Like a forlorn Jeetu Bhaiya, the Netflix series stumbles its way through a befuddling (potential) final season.
Akhil Arora, a member of the Film Critics Guild and a Rotten Tomatoes-certified film critic, who saw all five episodes of Kota Factory season 3 in 4K Dolby Vision. He has been reviewing Netflix originals since 2015 and has written for NDTV and SlashFilm.
Kota Factory has never lived up to its title. The name suggests a grim look at the dystopian reality of teenagers in their formative years transported to a town in the middle of nowhere for a single mindless pursuit. Instead—over 10 episodes across two seasons—we’ve been treated to a sentimental and meandering look at the life of students. Kota Factory isn’t in black-and-white because it’s drained of life. It’s in black-and-white because the creators, themselves former IITians, are nostalgic for the past. The third—and what feels like the final—season wants to course correct. It wants to brush up on lessons it has ignored so far. But it has no idea how to communicate any of it. Everything is too literal or spelt out.
That’s how we end up with dialogues such as “Kota is a factory”. Okay, great, but that’s the name of your show. What makes it a factory? How does that manifest itself? Through its principal character, a now disillusioned Jeetu Bhaiya, the new season—with new director Pratish Mehta and returning season 2 scribe Puneet Batra as the head writer—tries to hack at what it wants to say. But that usually leaves us with him looking forlorn or beating himself up. Moreover, there’s dissonance across season 3. In a scene two minutes after Jeetu Bhaiya says it’s not about rankings, we get students scanning through posted sheets and being happy about the ranks and scores they have attained. Except Kota Factory isn’t in on the irony of the moment.
Kota Factory season 3 cast — the full list
From Tillotama Shome to Jitendra Kumar, the ensemble cast of the final season of the Netflix series.
Kota Factory season 3 wants to do better but it doesn’t know how
When it’s not busy listing Kota’s problems, the Netflix series struggles to tackle them meaningfully or appropriately. Even when it shows them, it feels too basic. Either there isn’t enough depth, or we’ve been here before. In the second season, Kota Factory displayed zero perspective—as if its creators were still undergoing Stockholm syndrome from their time in Rajasthan. The third season wants to do better. The introduction of a new character, who has no love for Kota, seems poised for such a thing. They go from wanting to leave to choosing to stay but it’s unclear why that happens beyond a narrative requirement. It doesn’t help that they are barely in the show or end up contributing to rudimentary lines like “Kota is a factory”. Surely, you’ve more to say.
The situation is more so dire with other characters. The second season wasted itself on unnecessary subplots or failed to recognise its missteps. Unable to figure out what to do with its supporting cast, Kota Factory season 3 relegates them to the corners. The three girls have virtually nothing to do all season—one of them is forgotten until the series finale. Among the boys, one is minimised to a “bad company” subplot, another deals with money troubles, and the central figure is nearly constantly irritating. It’s very evident that it’s lacking a sense of direction or purpose. No wonder then that for a show set in the age of Google Maps, its potential series finale spends a portion on a student losing his way to an examination centre. Seriously, is this all you could think of?
Jeetu Bhaiya is dismayed in season 3
Jeetendra “Jeetu Bhaiya” Kumar (Jitendra Kumar) is a changed man at the start of Kota Factory season 3. Following a student’s death by suicide at the end of the second season, he’s withdrawn from the world. (The Netflix series was never serious about exploring the real-world crisis and had merely tacked it on in the season 2 finale. To compound problems, season 3 tends to victim blame with multiple characters referencing the tragedy and noting that students make the “wrong move” under extreme duress. Sorry, are we going to ignore the environment?) All is not well with Jeetu, who’s been going to therapy for months. He feels responsible for their problems, but he’s too attached to the life of his students, his therapist rightly tells him.
Speaking of the students, it’s the IIT exam year for the Aimers gang. Vaibhav Pandey (Mayur More) and Vartika Ratawal (Revathi Pillai) are drifting apart, with the increasingly stressed boy failing to recognise the impact of his words. Balmukund Meena (Ranjan Ran) runs into troubles typical of an underprivileged kid in a show, which pushes Kota Factory into comedic territory. Uday Gupta (Alam Khan) is being Uday Gupta, though his story arc this season seems to exist more for Jeetu than himself. His girlfriend—and the only medical student on the Netflix series—Shivangi Ranawat (Ahsaas Channa) gets a few serviceable and perfunctory scenes. And Meenal Parekh (Urvi Singh), Meena’s former study partner, is completely sidelined.
