3 Roses S2 Review: Adult Humour Goes Out of Control

BOTTOM LINE
Adult Humour goes out of control

PLATFORM
Aha Video

RUNTIME
2 hours | 4 Episodes

What Is the Story About?

Three years after their romantic escapades, Meghana, Indu, and Ritu have moved on. Indu is happily married and is now a mother. Meghana’s marriage to the miserly Veera Bhoga Vasanta Rayalu ends disastrously. Ritu bumps into her exes: Prasad and Mano Vikas, at work. They are joined by a new roommate, Srashti, a K-drama fanatic, desperate for action in her love life.

Performances

None of the performances create much impact. Everyone keeps shouting at the top of their voices to make their presence felt, and you only wait for the finish line. Among the leading ladies, Rashi Singh is the pick of the lot; you sense some effort on her part to add meat to the portrayal.

Eesha Rebba consistently wears a disinterested, frustrated expression, and Kushita Kallapu is annoying, to put it mildly. Satya ensures a few laughs, while the other men: Sudharshan, Prabhas Sreenu, Surya Srinivas, only contribute to the cacophony.

Analysis

3 Roses, aha’s Telugu show, was essentially a poor man’s version of the Hindi series Four More Shots Please (itself loosely based on Sex and the City), revolving around three liberated women and their tryst with love, marriage, and professional life in a metropolis. The first season relied on cheap thrills and silly, provocative jokes for laughs, still managing to grab eyeballs.

As a logical extension, the show returns with a second instalment, taking a three-year leap, with one major casting change (Payal Rajput makes way for Rashi Singh) and another quirky addition: Srashti (played by Kushita Kallapu). Apart from Indu, who is now married, the other women haven’t made much progress in their love lives or careers.

The series progresses as a flashback, where Ritu and Indu catch up, making up for lost time. Meghana is duped in marriage, tying the knot with a miserly man who claims to be rich but stays in Dharavi under a cramped roof instead. She even hosts a divorce party to celebrate her freedom. Ritu, with great difficulty, finally finds a way to get her startup to take off.

Their new roommate, Srashti, busies herself alternating between her Snapchat and Insta profiles and is a K-drama addict, falling for anyone who closely resembles her favourite Korean actors (the humour is racist, but we pretend to laugh along). The three manage the startup’s daily affairs in an office space belonging to a creepy owner.

Among the three threads, Meghana’s story is entertaining to an extent, largely due to Satya’s terrific comic timing (even with ordinary writing). The brief yet exaggerated flashback documenting her domestic troubles is particularly funny. He finds a way to return to her life, mostly to maintain the facade of a happy marriage at Meghana’s home.

Srashti’s character is generally superficial. Just because she’s outgoing and talks freely with men, she’s reduced to a dimwit with no ounce of intelligence. Her encounter with a bald man, whom she invites into her home for a raunchy photoshoot, is too voyeuristic and hard to digest.

While Ritu appears to be the woman with some sense of control and authority over her life, her reunion with two exes (Prasad is called an ex, the other college batchmate is a super-ex) creates confusion. The flashback with Mano Vikas is quite outdated: it takes her humiliation to transform him from an average-looking guy to a hot-shot model (a tiring 80s trope). The effeminate portrayal of Mano’s gay manager adds insult to injury.

Much like the first season, the issue with the show is its problematic male gaze. The idea here is to have a good laugh, but the adult humour is too offensive and cheap. Every second man in the series is a sleaze-bag who views women as sex objects. This season feels like a bunch of men presuming what three independent women staying in Mumbai would think, behave, and look like.

3 Roses Season 2 is a sequel no one asked for. Yet, if you want to watch it, know that you’ve been warned.

Music and Other Departments?

There’s hardly anything noteworthy to mention on the technical front. The proceedings operate in a robotic pattern, and the contributions feel half-hearted, at best. The music lacks any flourish. The vibrant colour palette is pleasing at times, though the gaze remains quite voyeuristic and insensitive. The show has no story or purpose and tries to grab attention for all the wrong reasons.

Highlights?

Few scenes featuring Rashi and Satya

Drawbacks?

Almost everything

Cheap jokes, no story

Hardly engaging, despite the crisp run time

Did I Enjoy It?

No

Will You Recommend It?

No

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