Aryan Khan’s directorial debut on Netflix, The Bads of Bollywood, ends with an unexpected and twisted episode, following the familial melodrama style of Indian cinema, although in a much lighter and more sarcastic manner. The protagonist, Aasmaan Singh’s career in Bollywood seems to be plummeting as quickly as it had soared, after Karan Johar decides to drop him from his blockbuster film following a leaked video of the actor associating with members of the underworld. In this article, we take a look at the final twist in the series and its multiple implications on the lives of the set of central characters.
Spoiler Alert
What is Aasmaan’s plan with Karishma?
When The Bads of Bollywood’s finale begins, Aasmaan Singh is on a personal mission to take the ultimate step with his beloved girlfriend, Karishma Talvar. Utter chaos had broken out at the Filmfirst Awards, where Aasmaan had found out about how Ajay Talvar had intentionally gotten him fired from the Karan Johar film, leading to him deciding to physically attack the veteran superstar in public. This had not only gotten Aasmaan immediately blacklisted from the film industry but had also landed Karishma in trouble with her father, as Ajay was furious about her supporting Aasmaan instead of him. The actor had locked Karishma in the study of their house in order to punish her, and it was only when she had found Ajay’s iPad in the room that she contacted Aasmaan and informed him about this development.
Aasmaan had rushed to the Talvar house to rescue his girlfriend, and once he succeeded in doing so, he decided to finally tie the knot with Karishma and end this struggle for love once and for all. This decision comes in the wake of Karishma admitting that she does not want to marry her fiancé, Sameer, and professing her love for Aasmaan, all of which had played a role in her father locking her up inside her own house. Now, when Aasmaan manages to free Karishma from house arrest, he has Parvaiz and Sanya drive them to a secret location where they can sign the marriage registration papers and ensure that the world can no longer intervene in their romance. Parvaiz once again seeks help from his gangster friends, who get hold of a marriage registrar and set up an abandoned film studio for the marriage.
Ajay still gives the couple a long chase, funnily enough in a Barbie-pink Ferrari, which Sameer had recently gifted to Karishma, and he seems hell-bent on stopping his daughter from being with Aasmaan. So far, Ajay had done everything to keep the two away from each other, even going to the extent of sabotaging Aasmaan’s film career in the process. Therefore, he is not one to be stopped by any obstacle, and a few renovation works on Mumbai’s roads are no match for him. Ajay gets hold of a motorcycle from one of the paparazzi following him and literally rides into the abandoned film set, marking the beginning of a long physical scuffle with Aasmaan and Parvaiz.
What is the biggest secret revealed to Aasmaan?
During this intense fight, Karishma manages to get hold of the registry paper and sign it, considering the document the only thing that would stop her boyfriend from getting beaten to death by her father. Aasmaan’s friends and Karishma then encourage him to find the chance to sign the document, which would officially confirm their marriage and bring an end to all this violence, but he ultimately chooses not to do so, as an act of defiance against Ajay. He then continues to openly state how he will manage to win over Ajay someday and marry his daughter with his permission, which leads to another fight. The constant beating by Ajay ultimately turns Aasmaan vengeful as well, and he picks up a heavy pipe from the ground to fight back with when Neeta shouts out the most unexpected thing, and all of a sudden, the biggest secret hidden from Aasmaan and the world is out of the bag. Although we do not hear the words being spoken, Neeta’s mouth is clearly seen to state that Ajay is actually Aasmaan’s father, implying that he should not actually attack the man with the heavy weapon he has just picked up.
Thus, a long and winding story from twenty-six years back is revealed, when Neeta had come to Mumbai with the high hopes of becoming an actress. It was mentioned more than once earlier in the series that Neeta’s dream had failed, and her career had been restricted to just being a background dancer before she ultimately left the industry. Incidentally, Neeta had worked in one of the hit song sequences in the Sodawallah film “Sailab,” in which Ajay Talvar had romanced two women. Neeta and Ajay had incidentally grown romantically close to each other off-screen during the shoot, and their affair even led to Aasmaan’s birth. But the two did not consider it possible to accept their relationship and acknowledge their son’s true identity. Ajay was a superstar in the film industry, possibly already married to Anu, while Neeta was definitely married to Rajat at this time.
