‘Mithya’ Season 1 Recap: Did Rhea Kill Neil Adhikari?

Mithya, a Hindi word that is loosely translated to fiction or lies. This series is a Zee5 Global Original about a Hindi college professor who gets embroiled in the murder investigation of her husband. She is also caught in a tug of war with her student, who is blamed for plagiarizing a college essay. The matter snowballs into something larger, and many secrets are divulged. This article will expand on season one of the show that deals with themes of parenthood, infidelity, and betrayal.

Spoilers Ahead


How did Juhi meet Rhea?

Juhi Adhikari is a Hindi professor at a local university in Darjeeling. She was married to Neil Adhikari, who was also a professor at the same college but in a different department. The husband and wife had been trying to have a baby, but the latter was not keen on conceiving anymore. In college, Juhi had a tense conversation with Rhea Rajguru, the daughter of a rich businessman in Darjeeling, over an essay the girl had submitted as a part of the assignment. Juhi suspected Rhea had plagiarized the submission, as her language had drastically changed from her last assignment. Juhi gave her a chance to come clean, but Rhea remained adamant that she had not cheated. Juhi had to fail her because of her sincere belief system about cheating. She was also planning to become a published author, and she was trying to impart her value system to Rhea, but the girl was rebelling.


Who was helping Rhea?

Juhi was right about her accusations, as Rhea was getting her work done by the young security guard named Arun. Arun was head over heels in love with Rhea, and he let her take advantage of him because it let him be in her proximity all the time. Rhea feared being caught as she manipulated the situation in her favor under the light of being accused of plagiarism. 


Was Rhea seducing Neil?

Rhea began to stalk Juhi, as she showed up at places where she wasn’t supposed to. The girl showed up at the professor’s home and formed an unusual friendship with Neil. Soon after Rhea left, Juhi’s pet cat went missing, and was later found dead. Juhi had hoped to apologize to Rhea for being harsh on her, but the latter had concocted a plan to sabotage her professor. Juhi became paranoid as she attacked Rhea for stealing her wedding ring. This led to friction between Neil and Juhi as the former supported the young girl. To cool things down, Juhi stayed away from her home and lived with her parents. In her absence, Rhea and Neil met for drinks and later ended up sending intimate pictures of each other. Rhea claimed to have deleted those images, but she shared them with Juhi on the day of the hearing for her plagiarized article with the sole intention of mentally destabilizing her professor. 


Why did Juhi leave her husband?

Juhi left her husband in no time and moved in with her parents. Neil tried to rectify the situation, but in vain, as Juhi was not keen on reconciling. Juhi and Neil were supposed to attend her father’s 35th wedding anniversary, but she uninvited him. She also let Neil know that she was pregnant and was not sure if she wanted him around for the next nine months.


Was Neil in a delicate situation?

A distraught Neil met with a suicidal Rhea, who was emotionally blackmailing him. Their conversation snowballed into them sleeping with each other in her dorm, whose entrance had a CCTV camera that had captured Neil entering Rhea’s room. To make things worse, Rhea messaged Juhi from Neil’s phone to meet him at their home, and she obliged. Rhea disappeared with Neil’s phone and reached his home with a plan. Juhi, on reaching her home, ran into Neil and learned he and Rhea had slept with each other, and he was grossly apologetic about his move. However, he shared a photograph of Juhi and her father, which was found at Rhea’s dorm room.


Did Juhi’s father confess to his mistake?

Juhi confronted her father at the party and asked about his relationship with Rhea. A remorseful Professor Anand Tyagi revealed he had had an affair with a woman named Manjari, his ex-student from college. Rhea was conceived out of that affair and said she was Juhi’s younger sister. Rhea’s mother, Manjari, was stuck in a bad marriage because of her husband’s affair with her sister, but Professor Tyagi was in no position to accept the woman he claimed to be in love with, and his child she was carrying. Rhea’s mother had committed suicide, and she was left in the care of her mother’s husband and sister, who later got married. Rhea, on learning about Professor Tyagi began to follow him in the hope he would accept her, but he asked her to stay away in order to save his family life. Since he rejected her, Rhea went after Juhi to get Professor Tyagi’s attention. 


