The crime series in which Kunal Kemmu plays super cop Abhay Pratap Singh from the Lucknow-based Special Task Force, is known for its array of perverts and perpetrators with twisted minds. Victims go through the torturous deaths and blood is spilt by the bucketful.
The third season spotlights a cult that’s obsessed with mrityu (death) with followers who are like the brainwashed army in Mr India that would shout ‘Hail Mogambo’ before jumping into boiling acid. Indoctrinated to believe that it’s their bounden duty to free people from the tensions of life, the cult spawns a variety of cruel killers who drop babies from terraces besides flagellating and inflicting pain on themselves too.
Instead of episodic crime busting, the thread of the cult that has a connection with a comet in the sky, runs through eight episodes. Grappling with a lonely school-going son and his own personal demons, Abhay sets off on the trail of three different sets of killers. Some who follow the cult, some who just enjoy the slow kill.
NRI couple, Kabir (Tanuj Virwani) and Harleen (Divya Agarwal), styled as influencers on social media, have a strange edginess. Avtar (Rahul Dev), the loner is on a mission since he was inducted early in life to strangle innocent rabbits to give them ‘mukti’. Controlling the minds of followers and raising killers is Anant or Dr Sinha, a psychiatrist (Vijay Raaz).
Director Ken Ghosh uses all the tropes of deserted jungles and poorly lit bungalows, lonely roads at midnight and kids on their own to create the desired eeriness. Abhay has barely caught one set of killers before another wave of murders demand his time. Until he catches up with Anant, the mind controller. But why Abhay is brusque with him at first sight is unexplained. Left loose are several little details like Abhay’s son Saahil (Pratyaksh Panwar) using his mobile phone with impunity on a staircase when there are kids going up and down and phones are banned in school.
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A team of four writers weave in multi tracks like female cop Khushboo (Nidhi Singh) investigating her own senior Abhay for a couple of murders, a cat fight between two women Khushboo and Sonam (Asha Negi), and Saahil’s loneliness which puts him in a rather predictable situation.
Kunal Kemmu, Vijay Raaz, Tanuj Virwani and Rahul Dev perform their roles as directed. And so, it’s all there but it adds up to a routine crime watch without anything outstanding to make your hair stand on edge. With dialogues like ‘Galti aur gunah mein bahut farak hota hai’ and Anant on an anant (unending) monologue about ‘mrityu’, I guess you can’t have any moment that makes you go ‘wow’.
PS: Of course, a lot of windows are left open for another season of bludgeoning and blood.
Watch Abhay 3 Trailer: