By Sanjana Ray

Copyright gqindia

The Ba***ds of Bollywood ends with a plot twist that no one saw coming. Even a conspiracy theory nut like me — who’s used to smugly decoding and predicting even the most diabolical series outcomes — found my jaw on the floor. Aryan Khan’s campy Netflix series marked an engaging watch from the start, but that scandalous reveal at the end just made things airtight.
(Disclaimer: Spoilers ahead!)
Ba***ds of Bollywood ending explained — does Ajay Talvar finally allow Aasmaan and Karishma to get married? What’s the shocking secret that changes everything?
The final episode of Khan’s directorial debut that’s refreshingly self-aware, starts with a Mad Max Fury-esque car chase, with Bobby Deol’s Ajay Talvar trailing an electric-blue sedan carrying his daughter Karishma (Sahher Bambba) and industry newcomer Aasmaan Singh (Lakshya), who’ve fallen in love and decided to elope. The Bollywood baddie with a cult status will die before he lets his precious girl marry someone like Aasmaan — a hard-working Delhi boy who gets a huge break, and a Rs 100 crore Karan Johar film, thanks to a smashing debut and macho personality. Why? Presumably because he’s an outsider who’s just started rising the ranks. An ambitious young man to be sure, but one without financial clout. But the reason is something far less… ahem, traditional.
Just when you think the series is taking a DDLJ turn (albeit one where the train is replaced by a baby pink Ferrari), what with Aasmaan’s moving speech about true love and a fair amount of bare-knuckle fighting, his mother Neeta (Mona Singh) drops a bombshell. Ajay — the man whose face he’s about to smash through — is his father. What in the Star Wars was that?
Aasmaan crumples under the weight of the revelation, collapsing to his knees as his lover — correction, half-sister Karishma — howls at the heavens. Ajay, meanwhile, can barely meet anyone’s gaze, shame etched across his face. The moment segues into a flashback scored to one of Deol’s most iconic tracks, Duniya Haseeno Ka Mela, which unspools the illicit romance between a younger Ajay — then just an ambitious actor — and Neeta, a background dancer on the set of his film Sailaab. You briefly wonder what kind of AI wizardry was deployed to splice Singh into the original Gupt (1997) video, before conceding that Khan’s gamble to mine scandal for storytelling is nothing short of audacious. But then again, this is a creator who doesn’t flinch at skewering Bollywood, or himself, so it tracks. Aryan Khan didn’t show up to play.
The following sequence includes a terse exchange between Aasmaan and Neeta, who tearfully confesses that his late (non)biological father had no idea about his true parentage. Furious and betrayed, Aasmaan takes to smoking cigarettes while blindly staring out the window, while elsewhere, his manager Sanya (Anya Singh) proves her loyalty to him by turning down an offer from Karan Johar to manage Ranbir Kapoor, who pops in for a quick cameo. Aasmaan even dabbles with the idea of moving out of the industry, but his friends and community, which now includes his former love-turned-half-sister Karishma, encourage him to stay and follow his dreams. Besides, fate itself, has other plans. Ajay and Neeta’s private conversation — confirming that Aasmaan is, indeed, Ajay’s illegitimate son — is overhead by ruthless producer Freddy Sodawallah and his new partner Jaraj Saxena (you’ve seen him somewhere), who blackmail them into having Ajay, Aasmaan and Karishma star in a family drama that’s fittingly titled: Bastards of Bollywood.