4 More Shots Please Is More Adrenaline Shots For A Ravenous  Generation

Four Mores Shots Please(Amazon Video)

Starring  Kirti Kulhari, Maanvi Gagroo,  Bani J, Sayani Gupta

Directed by  Nupur Asthana

Rating: ****(4 stars)

 In a series sparkling with  chic  quips  and sparkling  one-liners, there is not one  happy  protagonist  at  the end.In fact, spoiler ahead,  Season 2  of one of  the best streaming serials in India , ends with an  aborted wedding.

  Don’t look at me. Life itself serves up such a supreme spoiler for those who care to  lunge forward  in pursuit of self-satisfaction. Four  More Shots Please says  it’s okay to be selfish, that being a  woman  doesn’t  mean you have  to be  constantly  caring, giving, sacrificing , etc.  Not surprisingly there are  many talented women involved with this smart sassy series.And they ensure a life of  unfettered  pleasure -pursuit, a lot of it in bed, for  our ladies.

So in case  you haven’t already met them, meet the  four female heroes  of  this glamorous  good-looking series with plenty of balls and  brio. Anjana(Kirti Kulhari) is still a single mother, still half in love  with her  ex-husband(Neil Bhoopalam, a stand-out male character in  a series unabashedly celebrating womanhood), still beautiful.

Damini(Sayani  Gupta) is still a feisty and  over-emotional writer lusting after two  men ,  one old enough to be  the other’s father. Damini’s  story also brings out the  series’ most  crucial  debate: the freedom  of  the  press.Kalam calamity,so to  say.

My favourite  Siddhi(Maanvi Gagroo) is  still  Gujarati, still overweight. What has  changed in Season 2 for Siddhi is her newly-found sense of self-worth as she finds her bearing as a stand-up artiste(and Gagroo should really do stand-up, she’s THAT good at it) and there’s no dearth  of  male attention specially from a fellow-standup played nicely by  Prabal Panjabi, all of which Siddhi rejects.Maybe she’s a closet lesbiam. Season 3 , perhaps? Siddhi is the only  one of the four protagonists who has  evolved.May the  growth continue.

Umang(Bani J) is stuck in her gay tangle with  the  big film star Lisa Ray. This  strand in the well-written plot is the  least interesting as it  just goes round and  round saying only one thing: it’s not easy being  gay in this  country.

Got it. Next?  I’d say Season 2  of Four More Shots Please  is   far more  well-informed and  shapely than  Season 1. The  performances even the  men , are uniformly likeable even when the characters  are doing unlikeable things , like cheating on their wives and showering way  too much attention on  their girlfriend. This  is what poor Arjun Nair (Ankur Rathee) ends  up doing with  Anjana .She shows him the door. Perfection is  boring.

Warning to potential spouses and mates: too much attention is even more dangerous too little,Life’s lessons are served  up  not in bold italics  but  insinuated into situations  and  plot  movements  which never undermine the  sheer  screen presence of  the characters. Nobody here is going to  back off just because it’s  the  right thing to  do.  Four  More Shots celebrates life in all its  ugly uncomfortable  messy glory. It’s  a really goodlooking  series with some exquisite locations where the characters  just  shit, puke  and pee  on  the  idyll.  From guys who come too soon to girls who never reach  on  time,  Season 2  sweeps across the tempestuous spectrum of the man-woman axis, laying deliberate stress on what women want but ensuring that the men  have a  voice too.

It’s been a while since I watched every episode of  an OTT series. No, not binge-watched. That would be doing no justice to the  dialogues that just flow with a sardonic  wisdom.I watched it a little at  a time savouring the  incidental  details. There is a word- play on the word  ‘crack’ between Anjali and her married lover that will crack you up. Provided  you aren’t  a prude who thinks women who use four-lettter words or talk about parts  of  the body, are  not nice. In that case,  you are in the wrong place.