“Mithya,” the 6-part show with each episode lasting around 35 minutes, is the story of two women: Juhi Adhikari, played by Huma Qureshi, and Rhea Rajguru, played by Avantika Dassani, who are at odds with each other, the latter having a certain obsession with the former. Mithya is a rather entertaining watch, even though it ticks a lot of boxes of what makes a show go wrong. While it is hard to say that we love something about “Mithya,” we don’t regret watching it as it was engaging, though not always for the right reasons.
What Is ‘Mithya’ About?
The story follows Juhi Adhikari, a Hindi literature professor, after she fails one of her students, Rhea Rajguru, on account of plagiarism. Juhi is in a seemingly happy marriage with Neil Adhikari, played by Parambrata Chatterjee, and they are shown as trying to have kids. We see the cracks in their marriage when Juhi thinks a certain way about her friend Vishal and hints to another friend of hers, Sharmishtha, that it is not completely paradise in her relationship.
Amidst all this, she grades Rhea Rajguru’s paper with an “F” as she believes that it has been plagiarized, though Rhea claims otherwise. Rhea does not take this well and starts harassing Juhi by exaggerating their animosity. She also goes to Juhi’s house when she isn’t home, under the guise of giving her the supporting notes, and flirts with her husband. This is when Juhi’s cat goes missing, and it is perceived by the viewer and Juhi that Rhea is the culprit.
As Juhi’s suspicions regarding Rhea continue to grow, they are also met with a lot of resistance from her family and friends, who believe she is over-reacting. Things come to a head when Juhi sees that Rhea is wearing her stolen ring and tries to snatch it out of her hand, only to realize that it was a copy. This causes her a lot of embarrassment and seriously questions her credibility with respect to her claims of Rhea being a trouble-maker. The incident also causes a fight between her and her husband, which reveals that he thinks that Juhi has earned all of her credentials only because of her father’s position. Neil is also worried because the teaching grant he has applied for is in the hands of Rhea’s father, and it could be seriously jeopardized by Juhi’s actions.
Throughout this, Rhea and Neil keep getting closer, eventually ending in them exchanging photographs of a sexual nature, which Rhea loses as leverage against Juhi to get out of the plagiarism charges. What follows are the revelations as to the motivation behind Rhea’s actions and her connection to Juhi throughout all these events.
Major Spoilers Ahead
‘Mithya’ Ending Explained: Did Rhea Get Away With The Murder?
The first episode opens with the murder of Neil Adhikari. The episodes follow the format of the flashbacks, ending with a segment in the present that covers the investigation. As the story of “Mithya” progresses, the viewer already has an idea that Rhea would be the murderer, and it is in the final episode that we see how this plays out. Juhi has been arrested on suspicion of killing her husband, but one of the officers is not completely convinced and investigates further. During this, Juhi’s father calls Rhea and asks to meet. They talk about their history and how Juhi was the only one who stood up for Rhea and confronted her father for his wrongs. He beseeches her to help Juhi if he can. This is when Rhea tells him that she has already helped Juhi by killing Neil. In her words, Neil was going to strangle her, so she killed him as an act of self-defense. Juhi’s dad then reveals that he had been recording their conversation all along, and now they have evidence to get Juhi out of jail.
The scene cuts to 2 years later. Juhi is now the author of a published book and the mother of a child and is living with her parents. She decides to meet Rhea one last time when she asks for her, to know the truth once and for all. It is when they meet and have a proper talk that Rhea confesses that she did not kill Neil for self-defense but out of anger. She tells Juhi that she had given him the collar of her dead cat, revealing that she was, in fact, the one who had killed him. Neil calls her a monster and says that her mother killed herself because she couldn’t handle having given birth to such a monster. This is the point when Rhea loses her temper and stabs Neil in anger. She covers up her crime with the help of her friend, Ronnie, who was also, incidentally, the one to write Rhea’s assignments.
On hearing this, Juhi tells Rhea that she doesn’t ever want to see her again. She is done with her inherent lying nature. She wishes Rhea found something meaningful to live for, but stays out of her life forever.
The scene cuts to Rhea telling Ronnie to go ahead with the task, which is assumed to be the murder of her adoptive father, who was neglectful throughout her life. On the other hand, Juhi and her mother reconcile with her father and bring their family together. Juhi receives a letter from Rhea in the last few minutes, in which she says how Rhea thinks Juhi is the perfect woman, and Rhea is not, because the former received the latter’s share of upbringing as well. She promises never to come into their lives again but asks Juhi whether she can trust Rhea on this, considering she always lies. Juhi panics and checks on her son, who is sleeping peacefully, but next to him are the petals of a certain flower, indicating that Rhea is back in their lives. This was the best possible ending for “Mithya,” though it still does not manage to give us clarity on our mixed feelings about it.
Conclusion
As stated above, we have mixed feelings about the show, and we are not sure why. We can’t argue that “Mithya” had a good pace, believable characters with irritating traits, a stellar performance by Huma Qureshi and Parambrata Chatterjee, and an overall tight script. There are hardly any loose ends. So why do we feel this way?
We chalk them up to two factors: one being the predictability of the script, and the other being the dialogues. For our first reason, it is just that there were no surprises for a show that puts itself in the “mystery thriller” genre. You always sort of know what is going to happen. And this is independent of the fact that “Mithya” is an adaptation of the British series “Cheat.”
Next comes the dialogues. They can only be described as, for lack of a better term, “borderline too-much.” We understand the importance of literature in a house full of language enthusiasts, but the way Juhi’s mom randomly breaks into poetry makes us give her a side-eye, like really? Our verdict is that it is an okay show that would have done a lot better had it been released a few years ago. It would be unfair to criticize it more because the effort of the writers shows something that was missing in the last few pieces of content we had seen. So yes, we did not mind watching it. I would recommend it to someone who was looking for an “easy thriller.” “Mithya” won’t blow your mind. It will only make you smug because you can predict everything, making you feel like a sleuth yourself.
“Mithya” is a 2022 Indian Drama Thriller Mini-Series created by Goldie Behl.