Who was being investigated for Neil Adhikari’s murder?

Right from the start, it was established that Neil Adhikari was murdered inside his home, after Juhi left her home with the photograph to confront her father. Rhea revealed her identity and motive behind going after Juhi to Neil. He was a realist and stated she was wrong to have attacked Juhi the way she did. Neil was honest with her, but Rhea would not have it, as she wanted someone to validate her actions. She began to attack Neil by stating he was an insecure man living under the shadow of a successful wife with a legacy. Out of rage, Neil began to strangle her, and a while later, Juhi came back home to find Neil’s bloodied body. The investigation pointed out Juhi and Rhea as suspects. Juhi blamed Rhea and let the police know about her actions in the past few days. Rhea made the police believe she and Neil were having an affair for some time. She had even let Juhi know about their affair. Juhi’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon, and there was a record of her making a phone call to Rhea’s hostel. The police arrested Juhi for the murder of Neil, but she insisted she was innocent.


Was Rhea arrested for the murder?

The investigating police officer stated the jacket submitted by Rhea for forensic analysis was different from the jacket seen in the CCTV footage from the camera outside her dorm room. This made the investigation officer question whether Rhea was telling the truth or not. During the search of her room, the police officer also found Juhi’s wedding ring engraved with the names of the couple. Professor Anand Tyagi, out of the blue, requested Rhea to meet him at Sunset Café. Rhea obliged after much convincing, and he began to share the story of his affair with her mother, Manjari. Professor Tyagi was apologetic about everything when he revealed he had planned to elope with Rhea’s mother, but that he’d backed out out of fear. 

Professor Tyagi insisted that Juhi was innocent, and she didn’t need to be dragged into this. He also added that he abandoned Rhea to safeguard Juhi. However, right now his older daughter cut ties with him because he refused to take care of Rhea. On hearing her father being apologetic for his past behavior and showing concern for Juhi, Rhea confessed to having killed Neil in self-defense when he was trying to choke her to death. To her shock, Professor Tyagi had secretly recorded her confession, which was enough evidence against Rhea. She was arrested for Neil’s murder, and Juhi was acquitted.


Did Rhea kill Neil Adhikari?

Three years later, Juhi was a successful published author and mother to Yash. She was being helped by her parents to raise her son from Neil. Her father was living separately after the distress he put his wife through during the Rhea fiasco. Juhi went to meet Rhea on the latter’s insistence. Juhi was still livid at her stepsister for carrying out such stunts that led to families getting destroyed. Rhea kept justifying her act of crime, stating Yash was better off without an ungrateful father who cheated on Juhi. Rhea felt she had two fathers who did a horrible job by not being there for her. Juhi was left angry by Rhea’s mindset, though she kind of understood why she believed in this theory. Rhea’s upbringing was different from Juhi’s, which made the former more skeptical and violent while Juhi was more forgiving since she had lost Neil. Rhea, however, revealed that she did not kill Neil in self-defense but out of rage when he referred to her as a monster. Rhea was helped by Arun, the security guard, to stab Neil with the kitchen knife without leaving any fingerprints on the weapon. He also helped her by creating a mark around her neck. It was a double-jeopardy situation, as she won’t be sentenced twice for the same crime. She claimed self-defense to receive a shorter sentence, and it worked in her favor.

The first season of “Mithya” ended with Rhea hiring Arun to kill her mother’s husband, the rich businessman Rajguru. Juhi found a way to forgive her father and wanted him to be around for Yash. Rhea wrote a letter to Juhi from the prison just before her release stating she was hardly content with her life, indicating she was coming for her sister and Yash. The last shot had Yash lying in his crib, but on his right side she found flowers that Rhea had used before. Rhea would be back with vengeance and might continue obsessing over her sister, Juhi. 


Smriti Kannan
Smriti Kannan
Smriti Kannan is a cinema enthusiast, and a part time film blogger. An ex public relations executive, films has been a major part of her life since the day she watched The Godfather – Part 1. If you ask her, cinema is reality. Cinema is an escape route. Cinema is time traveling. Cinema is entertainment. Smriti enjoys reading about cinema, she loves to know about cinema and finding out trivia of films and television shows, and from time to time indulges in fan theories.


 

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