No one in Kota Factory cares about the why
While Kota Factory season 3 might wish to tackle the deadly ugliness of relentlessly being told to obsessively chase one thing, this is still a show where everyone is obsessed with achievements. In the opening episode, when Vaibhav’s hometown friend visits him, his friends are overjoyed to discover he’s played in the nets with Virat Kohli and that he was in the Indian Premier League trials. But who is the person behind those achievements? No one in Kota Factory is bothered. Everything is about the process and the result. Where are the emotions, the reason for the struggle? Later in that episode, Jeetu reminds Vaibhav that IIT is “his passion and his goal”. But you cannot see that on his face or sense it in his voice.
Is it actually a dream or merely an obsession? Does he want to be an engineer because he loves science or because it’s a sign that he’s made it? Sure, the kids work hard and deal with enormous stress. But they are also immature and not worldly. In fact, the Kota environment has stunted their growth as a human—for it tells them the only way to be something in life is to study hard and outscore everyone else. That’s bogus. We know that as adults. We don’t see their lives outside of studying, complaining about studying or being fearful about not having enough time to study. Dates take place entirely off-screen. (Maybe it’s also because Kota Factory couldn’t write all these romantic conversations it invokes.)
It doesn’t help that it’s not very good at dramatising their problems. Multiple montages fall flat on their face. It’s not enough to be “relatable”, you’ve to unearth a truth. And there’s no use for wallowing in failure when you haven’t earned it.
Kota Factory season 3’s new teacher is underserved
Amidst all this, the arrival of a new chemistry teacher—Pooja “Pooja Didi” Aggarwal (Tillotama Shome, from The Night Manager)— seems well poised to comment on the warped reality of Kota. Her dislike of the city and the way it functions makes her a good vehicle for Kota Factory to explore its maddening blinkers-on spirit. She makes a point of how teaching is too mechanical in Kota—of course, it is, for it is a multi-billion-dollar business—and that there’s no love or honesty involved in the process. With Jeetu in a funk, she gets to display that compassionate teacher side, too. It’s evident that the Netflix series is interested in setting Pooja up as a potential successor. But as with its themes, Kota Factory doesn’t seem interested in the journey. It’s all about the destination.
Unfortunately, it’s not just her arc that’s rushed and unfulfilling. It also undermines the rest of Kota Factory season 3. When a major character drops a bombshell announcement—to partly prioritise their mental health—no one reacts well to the news. They receive zero support or understanding. All everyone around them can think of is how they are being left in the lurch. No one seems to care what the character needs. Worse, we don’t really get any scenes that show how the others come to accept it. They simply do because the show must go on. (With the reveal coming in the penultimate episode, the Netflix series also doesn’t give itself enough time.) It’s baffling and hugely unsatisfying.
‘Kota is a factory’? Thanks.
As you might expect from a show like Kota Factory, it culminates in an overly sentimental display in the finale. The third season struggles to figure out how to wrap things up but also leaves enough of the door ajar for a possible continuation. But what is it leaving room for? What has the Netflix series not said that it’s capable of saying? Also, what is the ultimate lesson? To not give up and keep on trying? Is that the only goal? Isn’t life about more than delaying your adulthood and driving yourself to a singular goal?
It makes sense that Kota Factory would be more interested in showy empty moments than meaningful excavation. It’s how you explain Vaibhav’s rant in the fourth episode of the third season. Or the scene in the finale. Or why it’s filmed in black and white. (Possibly edited not filmed, given how the hue keeps changing, sometimes in the middle of a scene. It’s a little jarring.) Across three seasons, Kota Factory co-creator and showrunner Raghav Subbu has failed to do much beyond worldbuilding. An inability to probe its gloomy world or serve up character growth has been central to its faults. But one thing is for sure: “Kota is a factory.” That’s some A-grade insight.
All five episodes of Kota Factory season 3 released on Thursday, June 20 on Netflix worldwide.
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