You could say Shreya just put down the season’s harshest line on the show: that Harshad is too much of an ego and can’t get work because, put simply, he is unmarriageable. It has divided the viewing room and put a new kind of pressure on what is already a tense Netflix series.
And the timing of it all is what makes it stick. With Shreya on the chopping block after a lost task and Harshad in the clear, you have to wonder if her takedown was a calculated move or just a way to let off some steam over the way things are in the house.
How we got here
Things in the fifth episode didn’t take long to sour. Shreya felt like the others were ganging up on her and wouldn’t back her, and it came to a head in a row with Pamela and Sufi Motiwala before she had to step back and compose herself.
She made it plain in a sit-down with Madhuri Jain Grover that she isn’t on the programme to prop up a waning career – something she has been at odds with over in the house. She didn’t mince words about Harshad either, saying he is not getting any work and is too full of himself, which is why he is still single.
Harshad has his side of it
That stings a bit when you put it next to what the 42-year-old has said. He has been open about how hard it is for him to make a connection. “I date but then I get f
d,” he put it. He talks of a kind of emotional wall where he is speaking and the other person is just not with him.
He’ll be the first to say he might be too much of an open book. It is part of the reason he has been so careful with his private life, even after 20-odd years in front of a camera.
Back in the premiere, when Farah Khan and Riteish Deshmukh put the question to him, he went back to 2010. His girlfriend and his best friend made a thing of it, and he was left with neither. He was more of a social butterfly before that, but not anymore.
The ripple effect on Lock Upp 2
This is more than a scuffle. When someone who is about to be shown the door goes after one of the safe ones, it changes the whole dynamic and where the audience’s sympathies lie. You also have the subtext of people on the show trying to prove they still have it.
With five episodes a week on Netflix from Saturday to Wednesday, every word is under a microscope. There is a lot of noise among the 15 of them.
Some of the things people are talking about:
– Shreya’s take on Harshad being a jobless arse
– Harshad’s view that he has been left out in the cold in love
– The 2010 double-cross he has told us about
– Shreya making sure you know she is not here for a career revival
More than just an insult
It wasn’t only Harshad she had in her sights. Shreya also made a point of calling Shivangi Joshi’s last venture a failure, and in doing so, positioned herself as the one with real talent in a room of people rebranding themselves. She is making sure you see it.
Where do we go from here
There will be consequences. If Shreya is still in the house, everyone has to deal with her version of events – that some of them are done and Harshad is just along for the ride. If she is out, it is still a moment you won’t forget this season.
For the time being, Harshad’s story is the other side of the coin: a man with a 2010 wound who thinks he gives too much. Whether that holds more water than what Shreya is throwing at him is for you to decide.
