The title itself was a “click bait” and while the first episode prepared you to stay glued to your seats, it seemed to have been abruptly wrapped up before reaching any conclusion in the story line.

Money brings five women, different backgrounds, different professions to indulge in supplying drugs all over Mumbai through a very well-thought out channel: the iconic lunch dabba. Very imaginative indeed, and the original business woman, Raji, (Shalini Pandey) a home chef,  had already made a dent in the market by supplying “herbal viagras” via the dabba and made herself popular with the her core customers, specially housewives. By sheer accident, caused by her maid, Mala, (Nimisha Sajayan) and her boyfriend, they are forced into the delivery business of drugs and the drug cartel, delighted with the success of distribution by dabbas, try to force them to distribute even more. Even though it is commission sharing and Raji’s company starts seeing the colour of money, she thinks it not a good idea to continue with the drug business and that is where the drama begins. The drug lords (who really collect for funding election campaigns for the political class) refuse to take no for an answer and attempt to bump them off — when Raji’s otherwise bholi-bhali ma-in-law, Ba, (Shabana Azmi) enters the fray. She turns out to be a super don herself, or was assisting one, a cop killer, and knew the lanes and bylanes of the underworld like the back of her hand. 

In a parallel plot, a pharma company making painkillers loaded with addictive opiates are accused for the death of a person, unearthing a deadly can of worms. One of the head honchos, Shankar Dasgupta (Jishu Sengupta) is slowly pushed into being made the fall guy, while his wife, Varuna (Jyotika), who runs a boutique is in deep debt and pushed to the point of shutting her dream business. Two investigators — Pathak (Giriraj Rao) from the drug monitoring agency and a mid-level cop, Preeti (Sai Tamhankar) are committed to investigate the drug scandal and come up against corrupt officers and indecisive bureaucracy. 

All stories/plots move on their own, some weak in parts, finally blending in at the end, leading to some uncalled for gruesome killings. Forced. Gratuitous. Instead, a little more effort in tying up the narrative into simple conclusions would have perhaps pushed this series into the top class of shows currently on streaming platforms.

In seven episodes the plot goes through a mish-mash and it just feels like much of the planning was probably done a day before the shoot! Finally, they run out of ideas as to how to extend the story and end with a forced hint that there will be a another season to take revenge.

But then again, what really pulls this entire show together are the actresses who played out the five major roles. An elderly Shabana, as one-time underworld, now a mother/mother-in-law carries her character with aplomb; Jyothika seemed perfect in playing a mother-of-one wife of a corporate honcho who runs a boutique; Jishu didn’t feel as impressive, though he tried his best; but Gajaraj Singh as investigator Pathak was an acting school by himself. 

If they ever plan a sequel, they must ensure that the story does not collapse midway. Till then Dabba Cartel remains a very good show that could just have been fabulous.