attack on New Delhi that had its arc from Kashmir to Pakistan. A Pyrrhic victory, really, for it comes at a heavy cost, with his operatives barely making it out alive.
The threat level was ratcheted up considerably in season 2, with the Sri Lankan Tamil radicals and the ISI's rogue elements coming together to target the prime minister in Chennai, the show traversing Mumbai to Srinagar to Islamabad to Chennai. Even Sri Lanka.
This operation extracts an even higher price, with Srikant's daughter coming perilously close to being beheaded and a team member perishing in the operation.
On top of all this was his wife Suchitra's professional life that casts a bigger shadow on the family man than does Srikant's work -- in particular, the dynamics between her and ShrinkMe founder Arvind who coaxes her to quit her teaching job, where she felt stagnant, and join the startup, where she ends up being a high-flier.
One question remained unanswered through the first seasons.
Did they sleep together at the offsite?
Season 2 came close to answering it at the end, when Suchi breaks down to Srikant saying she made a mistake. What it was, was however not revealed.
For those dying to know if season 3, set primarily in Nagaland, sheds any further light on this question, the answer is no.
In fact, the seven episodes don't even show Arvind, only informing you that he has shifted base to Canada.
However, season 3 has more intimacy than the previous two seasons combined, only it doesn't involve Srikant and his wife, or even his ex-lover Saloni. But not much intimacy by OTT standards, however.
Manoj Bajpayee, who fronts the show as Srikant Tiwari, has rated Season 1 as the best.
I agree.
Season 2 had its moments, yes, but it also had its fair share of deja vu.
Two seasons down, The Family Man has become part of the family, hence the familiarity perhaps.
While it is far from breeding contempt, it is a challenge to retain the same crew, face similar threats, and yet come across as fresh.
So does season 3 pass muster?
Does it hold your interest?
Does it grab you by the eyeballs?
Here's the outline.
The northeast is simmering, with China/Myanmar-based insurgents getting active across the border driven as part of Operation Guan Yu.
There's the Collective, a shadow entity based in London, that is keen to push through a major defence deal with India and uses the violence in northeast to force Prime Minister Basu's hand.
Dwarkadas, Collective's UK-based billionaire, assigns the task of roiling the situation to Meera, who contacts Rukma in the northeast to scale up the violence.
When local peacenik David and NIA chief Kulkarni, powering Basu's Operation Sahakaar, are killed in an ambush, Srikant Tiwari steps in with his team to do what he does best.
Which comes with a personal price.
Srikant is caught in the ambush and hospitalised, his wife's startup, which has a Chinese investor, is banned, his woke daughter Driti becomes a victim of online trolling, and his son Atharv is bullied in school.
To add to his woes, Srikant is placed on administrative leave, an arrest warrant issued against him, and he and his family go on the run.
Phew.
In all this, the dramatis personae remain the same.
Apart from Srikant and family and constant companion JK, there are his TASC colleagues, the prime minister and her circle, all of which add to the feeling of familiarity.
Even Zoya, retired hurt in S2, makes a comeback to TASC, but surprisingly is ranged against Srikant. She is so mission-focused that after having sex with the new team leader, she tells him to keep it under wraps because that is the only thing for which there is no written protocol in the agency.
So, how do you break the pattern, make S3 interesting?
By bringing in a new element.
As the first episode meanders along, and your heart sinks at the all too-familiar -- but understandable since the foundation has to be laid, as it has been six years since S2 -- enters Jaideep Ahlawat as the northeast druglord Rukma.
Thirteen years after the then 43-year-old Bajpayee played son to the then 32-year-old Ahlawat in Gangs of Wasseypur, the two reunite on screen, this time on opposite sides.
The point about S1 and S2 was that Srikant Tiwari did not face a villain who was formidable enough.
Sure, they were evil, cunning, dangerous.
Neither Moosa nor Sajid, or even Samantha Ruth Prabhu with her stardom, could outshine Srikant.
In S3, finally, Srikant Tiwari meets his match in Rukma.
Ahlawat is obviously having a blast with the role, but is hobbled by a credible lack of motive for doing what he does.
Unlike the villains from the earlier two seasons, who were driven ideologically to extract revenge against India and bring it to its knees, Rukma is driven purely by money. He is not in it to get the northeast to break away, say, or raise his voice against the outsiders.
Which makes him more of a mercenary and less of a fanatic.
But Ahlawat makes the earthy Rukma believable.
His relationship with his girlfriend's son, as it goes from indifference to caring, doesn't seem convincing, though.
Rukma targets Srikant Tiwari for the botched operation that killed his girlfriend, and the latter is on the hunt for him in the northeast despite having the entire security apparatus on his tail.
The original cast of Family Man does what they do best.
Bajpayee and Priyamani, the long-married couple.
Gul Panag as Saloni, the ex factor.
Sharib Hashmi ever searching for love.
The all-knowing Chellam is there too, as usual pulling Srikant out of tight spots.
Major Sameer of the ISI... well, he is there, too. Of the newbies, Nimrat Kaur plays Meera just right.
There's a cameo by Vijay Sethupati as Michael, who helps Srikant and team cross into Myanmar.
But the season belongs to Ahlawat who, despite the not so well-etched character, owns Rukma and gives the confrontation with Srikant Tiwari the missing edge of the earlier two seasons.
The Family Man Season 3 streams on Amazon Prime Video.
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