Four More Shots Please Review

With four very different females in the lead roles, the show tries to provide a glimpse into the life of a modern, urban, upper class, upper caste, privileged woman in India. This glimpse is so narrow, that they cannot even get these characters right. Anjana, Damini, Siddhi and Umang are all living in SoBo (South Bombay), which should be called SoMu (South Mumbai) according to Umang, who hails from Ludhiana. These women are shown to be fighting biases about gender and sexuality, even as the makers of the show do little to hide the show’s own stereotypes. The chubby girl is the virgin. The bisexual is the overtly sexual one who’s constantly hooking up with someone. The divorced mother is the one who’s never explored masturbation. And the career-minded startup owner is the obsessive-compulsive loner.

Women with this level of privilege, still face gender-based issues in India. From workplace discrimination and online harassment to safety on the streets, the show had great potential to portray a realistic version. Nevertheless, these characters are shown as one-dimensional caricatures of themselves. The show seems more like Sex and the City with Indian characters, rather than an Indianised version of the same. Four More Shots Please redeems itself from being a wasted opportunity in the last 4 episodes, when it grows organically, and frees the women from fulfilling their specific cliches.

You find yourself rooting for Umang when she falls in love with a woman, and feel her pain when her girlfriend is not ready to come out of the closet. Umang, who has run away from her traditional family to brazenly live her sexuality, cannot bear the suffocation of being in the closet again. On the other hand, her girlfriend’s need to hide her sexuality on account of being a public figure is also understandable. Umang’s former girlfriend, who didn’t have the courage to be open about her sexuality, is shown to be struggling with her marriage and family life.

Perhaps the show’s biggest flaw is its failure to bring out the most basic problems of its target audience: urban Indian women. There are nice moments too but they are few. It’s heartening to see women drinking, cussing and taking the onus of pleasure on themselves. But these are not the only things that define and make ‘real’ women.

Four More Shots Please is something that is rather worth missing than giving a try at all.