Aryan’s Debut Sparks Hype But Settles Personal Scores
The Netflix debut flirts with controversy and name-calling, but ends up as a crass, juvenile take on Bollywood’s underbelly
As expected, Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan’s debut series was greeted with exaggerated enthusiasm in Mumbai, with some critics hailing him as the “Second Coming.”
But the show feels less like storytelling and more like a platform to settle scores. Aryan leans into his 2021 arrest and incarceration during the infamous cruise drug bust, introducing a character modeled unmistakably on NCB officer Sameer Wankhede — down to the actor’s resemblance. The potshots continue: a lisping TV journalist, known for roundtable interviews, is mocked at a party by the protagonist (Laksh Lalwani) for a bad review — a thinly veiled jab at film critic Rajeev Masand.
What follows is a barrage of profanity and forced risqué humor. Characters freely drop the f-word, sexual innuendos abound, and even family scenes feel awkward. In one cringe-worthy moment, Mona Singh’s character overhears her son and his best friend (Raghav Juyal) discussing sex.
A source close to the production defends the excess, “This is how youngsters speak. Aryan was given a free hand. Netflix didn’t apply any filters.”
Beyond the shock tactics, Bads of Bollywood is amateurish. The tragedy is that Aryan, with his unique vantage point inside Bollywood, could have delivered a hard-hitting exposé of the industry’s dark underbelly. Instead, he skims the surface, turning it into something cheesy, juvenile, and compromised.