The Village, the new Tamil-language drama on Amazon Prime Video, is creating a lot of buzz for the genre the makers have tried their hand at. This sci-fi drama has everything that a show in this genre needs. Despite the show being inconsistent throughout, it’s a worthy attempt.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Were Two Families Attacked On The Same Road?
The Village Season 1 begins with a family being attacked by a bunch of oddly disfigured people, whose only aim seems to be killing everyone except a pregnant woman. Many years later, Gautham, along with his wife Neha and daughter Maya, drive along the same route, but their journey is cut short because their vehicle broke down. Gautham, in a bid to get some help for his car, learns about the haunted town—the place where his car tires got punctured.
Being a doctor, Gautham is a pragmatic man, and he refuses to believe the stories he hears about the inhabitants of the village who hunt people by camouflaging themselves and taking advantage of the forest that covers the entire abandoned town. Gautham learned of Neha and Maya being kidnapped, but he was not sure by whom. He was joined by Shaktivel, Karunagam, and Peter, who are somehow aware of something that is brewing in the dilapidated town and would like to confront the locals themselves.
What Did Gautham Find At The Factory?
As Gautham and the three good Samaritans began their mission to locate Neha and Maya, the mother and daughter were kidnapped by the said mutants of the village and brought to an abandoned factory. This space was ground zero for all the mutants and their activities. There was a lot of speculation regarding the inhabitants of the town, and Gautham was unwilling to believe any of it unless he witnessed a phenomenon he could not explain. He had not come across any of the mutants, and he never believed in half-baked knowledge. He was in shock when he came across a large man with scars all over his body. The man Gautham, Shaktivel, Karunagam, and Peter came across is Sairaj.
Sairaj happens to be Shaktivel’s father, and the two had a turbulent history. As a father and son, they had a falling out over ideological differences concerning the social structure of their village. Shaktivel managed to distance himself from his mother, father, and the rest of the family, but he forgot to look back on what his family went through. Sairaj was forced to sell his mines to Prakash’s rich scientist father, GSR, who built a factory on that land. The factory was just a face to the discreet lab he ran to find a cure for Prakash’s disability. GSR’s selfish need to do something right cost an entire village their physical and mental health because the waste from the lab was released into the waterbody near Kattiyal village, and the fumes from the chemical got assimilated into the air too.
How Did The Locals Of Kattiyal Village Turn Into Mutants?
This rampant contamination caused severe skin and internal issues for the bodies of the villagers. Their protest at the factory went unheard, and their health conditions deteriorated. The factory was eventually shut down, but concerns regarding the harm caused by the GSR’s work were not taken into consideration. Sairaj and his party of loyalists headed to the now-abandoned factory in the hope of finding some answers regarding the chemical that was used by the lab. That day coincided with a tsunami hitting the eastern coast of India. Since Kattiyal was a coastal town, the factory was filled with seawater, which killed Sairaj’s wife, Subhadra. Sairaj was a hypocrite who was running from pole to pole, requesting help to end the illegal work being done at the GSR’s lab, while at the beginning of the show, the same Sairaj and his entitled wife had mistreated the men and women working in their mines. It is wrong of him to be demanding justice while people under him have suffered by his hand.
While his wife Subhadra died, the men got stuck in the factory because of the tsunami and had to resort to inhuman activities to survive. This was bound to happen because those who prided themselves on being superior in the town had to go back to eating infected rats and other animals stuck in the factory with them. These animals were kept there for animal testing and were deeply infected with the chemical Lanthanite.
What Are The Changes Sairaj And His Men Went Through?
This chemical changed the DNA and physiological structures of the men, and all their bodies only deformed further. Along with the changes their bodies went through, it affected the mental health of everyone who was a victim of dangerous exposure. Sairaj started hallucinating his wife being the ultimate power, and she envisioned the power of the goddess would guide them and lead them to victory. Sairaj and his followers vehemently believed in it. This led to some delusional work carried out by Sairaj to make sure there are more people like him and that they could form an army to defend them. Sairaj strictly believed many wronged him and his loyalists, and giving birth to many others, who were also mutants, would secure their future.
Sairaj and his deceased wife knew many women from their village had stopped conceiving because of the presence of the Lanthanite in their bodies. This led to the formation of the plan to kidnap the only daughter of his estranged son, Shaktivel, thus connecting this story to the prologue of the show. Shaktivel’s daughter was kept alive for a reason, and her son was raised as a mutant. Following the birth of his great-grandchild, Sairaj mutilated his granddaughter and used her body to give birth to more mutant infants to keep his bloodline going. This was illegal, but Sairaj and his men had stopped seeing anything from a sane point of view. They were carried away by some delusional ideas being propagated by Sairaj, who was hearing the voice of his wife, Subhadra. There was no end to the plans formulated by Sairaj, and it seemed the man had become invincible.
How Were The Mutants Tackled?
Sairaj was decapitated by Shaktivel for molesting his daughter, and she was barely kept alive for their selfish agendas. Shaktivel had no choice but to be morally upright and kill his father. He was also instrumental in killing his grandson, who was raised to be a killer mutant named Vettaiyan. Vettaiyan was invulnerable, and Shaktivel had to kill himself and the mutant by shooting an oxygen cylinder. The mutants were dangerous for society, and Shaktivel, along with Gautham and Prakash’s hitmen, was able to complete half the job. The rest of the saga regarding the mutants will only be discussed in the second season if it is announced. Prakash, the wheelchair-bound heir of GSR’s wealth, injected himself with Lanthanmite in the hope of becoming the next mutant and a leader. Hopefully, the next season will cover this subject and more, and Gautham and Farhan, the hitman, will play a key role in destringing them.
