Lately, there has been a crazy influx of family action dramas with dysfunctional family dynamics spearheading the narratives. A ruthless family is controlling the tiny world around them, and the people who are a part of it don’t get along with each other and keep manipulating each other with the hope of reaching the end goal. “Rana Naidu,” a ten-episode Netflix Original and a remake of the cult favorite “Ray Donovan,” brings to the table the life of a Telugu-speaking family settled in Mumbai and living off the hard-earned money after their father abandoned them 15 years ago. Rana, being the middle son, has the most resentment toward his father. As the series progresses, we get to know why Rana and his brothers don’t trust their father.
Spoilers Ahead
Who Is Rana Naidu?
The show begins with the audience being given an idea of what exactly “Rana Naidu” does for a living. A glorified thug that he is, Rana’s shorthand for the work he does is “the fixer.” He and his boss, politician OB Mahajan, have high-profile clients whom Rana saves from major scandals by solving the problems either with brains or brawn, depending on the person he must deal with. Rana never thinks with his muscles but always with his brains to make sure the crime that is being committed can’t be traced back to him. Rana, Srini, and Lara are a group of three under OB Mahajan who make sure to offer optimal solutions to the problems put forward by their clients. They have the backing of a politician like OB, who makes sure they remain squeaky clean after every project is finished. In the very first case in the show, he must make sure the cricketer spending the night with a prostitute isn’t taken advantage of by her when she later comes back demanding money when she gets pregnant. Rana saves the man, making him an important client for OB, and the cricketer is now forever in debt to the politician. Rana has a loving family that probably does not know the extent of the work he does. They are only aware of the fact that he solves the problems of high-profile people, and he gets paid handsomely for the same. His wife, Naina, and kids, Nitya and Anirudh, love him for being the perfect father. Rana’s elder brother Tej runs a film stunt agency that provides stuntmen for films, while their younger brother Pawan, aka Jaffa, has been a mentally disturbed man since he was raped as a child. As a family, Tej, Jaffa, and Rana are closely knit and are there for each other in case of any trouble. The only bane of their existence is their father, Naga Naidu, who is in jail in Telangana.
Rana and his brothers have been leading a peaceful life for the past fifteen years, and they want to make sure it remains that way. For that reason, they have made sure not to talk about their father. Rana has kept his wife and his children away from the life he led in Hyderabad fifteen years ago to make sure they are not made aware of it at any cost. He is very secretive about the life he led all those years ago because it contains painful memories of losing people he loved, and that is one chapter of his life he is not willing to revisit at any cost. Rana is asked by OB Mahajan to meet their new client, Farzad Soonawaala, who is not just producing a movie that has the action star Prince Reddy in it, but he wants Rana to follow his girlfriend Mandira, whom he suspects of having an affair with someone behind his back. Rana makes sure to sort out the matter, only to see Mandira coming on too strongly towards Rana. Rana being a committed man to his wife and work, does not encourage her behavior. Staying loyal to his client and his wife is his priority, and he wants to make sure he delves into what is expected of him without creating much of a mess in his professional and personal lives. The only thing that can go wrong here is the advent of Naga Naidu in their lives. Rana can only hope things do not go south with the bringing up of the past life he had left behind.
Who Is Naga Naidu? Will He Clash With His Sons In Mumbai?
Naga Naidu is the patriarch that no one in Rana Naidu’s immediate circle talks about. He is the father of Tej, Rana, and Jaffa, and they make sure to keep quiet about his existence, especially Rana. Naga is out of jail for good conduct, which reduced his sentence by five years for a crime that sent him to jail for 20 years. Naga is out, but the world around him has changed drastically, and he is slowly catching up with it. He is not enamored with such technologies that have emerged in the last 15 years but is willing to take life one step at a time and head towards his end goal, which is meeting up with his family. He has one last qualm to take care of before heading to Mumbai. Naga and his sons used to visit a godman, and the godman ended up molesting Jaffa, which not only ruined Jaffa’s childhood but made sure he wouldn’t be able to live a normal life from there on. Jaffa is still haunted by the memories of the sexual assault he went through, which led him to his alcohol addiction. Jaffa is going through therapy for a while to make sure he slowly and steadily recovers from the trauma of childhood, and lets go of his alcohol addiction, which he partially does at the beginning of the show.
Naga heads to the ashram and confronts the godman to get him to repent for the crime he committed. The ashram ends up calling Jaffa and offers him three crores for staying silent and not talking about the assault. Jaffa is not keen on taking the money because he believes it is tainted with the godman’s sins. Their only concern is why the ashram is now suddenly worried about compensating when all this while they turned a blind eye to the crime the man committed. Tej and Jaffa, upon reaching Tej’s work studio, find Naga waiting for them and pretend everything has been fine for the last fifteen years. This is when they learn the ashram offered the compensation after Naga’s interference and threats. They are shocked to see him out of jail five years early, and Tej can only hope he has the best intentions to come back to their lives from here on. Naga Naidu’s only intention so far is to make sure his sons are safe, and he would want to reconnect with them even though they never showed up at the jail to meet him. As a father, he would want to rectify all the mistakes he made, but in hindsight, it is too late to think things will be fine after what he put his wife and children through while they were growing up. Rana is especially not happy to see his father in town, for he has another history that he would rather keep under wraps. Rana is not keen on seeing his father because of what happened fifteen years ago.
With Prince and OB Mahajan being made aware of Naga’s presence in the city, history is being revealed of a certain murder that happened all those years ago and led to Naga Naidu heading straight to jail. Rana comes by his brother’s studio to confront the man he loathes and who is the biggest obstacle to his existence. Rana is sure the man has a plan on the backburner that will destroy the life he has carefully built here in Mumbai. Rana has no time for his father’s antics, and Naga also does not seem to be apologetic for what happened in the past and what he put his kids through. Tej hopes his father will become a better person, and Jaffa has always wanted a father figure, which he never got. Rana is the only one who sees through his father’s lies and does not believe a word he says. The confrontation brings out the worst in both of them, and soon the brothers learn their father has another son, Arjun, with a woman from Shillong. What is Naga’s plan of action from here on, and what is the purpose of bringing Arjun into their lives? Naga is a smart man who has a plan, and there is a force behind him who is planning bigger things to take place, which is what Rana is very aware of. Rana lets go of his dad and goes back to his life, but he makes sure Naga does not become a bigger problem.
