You can tell that Brown keeps finding ways to stretch out scenes and conversations, adding personal-life tracks and expanding time in order to justify its stature as long-form entertainment. It stops short of adding an afternoon nap or two. I’m not going to say it could’ve been a film. But I can say that the series employs so much padding and vibes — like the characters of Rita’s mother (Soni Razdan) and aunt (Helen Khan), Arjun’s dad, or the random track of two cyber-crime dudes working together — that Brown is consumed by its own colour. They work as neither diversions nor fillers. Most detective stories thrive on domestic strife and broken-home scenes, but this is a mood piece that sips on expensive scotch. Every other frame calls for attention. Smoke wafts out of lips and artificial light falls onto faces in precise manners. It’s almost too good-looking to be engaging; it’s also too obsessed with its own reflection in the mirror to be smarter.
The gaze is also a bit troubling, almost like the show is fetishising the city as some meditation on a hedonistic society that hides behind its liberalism, artistic image and seemingly progressive men. Even if the intent is to show the complicity of community and family in the violence against women, Brown is one-note in its exploration of this motif. Rita and Arjun look into the usual suspects and predators: a pervert stepbrother (who likes having sex with teenagers in school dresses), an abusive father-in-law, a wife who looks the other way, an ex-boyfriend having an affair with the victim’s best friend, a gay husband, and so on. No character is allowed to be ordinary. Being functional is a crime. The plot bides its time and gets convoluted when politicians, powerful players and media anchors make the two cops jump through hoops for wanting to do their job without agendas. At some point, I stopped paying attention and still didn’t miss any information before the finale. I suppose that’s what they call ambient viewing, except the genre itself is not designed to sustain such passive interest.
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