Blunt-force drama: Deepanjana Pal writes on the new series Black, White and Gray

Hindustan Times

10-05-2025

Halfway into Black, White & Gray - Love Kills, there's a twist in the tale. It is one of many in this series created, written, directed and edited by Pushkar Sunil Mahabal, but this one is pivotal.
Streaming on Sony Liv, Black, White & Gray is an investigation into four murders believed to have been committed by one young man. The story unfolds like a true-crime documentary being filmed by a faceless British freelance reporter named Daniel Gray (voiced by Edward Sonnenblick). One narrative thread shows the interviews Gray conducts with people linked to the cases. Running parallel is a series of re-enactments based on their video testimonies.
In the re-enactments, we see recognisable faces and excellent performances by actors such as Tigmanshu Dhulia (who really should act more), Mayur More, Palak Jaiswal, Deven Bhojani and Anant Jog. Their pre-existing fame is a reminder of the artifice and make-believe at play.
Sanjay Kumar Sahu is outstanding as the suspected serial killer, who is played by More in the re-enactments. The similarities and contrasts between the two make for a fascinating study, particularly after the final reveal.
Now we enter spoiler territory.
In the first episode, a politician's daughter (Jaiswal) and a driver's son (More) check into a seedy hotel. When the police raid the establishment, the couple rush to escape and the girl falls, hitting the back of her head hard enough to draw blood. The boy bundles her into their car and they leave. Soon after, he realises she is unresponsive.
Two days later, just as the boy is about to be killed, the girl regains consciousness and roars into action. First, she uproots a small tree; then, she bludgeons to death the man attacking the boy.
This resurrection derails the carefully constructed realism of Black, White & Gray. Until this point, the pseudo-documentary is gripping precisely because of how convincingly true-crime it is. The comatose character who miraculously recovers feels absurd against this backdrop.
Rather than a lazy contrivance, however, this is a deliberate narrative choice — one that relies heavily on an assumed shared context between the audience and the storyteller: that of pulpy Bollywood excess.
The rip in the fabric of believability serves to alert the viewer to the many other clichés on screen. Poor little rich girl: Check. Bad cop (complete with Rottweiler): Check. Hero as victim of circumstance: Check. Runaway couple in picturesque natural setting: Check. Golden-hearted villager: Check. Nexus between media and politics: Check.
What do all these tropes do to the credibility of a confession? Does the fact that we have vintage Bollywood pulp coded into our DNA make us more susceptible? Or, does it make storytellers of us all, enabling us to spin new narratives from gaps in the plot we are given?
Sadly, Mahabal's screenplay falters in a few key areas. His worldbuilding could have done with more hints to the pervasiveness of pulpy, mainstream cinema in our lives. Barring the kitschy synth-pop of the show's opening credits, there are no visual or sonic nods to mainstream Indian cinema, in the series. He also struggles to maintain the tension, and this makes the show feel overlong.
Still, Black, White & Gray is more thought-provoking than the average Indian streaming show. As a foreign journalist, for instance, Gray believes his position as an outsider makes his gaze clearer. Instead, it arguably also renders him blind to the clichés in the investigation. Meanwhile, it turns out he is susceptible too. The structure of his documentary shows how he has internalised tropes of the true-crime genre, down to a hat tip to the 2015 documentary series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, in the final reveal.
Clearly, no one is immune to the influences of pop culture. With its unreliable narrators and warped storyline, Black, White & Gray allows us to glimpse just how insidiously culture can impact our perception of the world around us.
(To reach Deepanjana Pal with feedback, write to @dpanjana on Instagram)