Ronit J

Dabba Cartel Synopsis:

Five housewives who run a high stakes secret cartel in which style, ambition, love, friendship and betrayal set in the rich 1960s Mumbai.

Dabba Cartel Review:

With such an interesting premise, I had high hopes. After Black Warrant and Paatal Lok, I genuinely thought this was going to be three-for-three in amazing shows for the start of 2025. With Excel Entertainment (Farhan Akhtar, Ritesh Sidhwani) producing, I was expecting an edge-of-your-seat thriller at best and an above-average show at worst.

So, what did I think about Dabba Cartel?

Great Premise – Dabba Cartel

Like I mentioned, the premise itself is brilliant. And so is the start. Raji (played by Shalini Pandey) runs a small time tiffin service along with the society’s domestic help Mala (played by Nimisha Sajayan). While most tiffins are your usual vegetarian desi meal, some ‘special’ tiffins include vidhara—an herbal viagra that housewives buy and secretly give their husbands to improve their sex lives. Already, the setting is great.

They are residents in VivaLife Society, housing quarters for employees of the pharmaceutical company VivaLife, everyone from managers and leaders to employees. Mala’s boyfriend Santosh (Prateek Pachauri) is a shady dude who supplies drugs. He ends up blackmailing her with a sex tape he shot without her consent, which forces Mala (Nimisha Sajayan) to start adding marijuana to her tiffins. I won’t go into too many details, but it doesn’t take too long for things to start falling apart. The mess ends up dragging their broker Shahida (Anjali Anand), as well as Raji’s mother-in-law, Ba (Shabana Azmi).

There’s also a parallel corporate scandal investigation plot that ties beautifully with the housewives’ shady business. At first…

Terrible Execution – Dabba Cartel

SPOILER ALERT: Everything falls apart in Episode 3. And I mean by the writing, direction, and the show in general.

The build-up until then was well-paced. However, episode 3 just ignores the progress and takes a sudden jump where the Dabba Cartel goes from having struggled to sell an insane amount of drugs in one month with a team of 4 functional members to owning a fleet of delivery girls all in the span of one scene. As the series progresses, the plot continues to bloat with a whole bunch of unnecessary complications that feel like first draft inspirations, but lack proper treatment.

Many of the characters act for the plot instead of driving it forward. Ba (Shabana Azmi) swoops in to save Raji (Shalini Pandey), only to get greedy and challenge Chavan. She goes from outsmarting him and dominating the power dynamics in one episode, and shamefacedly cowering in another. The Dabba Cartel starts making a ton of money, then includes Varuna in the mix to launder their money, but the way it happens just doesn’t make sense. The way the plot unfolds isn’t organic at all. There is a clear lack of direction. To be honest, a few more rounds of editing on the story and screenplay would’ve tremendously helped this show.

A Confusing Mess – Dabba Cartel

I genuinely feel that many of Dabba Cartel’s flaws come from very strange creative choices. Gajraj Rao’s performance as Pathak Ji felt very odd and out of place; it’s the execution, not his performance really. Preeti and Shahida (Sai Tamhankar and Anjali Anand) share a lesbian love story that feels like a token LGBTQ inclusion. There’s very little chemistry between them, and the way those scenes are treated feels absurdly romantic and out of place. Much of the writing feels expository—which makes sense given that OTT platforms are green-lighting more second-screen-friendly content.

I won’t list out every single issue, because there are way too many. I will list one more though. The worst part of Dabba Cartel is people act outlandishly suspicious when they’re confronted with even the slightest bit of confrontation or risk. I’ve seen better acting in bad Insta Reels/Tik-Tok.

All in all, the writing just gets messy and confusing. The treatment and direction don’t help at all. In fact, the show feels like it’s taking inspiration from some of the best, but fails to understand what made those things so good. What started as a promising show ended up as just another waste of time.

Dabba Cartel Ending Explained

Raji essentially betrays her ‘comrades’ by selling out the location and secrets of their operation to Chavan. However, the long built-up Chacko kidnaps the main gang, only to reveal that he’s ‘taken care of Chavan’ and that he’s ‘buying the Dabba Cartel’. Does it end there? No. Raji insists on dropping out, which Chacko is okay with as long as she shoots Moushami, who—dun dun dun—is Hari’s real mother! What’s the point of that twist? I honestly don’t know. The reveal neither adds any sort of emotional depth, nor offers catharsis. Anyway, Raji shoots her to protect Hari (unknowingly being held at gunpoint by Chacko’s man). The Dabba Cartel go back to their respective homes, knowing that their lives are still intertwined in their drug ring.

Also, Hari also finds out about his real mother through a letter, and goes absconding. Preeti finds out that Shahida lied to her. Bhowmick is killed (probably by some assassin hired by VivaLife), and Shankar (now turned a scapegoat in the Modella scandal) and his wife Varuna silently agree that they have to fight VivaLife together. Every single one of these endings is actually pretty cool. Except… none of them feel earned or moving. After the mess of a season, all of those just feel very random mid-season complications.

In my opinion, this isn’t an ending, it’s a pointless tease for a second season for a show that failed to write a compelling, coherent, and complete story.

In Conclusion:

Dabba Cartel is a show with a promising premise that loses the plot rather too quickly, devolving into a stale mess. Imagine subscribing to a tiffin service that serves you yummy Paneer Lababdaar and Malai Kofta on the first two days, but day three suddenly gives you stale rotis with shepu. The fact that the first two episodes showed such promise makes the poorly written and executed rest of the season just a sad sad release.

Is Dabba Cartel worth watching? No. Not at all. A consistently mediocre show is still tolerable, but one that shows promise, only to devolve and degrade into something barely passable as a first draft? No. Not at all.

Side note: Of all the things in this show, Nimisha Sajayan’s performance is probably the best part of Dabba Cartel. She holds her character throughout, and was a delight to watch.

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What other show/movie/book would you like me to review? Let me know in the comments below!

Until next time.