Apple TV+ limited series Shantaram comes to a thunderous close this week. The series, based on the novel by Gregory David Roberts about the travails of Aussie escaped convict Lindsay Ford, sees its hero making one last-ditch escape attempt while casting about for his last remaining friends in Bombay.
The Shantaram finale is riddled with questions. Will Abdullah, Prabhu, Lisa, Modena and Khan get out alive? Can Nightingale finally get his man? Will Shah win the war for the streets? And will Apple TV+ try to stretch Shantaram into a second season? We get answers to most of them.
Shantaram finale recap: ‘All the Way From There Just to Get to Here’
Season 1, episode 12: In the series finale, entitled “All the Way From There Just to Get to Here,” Ford (played by Charlie Hunnam) and Prabhu (Shubham Saraf) arrive at Lisa’s (Elektra Kilbey) apartment but find neither her nor Karla (Antonia Desplat). Instead, they encounter a gut-shot Modena (Elham Ehsas) and a bruised Abdullah (Fayssal Bazzi), who’d been sent by Khader Khan (Alexander Siddig) to get Karla before Madame Zhou (Gabrielle Scharnitzky) picked her up. He and Lin were both too late.
They leave, and the next morning Kavita’s (Sujaya Dasgupta) article on Walid Shah (Mel Odedra) and Khan’s operations hits the streets. Minister Pandey’s (Alvin Maharaj) death proves everything in the story is true.
Shah, now having nothing to lose, decides to intensify his battle against Khan. He orders the last of Khan’s operations destroyed, his men killed and the author of the newspaper story taken care of, too. The interesting thing is, Kavita’s editor took credit for the piece. Which infuriates Kavita, but that credit-hogging monster may have just saved her life. The second after she tells him to go screw for stealing her story, one of Shah’s men shows up and shoots him dead.
Nightingale, still smarting from Lin’s escape in the slums, notices the same thing. He wants to go back to the newspaper to talk to the editor, but arrives too late to help the dead newspaperman.
Reprisals and repercussions
Abdullah wants to hit back but Khan advises caution. Now is not the time to be out in public with your back to the crowd. Lin and Prabhu take Modena to a safe house and fix up his gunshot. Modena sends Lin to get the money he stole from Maurizio (Luke Pasqualino) — the money he was going to use to flee with Lisa.
They go to Didier (Vincent Perez) for guidance, and he gives them a gun for protection since they’re walking the street with thousands of dollars — and a price on their heads besides.
Then, Lin heads to Zhou’s place to bail out Lisa and Karla. Zhou and Maurizio talk a big game, but protesters outside want Zhou’s head because they read in the paper that she’s kidnapping girls for blood money. Maurizio panics when the protesters clear the gate, and takes Lin at gunpoint.
Escapes and double-crosses
Karla and Lisa have escaped from their cell by now. They help Lin beat Maurizio, and then they kill every one of Zhou’s thugs. Prabhu, stationed outside, has to leave before Lin, Karla and Lisa can escape, however, because the police spot his license plate from last night’s raid on the slums. That means the only thing waiting for them outside Zhou’s place is Nightingale and a cordon of cops. They flee.
The police double-cross Shah and kill him as Khan watches, which means they’ve chosen their side in the war. Prabhu eventually makes it back to Didier’s place (where Karla, Lisa and Lin head after their brush with the police). Lin gives Lisa Modena’s money and sends her off to get him (though not without skimming a little to give to Prabhu for all he’s done for Lin). The trouble is, Modena’s fled the doctor’s office by the time she gets there.
Betrayal in Bombay
Photo: Apple TV+
Lin and Karla sleep together finally. Prabhu makes it back to Parvati (Rachel Kamath) safely, and tells her he’ll never worry her again. Karla goes to say goodbye to Khan and Abdullah and they part on good terms. Of course, nothing’s that simple, is it?
Kavita, crazed with grief because her editor (and boyfriend) were killed, gives Nightingale Karla’s address. He shows up just as Lisa’s divvying up the money between her and Lin. Nightingale chases Lin to the roof and they try to talk. But Nightingale won’t listen to Lin’s entreaties — or take his bribe. So Lin jumps to the next building and flees.
Prabhu arrives to take Lin to the train station to meet Karla, but Nightingale catches him and tells him he’ll die unless he gives up Lin. He does. The cops catch Lin when he’s seconds away from Karla, and she leaves without him.
To be continued…
It’s a little frustrating that Apple TV+ delivered 12 episodes of Shantaram, and the first season ends with the promise of 12 more when nothing really happened in the meantime.
I liked Shantaram just fine, but I don’t need another season of it. This episode is sort of the series at its best — all action and gun-pointing stand-offs. Real drama, in other words, to replace a whole season of maybes and will-they-won’t-theys.
The show is fine. The cast is fine. However, there just isn’t enough here to justify this length. It took decades for us to get an adaptation of Shantaram, and the lesson no one learned in the meantime was it just doesn’t make for very good TV.
★★★☆☆
Watch Shantaram on Apple TV+
You can watch the entire first season of Shantaram now on Apple TV+.
Rated: TV-MA
Watch on: Apple TV+
Scout Tafoya is a film and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay series The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Film Comment, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Nylon Magazine. He is the author of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Form of Tobe Hooper, the director of 25 feature films, and the director and editor of more than 300 video essays, which can be found at Patreon.com/honorszombie.
