A review on Pakistani drama TV series, Laapata Episode 21 and 22 (2021). The new TV series is written and directed by Khizer Idrees. Laapata is a Momina Duraid Production and currently airs on HUM TV.
(Note: If you’ve already read the review of the previous episode, you can skip directly ahead to the High points section).
+ Crew
- Directed by Khizer Idrees
- Written by Khizer Idrees
- Produced by Momina Duraid Productions
+ Note
Laapata is a comedy/ drama which focuses on young love who aspire to fulfill all their wishes in Life. The drama also highlights modern obsessions with social media such as Tik Tok and its impact on the Pakistani youth of today.
The writer/ director of the show, Khizer Idrees is most well renowned in the TV industry for his work as a Cinematographer for films such as Manto (2015) and Verna (2017).
+ Main Cast
- Ali Rehman Khan as Shams
- Ayeza Khan as Geeti
- Gohar Rasheed as Daniyal
- Sarah Khan as Falak
+ Plot
Shams (Ali Rehman Khan) loves Falak (Sarah Khan) and they predict something big for their future. On the other hand, Geeti (Ayeza Khan), the big Tik Tok star, is always looking for a new toy to play with. After being faced to decide upon her secure future, Geeti might have her eyes now set on someone… and that someone could perhaps be Shams?
+ High Points
Spoilers Alert!! There will be MAJOR Spoilers in this review for the finale of Laapata so if you would like to avoid it, please skip to the Overall section:
i – Episodes 21 and 22 were thankfully the last two episodes of this show! Before I get into the finale in detail (with all its glorious and ludicrous flaws), I did appreciate the fact that by the end of the show, Geeti never really changed. In the very last scene, it is strongly suggested that even though she “learned her lesson” by losing Shams and the respect of her mother, Geeti is too self-centered and entitled to ever change herself for the better. And that was the most logical outcome of her character.
+ Low Points
i – If you ever come across the word “Ludicrous” in a dictionary, I hope they can now cite ‘Laapata’s series finale’ as an example for their readers. Absolutely horrible, pointless, lack of creativity, absurd and downright insulting was the series finale of this show! Viewers who tuned in every week to invest an hour of their time on this show should rightfully feel cheated. In the last episode, the whole ordeal of Daniyal’s murder case ended in merely 5 minutes! Just by Munira Beebee’s testament, the whole case gets resolved in a matter of minutes!? That was the payoff to weeks upon weeks of buildup?? And to add further insult, the rest of the episode was all filler nonsense like a 10 minutes long song montage (cause we never got enough of those in this show!), Geeti and Falak still fighting over Shams, Falak digging up dirt on Geeti and Falak and Shams getting back together again. What a waste of time this whole show was ….
ii – The whole court case surprise witness twist makes no sense! Why would the prosecutor from Daniyal’s side bring Munira the maid as a witness? Were they just hoping that she would lie to the court and seal the deal for Falak? Did Daniyal’s parents not threaten her enough behind the scenes so she would be forced to lie in court? Why would Farooq (her husband) be part of a second degree murder? Wouldn’t it be beneficial for him if he took care of Daniyal so he would get financial compensation from the family (after all, he did get the money to buy a taxi from him)? In fact, how did Daniyal even die from the wounds? He got hit by a steel jug and that was apparently enough? This whole twist makes no sense. What a terrible, illogical way to bring the story to a conclusion!
iii – Oh did I mention a 10 MINUTE LONG SONG MONTAGE!? So long in fact that they had to change songs in between? It was obvious that the writer ran out of content so they had to reach hard in order to get one more episode out of this script as they then could fulfill their two episodes per week quota for HUM TV. Pathetic.
iv – Why did they first force upon this new sense of responsibility on Geeti that she should be more like Falak (i.e. responsible, study, cook etc) but then, ended right back to being herself in that every episode? This all was completely unnecessary character development.
+ Overall and Final Thoughts on Laapata
Laapata is definitely the right name for this show but not for the reason you may think. From the very first episode, it was “Laapata” in its sense of identity. The show had no idea what it wanted to be; was it a comedy? A tragedy? A study on families whose loved ones tragically disappear? Or was it a murder mystery? A study of split personalities perhaps? Or could it be that the team wanted to please all members of their audience and in the process, the show ended up being a creative mess.
The characters were by no means terrible. In fact, Shams and Falak had actual, good chemistry on screen but was ruined due to awful screenwriting by writer/director Khizer Idrees. Geeti was hands down the worst aspect of the show. The “comedy relief” that she brought to the show was downright awful and ruined numerous scenes and episodes due its below average writing and overbearing performance by Ayeza Khan as Geeti.
The show is named “Laapata” which led me to assume that the focus of the show will be Shams getting out of prison for false accusation and finding his way back home. But I was wrong since that would have actually made sense. The show was a needless concoction of storylines that had nothing to do with one another really. Why was Daniyal’s backstory and murder mystery a part of this show? This had nothing to do with the main plotline of Laapata and was undoubtedly gratuitous for the story to work.
Speaking of unnecessary, we had countless subplots that never went anywhere. Please take your pick:
- Geeti’s plan for a runaway marriage.
- Falak’s aspirations to become a professional Badminton player.
- Falak’s sister’s husband being harassed by a female.
- Falak’s sister’s sister-in-law dictating how she should serve her husband.
- Sham’s father having health issues.
- Sham’s gambling past and enemies that were completely ignored in the second part of the show.
- Geeti’s attempt to steal her friend’s fiance and her friend finding out.
When you have a list of subplots that never went anywhere, you know that the writer just created them just so each episode can reach its 30 minutes of runtime.
As far as production goes, Laapata was competent with its visual presentation. The colors, cinematography, the song playlist, everything went well with the vibe of the show but the overreliance on slow motion, song set pieces did overstay their welcome.
In conclusion, Laapata did not even come close to becoming a memorable show for HUM TV. Lack of good writing, tonal shift from scene to scene and forgettable, ludicrous storyline sealed this drama’s fate as a generic show that will be forgotten by the audience in a week’s time. And sadly, this is the state of creativity in Pak television at the moment.
Rating (Last Two Episodes):
Overall Series Rating: 
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