Netflix’s Dabba Cartel is the story of five women who, for different reasons, decide to step into the dangerous world of drug smuggling. Little did these innocent women know that among them was a lady who was once a known figure in the Mumbai underworld. Obviously, surviving in the market was not an easy task when there were other players who wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger if it came to their business and profit. So, without further ado, let’s quickly jump into Dabba Cartel’s ending, to figure out the fate of the characters in the finale.
Spoiler Alert
Did Pathak expose VivaLife Pharma?
Ajit Pathak was quite close to making a breakthrough when his boss transferred him from the FDSCO to FDTL, a statutory drug testing lab. Pathak realized that his boss, together with many employees of FDSCO, was on VivaLife’s payroll. A corrupt system is often scared of the conscience of an honest man. Pathak realized that he didn’t need to be at the FDSCO to uncover the truth. Pathak asked his subordinate to give him all the test reports of the drugs that were produced by VivaLife in the past decade or so. Pathak wanted to check if the pharma giant had actually conducted tests for their drug named Stravinol, using fentanyl as its base compound, which they later repackaged as Modella and illegally sold in the Indian market. Things were fine until the company started manufacturing Stravinol and supplying it to the US market. Approximately a couple of years back, the US government put a ban on the fentanyl based drug, and VivaLife incurred heavy losses. They needed to find a way to generate revenue, and that’s when they rebranded their star drug and started selling it on the Indian black market. Pathak’s suspicions were right as VivaLife never properly conducted the trials, and they had faked the results and gotten approval by bribing the government employees. Pathak came in contact with Bhowmick Bose, and he asked him to become a witness against VivaLife. Bhowmick was of two minds as Shankar had even offered to drop all the charges if he supported VivaLife’s narrative. Bhowmick had been betrayed once by Shankar, and so he decided to support Pathak and go on record. Pathak knew that even if he gathered all the evidence, his boss wouldn’t let him initiate an official inquiry. This was when Preeti, the sub-inspector working with Pathak, advised the latter to leak the intel he had collected to Aditi Sehgal.
Aditi, the journalist who had been after VivaLife and Shankar, had published a report revealing Bhowmick’s name and other details, and as a result, Pathak’s boss at FDSCO had no other option but to initiate an inquiry and let Pathak lead it. Dabba Cartel ended on a cliffhanger, but I believe that Pathak will encounter many more roadblocks in his way, as the stakeholders at VivaLife will try their level best to sabotage his investigation and hide the truth.
How Did Bhowmick Die?
Ajit Pathak called Bhowmick Bose to his office, and he made him sign certain documents just so that he could initiate proceedings and do whatever he had planned. Bhowmick got a bit tense when Pathak showed him pictures from a raid that was conducted by the authorities from where the green drug, Mithai, was procured. Pathak had found the constituents of Mithai, and realized that, just like Modella, fentanyl was used in manufacturing the green drug. Bhowmick froze when he got to know about it, but he left the scene without uttering a word. By then, Preeti had gotten to know that Shahida was hiding something from her. Preeti knew that Bhowmick and Varuna were meeting secretly, and that Shahida was also conspiring with them, though she didn’t know what exactly they were up to. When Preeti went to meet Varuna, she saw that she had the same handbag that Shahida was carrying the other day. Preeti gave a call to Bhowmick, probably because she wanted to confront him, but the man didn’t pick up. Preeti then called Pathak, because she had a hunch that something might have happened to Bhowmick. The man had agreed to become a key witness against such powerful people, and Preeti was not naive enough to believe that his actions wouldn’t entail some really serious consequences. Pathak and Preeti went to Bhowmick’s house and found out that the man had been murdered. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in season 2, the law enforcement authorities called Bhowmick’s murder an act of suicide, because the people who were behind it staged the entire crime scene like that. Bhowmick had certain pills lying next to him, and it seemed like he had died of an overdose. Well, I don’t buy that narrative, because it was just too convenient. I think it could have been possible that the higher management at VivaLife, i.e., Shankar or Shailaja, had Bhowmick killed, but we can’t be sure as of now. Maybe there was someone else who didn’t want him to testify in court. It could be possible that either Chavan, the drug dealer, or Chacko, the mafia boss, had something to do with his murder, but I don’t think that they would make the mistake of killing the man who could manufacture an exceptional drug, that was in such high demand, for them.
