What happens when a drunken proposal takes a serious turn? When childhood sweethearts Lavanya Singh and Rishabh Rathore get engaged by mistake, they are left to wonder if they made the right decision. As the Rishabh-Lavanya story unfolds, Jee Karda introduces us to the rest of the gang. Each character is a cliché, and the character arcs are as predictable as they can get. You can foresee the course of the series from the first episode itself. Most of the time, the jokes fall flat, and the woke conversations seem to be ripped off from some social media posts. The overall lack of originality is what makes Jee Karda a hard pass.
In a friend group of seven, you already know things are going to go down when two out of the three girls were in love with the same guy during their childhood days. Along with that, there is the prediction of a fortune teller that confirms that each of the characters will suffer for one reason or another. Created by Abbas Dalal, Hussain Dalal, and Arunima Sharma, Jee Karda did not waste a second setting up the drama; it dived right into it. The fortune teller offered one prediction for each (if we can even consider asking someone to ‘be strong’ as a prediction), and Jee Karda is basically about finding out how true those predictions were in the year 2022.
In the year 2022, Rishabh proposed to Lavanya during Sheetal and Sameer’s third wedding anniversary celebration. He was drunk, and after Sameer convinced him that marriage was an enjoyable ride, he decided to wait no further. Lavanya was equally wasted, and she did not realize what she was signing up for when she said yes to his proposal. While Lavanya regretted her decision the next morning, Rishabh decided to gift her a diamond ring instead of the random ring he proposed with. Lavanya and Rishabh have been living together for four years, and she felt compelled to agree with his decision. They agreed to get married within the next two years, but Rishabh’s parents were not happy with the delay. Feeling the pressure from his family, Rishabh decided to prepone their wedding date and convinced Lavanya as well. Next thing we know, the two plan on getting married in six months. While Rishabh and Lavanya struggled to find a wedding location, Arjun Gill came to their rescue.
Arjun was quite the heartthrob in school, and he grew up to become a rockstar. His fans followed him wherever he went, and they nicknamed him “AG the OG.” While Arjun and Rishabh were not related by blood, they were brothers by heart. Rishabh took care of Arjun’s mother when he was away, and over the years, their friendship had only grown stronger. While Arjun was supportive of Rishabh and Lavanya’s decision to get married, he personally did not believe in love. He was either recording his next party album or getting drunk and waking up to new faces every morning. He believed that he enjoyed the chaos, and his popularity was more precious to him than finding a lover. Preet had a crush on Arjun since their school days, but he never considered her to be more than just a friend. Preet shared a special bond with Shahid Ansar. Preet and Shahid were schoolmates and later worked together; she was the school counselor, and he was the science teacher. Shahid belonged to a low-income household, unlike his friends. He struggled to adjust with the rich private school kids, and even though he had friends, he never truly felt that he belonged with them. Preet covered for Shahid whenever she could, and she continued to be the only friend who truly cared for him.
Sheetal fell in love with a boy she met in Mussoorie during their school trip, and she ended up marrying him. Sheetal had to live with her in-laws in a 2-bedroom apartment. The romance had almost thinned out between Sheetal and Sameer due to the constant interference of family members. She tried to convince Sameer to buy a separate apartment on the same floor for themselves, but Sameer was not ready to discuss it with his family. Sameer’s decision to live with his family pulled Sheetal further away from him. Melroy D’Monte was in an abusive relationship with his boyfriend, Yavar. He desperately wanted to believe that it was love, but the constant pain and torture ultimately taught him to value himself. He wanted his partner to be a proud queer man, but it almost started to feel like a dream to him. Every character has a problem that they need to solve, and it is often the friendship they share that helps them cope with the challenges they face in everyday life.
Along with the usual friendship drama, Jee Karda attempts to make some half-hearted social commentary. The series is obsessed with introducing one problem after another, barely giving the audience time to recover. Arjun Gill gradually turned into one of the many conflicted Ranbir Kapoor characters. A dash of “Channa Mereya” Ranbir and a lot of Rockstar Ranbir is what Arjun Gill basically turns into in the course of the show. At times the dialogue seemed to be written without much thought; for example, Yavar states that “They’re getting me married, Mel… to a girl” (gay marriage is not yet legal in India, and we already know how conservative his family is, so the dialogue doesn’t really make sense!) . Talking about things that don’t make sense— the scene where a hotel staff member orgasms to the lyrics of an AG the OG song was perhaps the lowest point of the series.
It is the overall performance of the cast (Tamannaah Bhatia, Suhail Nayyar, Aashim Gulati, Anya Singh, Hussain Dalal, Sayan Banerjee, Samvedna Suwalka) that makes Jee Karda bearable. Every actor tried their best to justify their characters. There were moments that were somewhat relatable, but then again, we did not get the time to soak in the emotions. The childhood scenes with the warm tint, bright colors, and glowy effect were visually interesting. A casual watch at most, Jee Karda is stereotypical and, at times, way too cringey.