Thus, the two kept their love child a secret, and Rajat did not even suspect that Aasmaan was not his biological son. Life had gone on normally for the Singh family, with Neeta returning to Delhi and raising her illegitimate son with her husband, but it all went wrong when Aasmaan grew up and decided to pursue a career in acting. When he moved to Mumbai, delivered a first hit with Sodawallah Films, and was spotted by Dharma Productions, Neeta began to worry that the unthinkable might happen. The fate that both she and Ajay had feared did come to pass when Aasmaan was cast opposite to Ajay’s daughter, Karishma, in Karan Johar’s next film. They were worried that the two youngsters might seriously fall in love with each other while playing lovebirds in the film, and unfortunately Aasmaan and Karishma indeed started to develop genuine feelings for each other.
It was for this very reason that Neeta secretly conspired against her own son and established regular communications with her old lover, Ajay, just to ensure that Aasmaan would not fall in love with Karishma and unknowingly get involved in an elaborate inbreeding situation. Neeta was ready to sacrifice her son’s professional career for this, as she had never quite supported his decision to move to Mumbai to become an actor, simply out of fear that he would come across his biological father and the secret about his actual parentage in the process. Thus, Ajay first threatened to leave Freddy Sodawallah’s production of “Sailab 2” if the producer could not make Karan Johar drop Aasmaan from his film, and then he sent the compromising video to Johar, directly leading to the actor getting fired from the project. The shocking revelation has various kinds of impact on each of the characters, but it rocks Aasmaan’s world the hardest, as he suddenly has to come to terms with the fact that his beloved father, Rajat, was not even biologically related to him. He feels somewhat relieved at the fact that Rajat never had to face this truth, passing away before the news was exposed to the world, but it truly ruins his relationship with his mother, at least for now.
Even in The Bads of Bollywood’s ending, Aasmaan admits to his friends that he and Neeta are no longer on talking terms, as he has not yet been able to forgive her for this sin from her past. While the mother and son might reconcile in the future, they are still estranged as of now, with Aasmaan convinced that Neeta had cheated on Rajat in the most vile manner and never had any love for him, unlike what she claims.
Are Aasmaan and Karishma just friends now?
The revelation about Aasmaan’s twisted parentage also brings his relationship with Karishma to a sudden and unexpected halt, with no chance of any resumption in the future. The two lovebirds, after all, turn out to be half-siblings, and therefore they obviously cannot be a couple. Following the revelation at the abandoned studio, Aasmaan and Karishma stay away from each other for a few days before they decide to meet once again in public. Karishma now requests Aasmaan to keep the whole matter a secret from the media and the world, for the sake of her mother, Anu, who still has no idea about her husband’s infidelity in the past. Karishma herself makes a promise to Ajay, saying that she will never let her mother find out about his secret.
Aasmaan also naturally agrees to not tell anyone about Ajay being his biological father, and he and Karishma finally depart with him jokingly saying that they should meet next on Rakhi to celebrate their sibling ties. Such a scenario, in which Aasmaan and Karishma will secretly embrace their relationship as half-siblings, is impossible, as they had genuinely developed feelings for each other and therefore cannot just forget about their time together. Thankfully, the couple could never share a kiss during their brief period of romance, as they were always interrupted by someone or other. Either Aasmaan and Karishma will remain just friends now, or they will not be in touch at all, with the second possibility being more likely, considering the traumatic experience they had just gone through.
Is Aasmaan’s acting career totally ruined?
Aasmaan Singh’s acting career had already been on the rocks because of the events leading up to the shocking revelation about Ajay being his biological father. First, he had torn up his contract with Sodawallah Films after having signed an exclusive contract with them for three straight films, as he was fed up with Freddy Sodawallah’s egoistic and manipulative nature. Instead, Aasmaan had focused entirely on working with Karan Johar, who had unfortunately fired him after Ajay had sent the director the compromising video of Aasmaan associating with the gangster, Gafoor Bhai. Then, when the young actor physically assaulted Ajay during the Filmfirst awards, he was immediately blacklisted by the industry, and his career seemed well and truly over.
