Bombay Begums · Season 1 · Episode 1 · 8 March 2021
S1E1 Episode 1
THE MOMENT Rani's first board meeting as CEO - the specific texture of being the woman who has finally reached the position, and the immediate challenge to her authority that the episode stages without melodrama.
Bombay Begums' International Women's Day premiere opens with five women in Mumbai whose lives are connected by proximity to power - corporate, political, personal - and by the specific constraints each of their contexts imposes. Pooja Bhatt's Rani, newly appointed CEO, is the series' narrative centre, but the ensemble premiere establishes all five women's situations with enough specificity to make...
Full episode analysis below. Spoiler-light verdict above.
Updated
Bombay Begums' premiere earns its 6.5 score through its ambition in staging five women's professional and personal lives as mutually illuminating rather than simply parallel. The Netflix India production's visual confidence - Alankrita Shrivastava directing with the same sensibility she brought to Lipstick Under My Burkha - distinguishes it from comparable Indian ensemble dramas. Pooja Bhatt's return to acting after years away from the screen is the pilot's most discussed element, and her CEO Rani carries the premiere's main dramatic weight with experienced precision. The show's willingness to engage with sexual politics at the level of specific negotiation rather than broad statement is established in the first episode's best scenes.