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Cast: Huma Qureshi, Shweta Basu Prasad, Shardul Bharadwaj, Vipin Sharma & Others
Creator: Subhash Kapoor
Director: Puneet Prakash
Streaming On: Sony Liv
Language: Hindi
Runtime: 8 episodes of 40 minutes each
“Kabhi Kabhi parivaar ko surakshit rakhne ke liye, satta ko haath mein lena padta hai.” That is how vulnerable the return of Rani Bharti in Maharani S4 is. Directed by Puneet Prakash, the political thriller starts a new journey with our protagonist, Bihar Chief Minister Rani Bharti, challenging the Prime Minister of the country! With Rani Bharti, aiming for the PM candidature, what happens to Bihar Politics sets up the entire premise of the fourth season!
The story of season 4 sets the premise straight within the first 20 minutes. The queen is back, and she is all set to challenge the Prime Minister while he wants to form an alliance with her. However, with its crucial time jump, which takes Rani to the national stage, forcing her into a relentless game of coalition politics where the stakes are life, death, and the very future of her children, Maharani S4 turns into a bigger battle but keeps tripping over its own ambition!
Maharani Season 4 Review: What’s It About:
Creator Subhash Kapoor and director Puneet Prakash make a bold choice by jumping ahead, placing Rani Bharti in the central politics, facing off against the highest parameters of power politics in India. But was she ready for this game? The story is denser, the threats are unknown, and the betrayal is closer to home than ever before. But does this transition to national politics retain the rawness that the initial seasons had with Bihar Politics at the focus!
Joshi is painted as the ultimate antagonist—a calculating, Aurangzeb-like figure who views the state Chief Minister as a pawn. The entire season is structured around Joshi’s calculated moves to dismantle Rani’s coalition, expose her past, and, most devastatingly, turn her own children and strongest allies – Mishra ji and Kaveri against her. This shift from fighting internal, regional corruption to battling a massive, centralized political machinery is the show’s biggest swing.
Maharani Season 4 Review: What Works:
The generational leap is the lifeline of the season, injecting fresh conflict and raising the emotional stakes significantly. Shardul Bharadwaj, as the son, and Shweta Basu Prasad, as the daughter, are the assets of this season on the web series. The three powerhouse performers of this web series include the two kids of Rani Bharti for sure!
The introduction of Shweta Basu Prasad as Roshni Bharti, and Darsheel Safari as Surya Bharti, Rani’s eldest daughter, and youngest son, is a masterstroke which has set a brutal premise for the revenge plot of the next season! Both the characters suffer from loyalty vs idealism syndrome, just like their mother, but they will eventually learn to play the game dirty!
Maharani Season 4 Review: Star Performance:
Huma Qureshi no longer just plays Rani Bharti; she is Rani Bharti. The way she has internalized the Bihari diction and the strategic silence of a seasoned politician is a masterclass. She is as effortless as the Chief Minister of Bihar, trying to strategize to win Delhi. She shines in the tense face-offs with Vipin Sharma, conveying immense power.
Vipin Sharma as PM Joshi is a very calculated choice. Not a loud villain, still winning the show with his opening scene itself, where he compares himself to Aurangzeb!
Shardul Bhardwaj as Jai Bharti, Rani’s ambitious son, is the biggest revelation for this season of Maharani. The son, who mourns being the middleborn, since he craves the respect the elder one gets and the love the younger one is showered with.
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Maharani Season 4 Review: What Doesn’t Work:
Honestly, this might be the most underwhelming of all three seasons, where it is evident from the start that Rani Bharti will eventually lose this battle because everyone else, except her, seems to be at a much better position – even her daughter Roshni, played by the ever-talented Shweta Basu Prasad.
Created by Subhash Kapoor and directed by Puneet Prakash, the central narrative of Rani’s battle against Prime Minister Sudhakar Sriniwas Joshi, played brilliantly by Vipin Sharma, takes an entire season to cement this premise, which was set up in the first episode itself when Rani Bharti challenged PM Joshi, “Singhasan Kheench Lenge Aapka.”
However, the series falls prey to its ambition when Rani Bharti is not able to handle her parivaar vs party dilemma! In the initial episodes, she clarifies that she is not Dhrirashtra, but eventually, she gets disoriented with the biggest problem of this country – Putra Moh!
Maharani Season 4 Review: Last Words:
For all its high-stakes drama, Maharani S4 suffers from two major setbacks – the first one is the pacing of the show. It is so rushed that it feels like nothing happened, or you could not register what happened. Too much is happening in a very short span of time, but nothing is so significant that you will remember it! Secondly, this season of Maharani was a bit predictable. From the first episode, you somehow knew the upcoming events of the next episode. In fact, right from Mishra Ji to Kaveri and from Roshni to Surya, you probably knew the character arcs and their plot twists, probably not necessarily in the same order!
For me, the winning stroke of this season also goes to Kani Kusruti’s Kaveri, who has changed the game plan entirely. In one of the scenes, a character says, “Satta ki daud mein dark horse hi baaji maar jaata hai,” and Kaveri might eventually turn that dark horse! In a confrontation scene, Kaveri tells Rani Bharti, “Agar Rani Bharti bhi’ Faisla lena pad raha hai’ bolne lage to samajhiye ki auron mein aur Rani Bharti mein farq khatam ho raha hai.”
Eventually, it holds true by the end of the season, and while this was an underwhelming season, it has already set up a very strong and brutal premise for the next season, and I am very excited for that one!
3.5 stars.
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