Gullak Season 4 review: As heart-warming as the first three seasons

The first season of TVF’s ‘Gullak’ arrived in 2019. It had been three years since the Indian audience had been introduced to the streaming space. ‘Gullak’ turned out to be an extremely warm show about a middle-class family in Uttar Pradesh peppered with light-hearted, dramatic and humorous moments. The show, headlined by Jameel Khan, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Vaibhav Raj Gupta and Harsh Mayar, struck a chord with the audience instantly and one looked forward to many such shows being made on the streaming space. For some reason, that did not happen and streaming platforms kept witnessing the arrival of dark thriller and gory dramas. ‘Gullak’, thankfully, returned for another season. And, another season. Now, the fourth season of the show has dropped on Sony LIV.

The fourth season of ‘Gullak’ features the Mishra family dealing with new challenges and trying to ward off issues – big and small – from their lives. The children have grown up now. While Anand/Annu (Vaibhav Raj Gupta) is working as a medical representative in a pharmaceutical company, Aman (Harsh Mayar) is in 11^th/12^th grade. Annu is trying to climb up the ladders in his professional life and Aman is going through the kind of anxieties and dilemmas most teenagers go through. A large part of the fourth season revolves around the issues faced by them or the circumstances they find themselves in.

The first episode of ‘Gullak’ season 4 gets your attention immediately. We get to know that Mishra family’s house has been declared as an illegal structure. To safeguard their house, Mishra family has to bribe a government official. While Santosh Mishra (Jameel Khan) is against the idea, everybody in the family prods him to do that. The way the events in the episode unfold is very interesting. The conversation between Santosh Mishra and the government official is the highlight of the episode. The second episode, which revolves around Shanti Mishra’s (Geetanjali Kulkarni) jewellery getting stolen and she being attacked by a bunch of bike-riding chain snatchers, has been written sensitively. The episode shows the audience how theft results in loss of one’s self-respect as well. The fourth episode, which shows the conflict between the two brothers, is one of the best episodes this season.

Just like other seasons of ‘Gullak’, the fourth season, too, features five episodes. The runtime of the first four episodes, on an average, is thirty minutes. The fifth episode, however, is 45 minutes long. The fourth season, by and large, is engaging and filled with several memorable moments. The narrative, however, drops at a few junctures and feels stretched at times. While a bunch of new characters have been introduced in this season, they could have been fleshed out a little better.

The performances delivered by each member of the cast, just like the previous seasons, is exemplary. As Santosh Mishra, the talented Jameel Khan got the breakthrough role of his career. Yet again, he slips into the character effortlessly and delivers a nuanced performance. Geetanjali Kulkarni shines in every scene she appears in. Vaibhav Raj Gupta delivers a supremely confident performance as Annu. Harsh Mayar brings the internal conflicts faced by Aman effectively to the fore. Sunita Rajwar creates several humourous moments as Bittu ki Mummy. The actor, playing the role of scrap collector, leaves a mark. Shivankit Singh Parihar’s voice-over/commentary remains one of the highlights of the show.

After watching the fourth season of ‘Gullak’, one can safely say that it has been one of the most heart-warming and delightful shows to have arrived on the streaming space in India. One just hopes that its success finally paves the way for more such shows.