There comes a time in the life of every acclaimed show when it must choose between becoming sharper or becoming safer. With Delhi Crime Season 3, that choice is glaringly visible. What once felt like a gritty crime drama now carries the weight of a franchise trying to protect its legacy.
The new season of the Netflix series is based on the real-life Baby Falak case of 2012, exploring the horrors of interstate human trafficking. But where the first two seasons turned the real-life cases into a discourse on the policing system and society at large, Season 3 often feels too self aware.
The protagonist, Vartika Chaturvedi (Shefali Shah), is now posted in Silchar, Assam, thanks to a punishment posting. She stumbles upon a trafficking link, and that discovery pulls her back to Delhi. The case sprawls across states — Assam, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat — and with each detour, the story becomes broader but also blurrier. The show travels pan India but feels surprisingly conventional.
The writing often falls back on clichés and conveniently timed epiphanies, diluting the rawness that once made the show so distinctive. That “been there, done that” sensation is pervasive throughout all six episodes. The season often recycles old emotional beats, the investigative rhythms, even the way certain revelations are staged. In any other show, this might pass unnoticed. But Delhi Crime was never meant to be run-off-the-mill.
Shefali Shah remains the spine of the series, but even she can’t outrun the shortcuts in the writing. For the first time, her reactions start to feel patterned — those silent shock moments, the curt responses, the widened eyes of disbelief. Her tensions at home, once a relatable subplot, barely have the same effect now.
Rasika Dugal’s Neeti Singh is the exception. Her arc — grappling with her failing marriage and the weight of expectations at work — has the clarity and depth missing elsewhere. But even this promising thread fades too quickly into the procedural fog. Yukti Thareja’s ASI Simran, who could have been a breakout presence, remains underexplored.
The antagonist fares worse. Huma Qureshi’s Meena (or Badi Didi), positioned as the season’s towering villain, gets the screen time but not the mystique. Her introduction is too blunt, her motivations too spelled-out. The show insists on making her both a monster and a victim of patriarchy, but the heavy-handed writing makes her arc feel like that of countless other OTT villains we’ve watched over the years.
But despite all its flaws, the season still has its heart in the right place. The moral contradictions of a society that commodifies its women, the cycles of victimhood, the institutional apathy are all great ideas. But the makers play it safe and settle for a broader canvas instead of a deep introspection.
In a way, the third season of Delhi Crime is a warning shot. The franchise is at a crossroads and it is up to the makers to decide which course they want to take in the future.