However, his best friend, Parvaiz, pulls off one last move for the actor, taking him back to Gafoor Bhai for help. Earlier in the series, Gafoor had told Aasmaan that his daughter had written a script for a film that she wanted to make and that she wanted to cast him in the lead role. It was for this reason that the gangster had abducted Aasmaan and taken him to his hideout, which had led to the whole fiasco regarding the compromising video. Thus, Aasmaan now goes back to the gangster and asks for a chance to act in a film produced by him. Gafoor agrees to make three films with Aasmaan, under his new production, Gafoor Film International, which will be directed by his daughter. Thus, there is still a possibility of Aasmaan making a return to the film industry if he can prove his acting skills in these low-budget films first.
Does Sanya join Dharma Productions?
Aasmaan’s close friend and manager, Sanya, is praised for her extreme dedication and hard work as an agent and manager by Karan Johar himself, who admits that he is more than impressed by her. Therefore, the director/producer now offers Sanya a lucrative job at his own company, Dharma Productions, and even sweetens the deal by revealing that she will now have to manage the Bollywood superstar, Ranbir Kapoor. Sanya does not hesitate to state how she is a die-hard fan of Kapoor, who is her favorite actor of all time, and that she would be absolutely thrilled to manage him. However, she ultimately declines the offer and says that she still wants to work for Aasmaan, despite the actor being at the lowest point in his career, for she wants to respect their friendship more than anything else. Sanya’s decision is supported by Kapoor and Johar as well, meaning that she might get more job offers from Dharma Productions in the future, and she might even broker a deal between the company and Aasmaan in the future, if the latter can indeed revive his career.
What happens to Neeta and Ajay?
In The Bads of Bollywood’s ending, Ajay receives a message from Neeta asking him to meet her for one last time, and the two eventually apologize to one another for not being able to keep the lid on their 26-year-old secret. They are ready to return to their usual lives and cut all ties with one another once again, when they suddenly realize that they had been duped into coming to the parking lot. In reality, it was the failed actor-turned-producer, Jaraj Saxena, who had masked his identity using the app that he had been using throughout the series to contact Neeta and Ajay, pretending to be each other.
Some time earlier, Jaraj had finally recognized Neeta to be the same item dancer in the song from “Sailab” after he spotted her on a news clip and had figured out that Aasmaan must have been the secret lovechild of the dancer and the superstar actor. He had shared this information with Freddy and his assistant, Jeejeebhoy, but they still needed to find concrete proof before acting on their hunch. Thus, Jaraj had duped the two into coming to the empty parking lot and sharing emotional words with each other, all of which was secretly recorded by Jeejeebhoy. Freddy and Jaraj now have the upper hand over Ajay Talvar, whom they had wanted to cast for a sequel to “Sailab.”
However, Freddy Sodawallah now tells Ajay that “Sailab 2” has just been canceled, for he wants to make a film based on the twisted situation that had just panned out in front of our eyes. Freddy even wants to cast Aasmaan and Karishma to play themselves in the film, which he wants to call “The Bastards of Bollywood.” There is no way for Ajay to turn down this project, as he has only two choices—either appear in Freddy’s film and claim the whole thing to be just an imagined story, or have Freddy expose the video of him and Neeta talking about their old affair to the public, which will surely result in his downfall. If Ajay, Neeta, Aasmaan, and Karishma can indeed avoid this odd scenario somehow, we will need a 2nd season of The Bads of Bollywood to know how they do it, as there are no suggestions left at the end of season 1.
What Happens In The Mid-credits Scene?
The Bads of Bollywood also features a short mid-credits scene, which is meant to be funny, although it might be considered a bit too crude and insensitive. The brash and ill-mannered younger brother of Karishma, Shaumik, does not really face any consequences for being the worst kind of human being to absolutely everyone around him, including his own sister. The shameless teenager had earlier been shown to be fantasizing about the house help at the Talvar house, and Shaumik now reveals to his mother that he is romantically interested in the house help and wants to be with her for the rest of his life, much to the shock of Anu.
