‘Crash Course’ Season 1: Ending, Explained – Who Was Responsible For Vidhi’s Suicide? Will There Be A Season 2?

Amazon Prime’s latest show, “Crash Course,” is a teen drama directed by Vijay Maurya. This show will give you the vibes of TVF’s “Kota Factory,” as the whole story happens in the same place. But, Vijay Maurya’s story explores many possibilities that happen around Kota. It is disappointing that the show could not have been more gripping rather than adding many unimportant or unappealing events. We have all been very well informed about what is happening in Kota. This series talked about some of the incidents that bring the city’s true essence apart from the JEE-IIT Coaching Centers. The series talked about the lives of the people in the town, how they benefit themselves from the students, and how some local hooligans interrupt their lives.

Spoilers Ahead


What Happens In “Crash Course” Season 1? How Is It Different From “Kota Factory”?

Arvind Batra (Siddharth Kak) started a coaching center in Kota almost 20 years ago. Since then, Kota has evolved much, and many acclaimed institutions have begun their coaching centers in the city. Arvind Batra had two sons. The older one, Mayank Batra (Chirag Vohra), was a drug addict and mainly contributed nothing in his whole life. The younger son, Shashank Batra (Bhanu Uday), was ambitious and ready to go to any extent to beat their rivals. Their rival was RJ Institute, and Ratanraj Jindal, AKA RJ (Annu Kapoor), was its founder. He was a highly established businessman, and his dream was to change the town’s name to RJ Nagar from Kota. He did everything and removed everyone who came in his way of achieving his goal. On the one hand, Arvind Batra was a good man who never took education as the medium of business, but his sons were fighting head to head with RJ Institute. The fight between Batra and RJ Institute intensified as the year’s All India Ranks were released. RJ was known to deliver all toppers, but Batra Institute produced three students out of the top five this year. Raging with disappointment, Jindal appointed Binny Agarwal (Udit Arora) to sort out this matter. Binny gave the toppers from the Batra Institute luxury cars and bought them off. So, this was the rivalry between the two giant institutes of Kota.

“Crash Course” doesn’t only talk about the rivalry between institutes. It also features the students’ lives and what happens when you become a part of the process. A group of eight students is in the middle of this crisis. Sathya Srinivasan (Hridu Haroon) is a topper from RJ Institute who falls in love with Shanaya Qazi (Riddhi Kumar) and makes her pregnant. Tejas Patel (Hetal Gada, a top student at Batra Institute, shares a room with Vidhi Gupta (Anushka Kaushik), a top student at RJ Institute. Sathya shares his room with Anil Baid (Mohit Solanki), a mediocre student from a middle-class family with big dreams. Just opposite to their room lives Aviral Bharti (Bhavesh Balchandani) with Rakesh Gulia (Aryan Singh). Rakesh’s father wanted him to be a boxer, but he came here to become an engineer and now shares a room with Aviral, who did everything but study. They all eventually messed up like Sathya and Shanaya. Except for Shanaya’s friend Nikki Kapoor (Anvesha Vij), who somehow managed to avoid the disaster. As the story progresses, we see how the characters’ emotions evolve. Shanaya attempted an abortion on her own using paracetamols and ended up in the hospital. Nikki informed Sathya about this, and he came running to the hospital. The doctor told him that the procedure could be done outside the hospital without letting anyone know, but for this, he needed to give her eighty-four thousand rupees. Being a student it was impossible for Sathya to arrange that kind of money, but he started stealing from everyone in the hostel.

We find a hotel owner named Antara Jaiswal (Bidita Bag) who sells weed-filled “Kachori” to the students. She is also a lover of Binny and once saved Aryan from a gang of hooligans called “The Panthers.” Aryan gets infatuated with her loving nature, but soon he learns about Binny and moves on. When a suicide takes place, the Chief Minister orders RJ Institute, along with others, to come up with a solution so that this never happens again. RJ installed two programs; one was a Student Care Unit consisting of two psycho-analysts, and the other was “RJ Rakshaks,” consisting of several bodyguards to monitor the students. The Student Care Unit came up with pills to help the students concentrate. Later, the HOD of the Mathematics department, Dheeraj Khandelwal (Gaurav Sharma), learned from a friend that these pills are strictly for those diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). It was a criminal offense to distribute them unprescribed. After a series of events, when Vidhi wanted to switch from RJ Institute to Batra Institute for the sake of a better physics teacher, Ashutosh Kumar (Pranay Pachauri), Jindal interfered. He called her parents, and they created a scene that led to the suicide of Vidhi the following day. Soon the whole system collapsed as Vidya Nair (Vasuki), who runs an NGO named Bal Chunauti, interfered. The truth about the pills came out, and Jindal was arrested. Also, during this period, Batra Institute was shut down as they were trying to poach students from RJ Institute. Soon after Vidhi’s death, everything started to fall apart, and the remaining good guys intended to reform Kota with the foundational idea of Arvind Batra.

So, you can see, where “Kota Factory” only talked about the studies, “Crash Course” talked about everything else, including the pressure of cracking IIT. This doesn’t prove that “Crash Course” is better than “Kota Factory,” but here, too, we find a character like “Jeetu Bhaiya”, named Ashutosh Kumar. “Crash Course” mostly talked about life outside the routines of the students. This may not be a wonderful creation like “Kota Factory,” but to understand Kota City and its people, everyone should watch it once. This series represents how the city affects the students and talks about the rivalry between the institutes in a more lively manner.


‘Crash Course’ Season 1: Ending Explained – Who Was Responsible For Vidhi’s Suicide?

Vidhi Gupta was an above average student who had the potential to be in the top 10 in AIR for the first time. She was ambitious and wanted to be at the top. She worked hard to climb the pillar of success; even her results showed excellent standards. Her rank was 23 in the A section of RJ Institute, almost as high as cracking the top 100 in AIR. But why did she commit suicide? Let’s sum up Vidhi’s events to find out the person who was responsible for her death. She was the closest person Vidhi had ever interacted with, and she delivered the first blow. Tejal, too, was bright and a top student from Batra Institute. She and Vidhi shared all sorts of things. So, when Vidhi told her that her physics was weak, Tejal told her about Ashutosh Kumar, the iconic physics teacher from Batra Institute. She suggested that Vidhi take an open class with Ashutosh Kumar once. After attending his lecture, Vidhi found Ashutosh’s teaching procedure very helpful. But as an RJ Institute student, taking a class from a teacher who teaches at Batra Institute was not an option. Anil helped her by forging the signature of the HOD (Dheeraj Khandelwal) on her approval letter. She started taking the classes under Ashutosh Kumar but did not let Tejal know about this. She kept it a secret because she never managed to get the approval, and if anyone knew about this, she could be in trouble.

But soon, Tejal knew about this, and she felt distraught. Batra Institute’s Shashank came up with an idea to make a girl in the top 10 in AIR, so they pushed Tejal very hard as she was the only girl student they had who could make it to the top 10. So, Tejal, out of insecurity or maybe frustration, complained about Vidhi taking Ashutosh’s classes, to Shashank. He then wanted Ashutosh to convince Vidhi to leave RJ and join Batra so that they could have a better chance to make a girl student in the Top 10. Ashutosh asked Vidhi about this, and Vidhi agreed to take the transfer as she had been willing for a long time. When Jindal came to know about her transfer, the fear of losing a topper made him call her parents. Her parents didn’t allow her to do so. She was devastated to see her dreams falling apart and she felt even more shattered when her parents told her about her grandmother’s demise. Vidhi loved her so much and could share everything with her. When Tejal came to know about Vidhi taking Ashutosh Kumar’s classes, she abused her and told her that Anil liked her. Vidhi always treated Anil as a best friend, but this news shattered her. When she confronted Anil, the meeting did not go well, and Anil left the place without saying much. Anil was in love with Vidhi, and the rejection somehow destroyed him from within. So, when Vidhi was fighting with her parents and Tejal, and everyone misunderstood her, she wanted to talk to Anil to feel better for a while. But, since Anil could never take the rejection easily, he abused Vidhi and told her never to meet him. Tejal changed her room right after she found out about Vidhi’s lie, so Vidhi lived alone for a while.

There was nowhere to go. Even Binny, her cousin, denied her request to transfer to Batra as he tried to shut down Batra on RJ’s demand. The following day, Vidhi went in front of Tejal’s room, said she loved her, and went to the institute. She acted normally, doing all the classes, talking to other students, smiling, and listening to music. Suddenly, she jumped from the balcony. The scene was too powerful to handle as an audience. Who was responsible? Some might say it was Jindal who called her parents. Some might even say Tejal’s insecurities led to such a tragic event. Why leave Anil out of it? Maybe she could have been alive if he had only listened to Vidhi once. When a suicide takes place, it is not just one person, but we as a society fail. Everyone was responsible for Vidhi’s suicide, including Binny and Ashutosh Kumar. But, everyone has their own way of seeing things. Some might say that Vidhi was a coward to commit suicide, but as it looked, she fought until the very end, even against her parents. How do we define a coward? Are we qualified enough?


Will There Be A Second Season?

At the end of the series, we see Jindal talking to Shashank Batra. Both were out of the game, and Jindal’s dream to make Kota RJ Nagar his home remains unfulfilled. Arvind Batra, along with Ashutosh Kumar, started their process of reconstructing the education system in Kota. It seemed like Jindal was planning something that included Shashank Batra to regain what he once wanted to achieve. While Shashank was out, he could pull some strings to bring Jindal out of jail. Once he is out, they will reunite and go against the good people. Their main focus will be taking control of the whole city as it was planned. 


Final Words

Education was never supposed to be a medium of business. “Crash Course” carried the essence of “Kota Factory,” yet there are some powerful messages delivered here. However, ten episodes each of 45 minutes might seem a bit prolonged. The last couple of episodes especially stood out from the rest. The background music was brilliant in some portions. Even the sequence where Vidhi commits suicide was well structured and built up in a manner that you didn’t see it coming. There is a strong message that the abetment of suicide is almost impossible to prove. “Free Falling” (Episode 9) is probably the best episode of “Crash Course.” It establishes the moments subtly before a person commits suicide. When Vidhi Gupta commits suicide, the audience will be shocked as she seemed absolutely normal.


“Crash Course” is a 2022 Indian Drama Thriller series streaming on Prime Video with subtitles.

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Shovan Roy
Shovan Roy
Shovan Roy is a creative content writer. Formerly he used to write film reviews on an international film festival website named Beyond the Curve International Film Festival. He also interviewed global directors. He also interviewed one of the characters from the show 'Trailer Park Boys', Mr. Bernard Robichaud, platformed in Netflix. Shovan tends to write through the third person narrative and he loves to do psychoanalysis. He can't say that he has mastered it but that is some sort of hobby of his. Film is a platform where he loves to spend most of his time learning.

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