In Dabba Cartel’s ending, Preeti checked Bhowmick’s call logs, and she found out that Shahida had been in touch with him. Preeti’s doubts turned out to be true, and she was probably the only person, apart from Moushumi, Sheila’s long time friend, and Chacko, who knew that Varuna, Shahida, and the others were up to something, and she wouldn’t leave a stone unturned to get to the bottom of the truth and put the culprits behind bars in season 2.
How Did Moushumi Die?
The moment Chacko, the MDMA and spice king, found out that there was a new drug called Mithai on the market, he got interested in knowing who was manufacturing it. It didn’t take long for Chacko to find out that Moushumi had betrayed his trust, and that she had teamed up with Sheila. Chacko sent his man and asked him to bring the 5 ladies to his ranch, located somewhere on the outskirts of Mumbai. Chacko’s man had gotten his hands on a few documents that made it very clear why Moushumi had decided to put her life at risk and help out Sheila. Chacko learned that Sheila’s real name was Kashi, and she’d been an important member of the Mirza gang. He also found out that she had killed a policeman back in the day and then changed her identity and retired from the mafia world to save her life. But the most shocking finding was that Hari was actually Moshumi’s son, not Sheila’s. Moushumi knew that there was no way out for her, so she gave her child to Sheila and asked her to take him away from the crime world. Chacko told Sheila, Raji, Shahida, Varuna, and Mala that he wanted them to make Mithai for him. He said that he would handle the distribution and keep 80 percent of the profit. But the dreaded mafia kingpin had one more condition; he wanted Raji to kill Moushumi when she refused to work for him. Chacko had stationed one of his men near Hari and Raji’s house, and he threatened to kill Hari in case Raji wasn’t able to pull the trigger on Moushumi.
In Dabba Cartel’s ending, Raji killed Moushumi, and she had an emotional breakdown then and there, especially after knowing the woman was the biological mother of her husband. Chacko congratulated the ladies and asked his right-hand man to safely escort them back to their homes.
What will Shiela do next?
During a flashback sequence where we saw Moushumi asking Sheila to leave the city with Hari, we got to know about another man named Iklakh, who probably helped the ladies back in the day and was also a member of the Mirza gang. There were a couple of things that happened at the end of Dabba Cartel season 1, which I believe will have an impact on the proceedings of season 2. Firstly, we saw that Hari found the will where Moushumi had named Sheila and him as the sole beneficiaries of her estate. Hari also found a letter that Moushumi had written for him in case anything happened to her and she was not able to tell him the truth in person. Hari was still trying to digest that Raji and Sheila had hidden things from him when he came to know that Moushumi was his biological mother. The man felt hurt as the truth was hidden from him, and we saw that when Raji and Sheila returned home from Chacko’s ranch, he was nowhere to be found. I believe he might have gone to Moushumi’s house to confront her, not knowing that he wouldn’t get a chance to do so.
I believe that the gang has a lot to plan and process. In episode 7’s ending, when Varuna went up to Shankar, she told him that she knew that Shankar had previously hidden some more Modella stock, and that they would need it in the future for leverage. I don’t know what Varuna has on her mind since she is the one who helped steal the stock that Hari was hiding. But what I do know is that she isn’t going to back out now, as she has realized that she doesn’t have the privilege of sitting on the sidelines anymore.
As for Shahida, she decided to cut all ties with Preeti, but I don’t think that will be possible anymore. Preeti had gotten to know about her love interest, Shahida’s involvement in the drug business, and Pathak had figured out that fentanyl was an essential ingredient of both Mithai and Modella. It wouldn’t take long for them to figure out what Sheila and her cartel were up to.
In Dabba Cartel’s ending, Sheila made a call to Iklakh, the mysterious man who had probably helped Moushumi and Sheila back in the day, to come to Bombay. Just like Varuna, I guess Sheila, too, had realized that she would have to get her hands dirty, as it was not just about being in the drug business, but about survival at this point. It would be interesting to see what the Dabba gang do next, how they get the better of Chacko, and if Preeti and Pathak will find the truth.
