Writer and director: Vasanthabalan
Story: S Jeyamohan, G Vasanthabalan
Cast: Kishore, Sriya Reddy, Bharath, Remya Nambeesan
Available in: Zee5
Duration: 8 episodes
In Thalaimai Seyalagam, we might lose track of the number of dead people and their backstories. It’s not until the last two episodes that the viewer might be able to understand the full picture. This is not a bad thing at all because the series manages to keep us all agog. But what’s mostly bothersome is the number of names thrown at you, of the dead, the witnesses, and the overdose of details associated with it. If Thalaimai Seyalagam was only a murder mystery, this wouldn’t have been so much of a problem. However, at a surface level, the series is a political drama with a complex succession battle. There’s a pending court case against Arunachalam (Kishore), the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. So, even if we somehow manage to follow the murders and related findings, remembering it all until we get back to the mystery is quite a task – the fact that the case sprawls in different cities including Jharkhand, West Bengal and Delhi only further complicates things.
And that’s not the entire plot. We also have a parallel investigation about the death of a police officer and a blackmailing that haunt the life of CM’s friend and chief advisor Kotravai (a brilliant Sriya Reddy). There are more such minor tales packed in. Each character and subplot in the series is crafted with care, but how many are too many? This is a question that Thalaimai Seyalagam struggles to answer.
The care to write each of these angles with equal importance ensures you remain hooked to the screen even as the series leaps between different threads. So, cutting to show us Kotravai’s personal issues right after discussing a seemingly random murder in Jharkhand or West Bengal isn’t distracting. For instance, in the very first sequence, you see a woman slit the throats of her torturers, with rage. As the blood splashes all over, a man’s voiceover talks to us about a certain love – he says that a leader’s love for the people is justice. Pairing a poetic expression with a murder is an example of how smoothly the series juggles the different subplots, at least in the beginning.
In a series that deals with power plays, betrayals and money games, a knife in the back is just around the corner. Naturally, you get to see a lot of blood (more than you’d want to), but the series lets its characters confide in loyal friendships. Arunachalam might’ve been the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for 15 years but it wouldn’t have been possible without his dear friend Selva, the former Chief Minister’s son who aides him instead of fighting for the position.
The friendship between Arunachalam and Kotravai too gets an intriguing perspective. The first time we see them exchange smiles, the onlookers – including Arunachalam’s daughter and son-in-law – look with disgust. GenZs might ask their elders why they hardly believe in male-female friendships. For a change, in Thalaimai Seyalagam, Arunachalam tells Kutravai’s daughter to turn deaf to rumours and instead trust their friendship. “Even this generation is looking down on male-female relationships,” he tells her.
But when it swaps loyalty for betrayal, the series finds itself in a predictable mess. And none of these “backstabs” affect you. Even when a character goes missing or when another is dead, you’re neither shocked nor deeply moved. Not to forget that a series titled Thalaimai Seyalagam (Head Secretariat) never once shows the Chief Minister in the office, discussing actual matters that are important to the public. There are passing commentaries on serving the nation, protecting tribes, understanding the importance of forests, among other things, but none of it comes from the CM. When he isn’t busy listening to his aides’ plans to help him win the case, he is either waiting for hours in a hospital room reading a newspaper or playing a game of chess, with his king in check.
There might always be something to look forward to in Thalaimai Seyalagam. But even if you are willing to walk into its complex maze, its familiar treatment of ambitious set-ups might leave you disappointed.