Panchayat Season 3 review: Of Pigeons and Potholes

Panchayat Season 3 review

The adorable Phulera turns into a battle ground and the road is still full of potholes, Panchayat season 3 is kabootering (flying) from sly humour to romance to political potboiler (in its own style) and unfortunately the mix bag has moments but the eight-episode series fails to sweep you away this time and feels incomplete.

Prahlad (Faisal Malik) – the ‘teddy bear’ is grief stricken and the man has hit the bottle, he refuses to go home ‘khaali ghar kaatne ko daudta hai’ and when he says “ samay se pehle kisi ko nahi jaana chahiye’ he makes us feel for him and when the same Prahlad laughs on MLA demand of white kabootar (pigeon) and the reaction from Pradhan ji (Raghubir Yadav), Sachiv Ji (Jitendra Kumar), Vikas (Chandan Roy) and Bam Bahadur is priceless. Such banter has remained the trademark of Panchayat but sadly in season 3 such punches are very rare.

The attempted ones like the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (begins well but is over stretched), selling of Horse, MLA convicted of killing a dog declares himself as a vegetarian and when he is served mutton and the ‘mantri’ is eager to eat it but asks the media persons to put off the camera is out of place. In fact, the MLA here is out of place in Phulera and the third season of the highly enjoyable Panchayat has outside influence more – the MLA, the shooters coming from nowhere, the goons send by MLA to Phulera to break the leg of Bam Bahadur who has challenged the MLA.

The season opens in a city and only when Jitendra Kumar rides through Phulera and we see the water tank, the hand pump and the Sachiv Ji’s office and of course, Vinod, Bhushan chatting at that tea stall, we get the aura of Panchayat.

However, Sachiv Ji and Pradhan Ji – Jitendra Kumar and Raghubir Yadav have taken a back seat. It’s the MLA, Bhushan, Prahlad and Vikas whose stories move forward and yes, the actual Sarpanch Manju Devi (Neena Gupta) does some talking in fact taking active part in the affairs of Phulera.

The community vibe is felt but the ambition of the makers to make Panchayat season 3 more bigger compromises on its simplicity and sly humour. Its like a Sharad Joshi’s story in its third chapter attempting to be a desi quirky political pot boiler. There are guns, shooters and outsiders in Phulera now.

The robbing of innocence from Panchayat in its third season as added sourness in the sweet Panchayat series and it ends on a cliffhanger, so there is season 4 coming.

Performance

Faisal Malik as Prahlad is excellent and wins hearts once again.

Durgesh Singh as Bhushan is outstanding.

Pankaj Jha is fantastic

Jitendra Kumar and Raghubir Yadav are competent. Neena Gupta is fabulous and has some extra meat this time.

Chandan Roy as Vikas is very good.

Good support comes from Sunita Rajwar, Ashok Pathak as Vinod, Bulloo Kumar as Madhav and the actor who plays Bam Bahadur.

Panchayat Season 3 – final words

Dekha - ‘Vinod’ kaise kam ho gaya iss ladai jhagde mein

Going with 2 stars

Panchayat season 3 is streaming on Amazon Prime from May 28, 2024.