‘Brown’ review: Gripping series overcomes plotting holes through memorable characters

Once upon a time, cops were cops. They carried out their duties. They extended greasy palms. They winked at vigilantes. They became vigilantes.

At some point, they were infected by angst, never to recover. They drank and snorted and lashed out. They were Troubled, their Anxieties Capitalised. Rita Brown is one such exemplar of the Troubled Cop.

The heroine of the ZEE5 series Brown is an ace investigator as well as a functioning alcoholic – one has collapsed into the other. Rita’s skills are prized, even though she isn’t. Of tangled hair, furrowed brow and brusque manner, Rita laughs out loud but once – all the way into the fifth of seven episodes.

Rita is played by Karisma Kapoor, who pleasantly shocks every now and then. In Brown, Karisma Kapoor is shorn of make-up, never mannered or over-the-top, and hugely compelling as a butcher’s dogged hunter.

The show’s source novel, Abheek Barua’s City of Death, is set in an unnamed city that is clearly Kolkata, which Barua describes as having “overflowing sewers” and “rutted streets” with houses covered with “dirty green moss clumped together”. In this necropolis, Sohini Sen investigates the beheading of two young women.

Among the key changes in the series is the reculturisation of Sohini Sen as an Anglo-Indian and the...

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