Little Things, the slice-of-life series, premiered on Youtube in 2016 with Season 1. Its great success helped Season 2 find its spot on Netflix last October. A year later, they bring us Season 3, right on schedule.
The show featuring Dhruv Sehgal and Mithila Palkar is set in Mumbai and takes us on the journey of a young couple, Dhruv Vats and Kavya Kulkarni, through life as they navigate their relationship, career, and aspirations. As the couple has come of age on-screen, so did the series production team off-screen, with the team expanding instead of replacing, bringing in more writers and a director to propel the story forward. The result has created a Season 3 that elevates the show beyond the oft-labelled ‘sheltered millennial’ series, to a complex exploration of a journey into adulthood.
Season 3 takes us on the journey of the relationship from when it turns long distance. However, perhaps and more importantly, it may be trying to answer another question. What is the impact of a long-term relationship on your individual identity, and your identity on a long-term relationship? And what can actually allow a relationship to sustain the strain of an individual growing up?
Season 3 reflects the true coming of age of a millennial couple in India, one that so far met randomly and easily in Mumbai, got to live together before marriage in a big city, with the blessing of their parents, enjoy a fairly luxurious life with decent jobs, and continues to Netflix and chill. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) With no real drama or society to fight until now, as adulthood and responsibility come knocking, so does a requirement to start making weighted choices, choices that are not just about themselves.
The third season consists of eight episodes. We see them navigate the 6-month long-distance relationship in the first 3 episodes, followed by one episode with each of them in their respective hometowns for 5 days, with the sixth to eighth episode bringing it all in upon their reunion in Mumbai.
In Episode 1, we see Dhruv heading to Bangalore for a 6-month researcher position as a professor at Indian Statistical Institute in Bangalore, while Kavya continues life in Mumbai. Sounds inconvenient but doable, right? Looks like it too. But that’s where the ‘Little Things‘ make all the difference.
As episodes 4 and 5 take them back to their roots, in Delhi for Dhruv and Kanpur for Kayva, each comes face-to-face with the reality of acknowledging change within; from the person who grew up in that home town to the one he/she has become, of ageing parents who need them, and how it informs their relationships with people that don’t fade out.
It is in his relationship with his mother that you get to see why Dhruv, like most Punjabis, snaps when he is stressed and puts you down, or why he hates being cut off mid-sentence. It is in her relationship with her mother that you see why Kavya has always been a calm presence and where her emotional wisdom often comes from.
You see Dhruv growing up, hoping he could have done more for his family on a certain occasion. You see it in smaller details like the way he dresses, going beyond T-shirts, shorts and jeans as he takes on a more serious approach towards his work and his future.
You see Kavya acknowledge all that she sidelined while enjoying the beginnings of love. You also see her bring a Ganesh idol back from home to Mumbai, reminding her of one she used to carry in her pencil box as a kid, perhaps to try to reconnect to the person she used to be once.
As they arrive in Mumbai in episode 6, so does a need to regain balance in the wake of all the little things that have occurred in the last 6 months and 5 days, to reunite. They may have evolved past the phases of crushes and sexual attraction towards other people to threaten a relationship (Season 2). But even in an era of Facetime for instant communication and budget airlines for weekend trips, has it been enough to stay in sync? Have they done enough to stay in sync and feel togetherness? Have they outgrown their insecurities and disagreements? Friends and family may find marriage to be an obvious next step while they cope with those questions, so they still need to communicate with each other about the big M word. When it comes down to the biggest life commitment one can make, how do the key moments in your individual love history create an impact? After all, we are the sum of our past, aren’t we?
Do they find their path forward, individually, familially and as a couple? As I said, the season goes way beyond the travails of a long-distance relationship. Do they step into adulthood, confronting all that it brings gracefully, as unbelieved by many about millennials?
When you reach that stage of your relationship where you don’t want to spend every waking moment with each other, or can find happiness in other things and people, excitement in growing outside of each other, have you outgrown the relationship? Or has the relationship evolved into something more resilient to time, circumstance, and momentary experience? Perhaps like, family. The journey to that answer lies in conversing with each other about your deepest fears and insecurities, your hopes and desires. And the answer… is in the ‘Little Things’.
Kudos to the actors Dhruv and Mithila, who give shape, depth and credence to the characters they’ve been playing for four years, and all the writers in a season developed by Dhruv Sehgal, with episode writers including Garima Pura Patiyaalvi, Nupur Pai and Abhinandan Shridhar. Sumit Aroraa and Ruchir Arun direct four episodes each with commendable restraint and underlying imagery. A special mention for production designers Nimish Kotwal and Riyaz Shaikh is due too, as they get to do a lot with enough elements of nostalgia and an expanse of changing locations and cities to play with. Just one big critique, the song chosen to end the series seems quite misplaced in tonality, even if I believe in subtext and love Prateek Kuhad’s music.
Little Things Season 3 became available for streaming on 9 November 2019 on Netflix. It is produced by Ashwin Suresh Anirudh Pandita, and Aditi Shrivastava of Dice Media. Watch the special second trailer released on the same day, below.
Wow, wonderful series. Love Mithila and Dhruv