Good Bad Girl Review: SonyLIV Series Tries Hard to Be Savage and Funny

Good Bad Girl (2022) series on SonyLIV stars Samridhi Dewan, Gul Panag, Vaibhav Raj Gupta, Sheeba Chadha, Aradhya Aanjna, Namrata Sheth, Soham Majumdar, Rajendra Sethi and Zain Khan Durrani. Created by Vikas Bahl and Chaitally Parmar, it is written by Tahira Nath, Nikhil Arora, Kalyani Pandit, Aarti Kapoor and Chaitally. The 9-episode series is directed by Abhishek Sengupta.

The synopsis reads, “Enter Maya Ahuja’s twisted world of truth and lies. She navigated her childhood with the bubbly blabbermouth Bulbul and her college life with the unapologetic hustler Mayo. Today, Maya Ahuja is a feisty but manipulative lawyer with a sassy sense of humour and a warped perspective who will stop at nothing to make it big.”

SonyLIV’s Good Bad Girl (2022) Series Contains Mild Spoilers

Good Bad Girl is about a millennial lawyer named Maya Ahuja (played by Samridhi Dewan). During her interview, when she’s asked why she wants to be a lawyer, she answers because she knows how to lie. The scene then shifts to a flashback of years ago when Maya was a little girl, and her mother harmlessly tells her not always to speak the truth. Well, all Maya heard was to keep lying to get away with every situation. She uses every kind of lie to ensure things work in her favour.

After suspecting a lump in her breast, Maya decides to do a check-up. The doctor informs her that she would have to do several tests to confirm whether or not she has breast cancer. Even before she gets the tests done, Maya lies to people around her that she has breast cancer. She uses this lie as a weapon to manipulate people, gain sympathy and fool others around her only for her benefit.

Throughout the series, we see Maya crossing every boundary and doing everything wrong because she can’t deal with things not going her way.

Also Read: Doll House (2022) Review: Bittersweet Father-Daughter Story

The director and writers have attempted to present the series as a comedy or, probably, a dark comedy. Whenever Maya is about to do something wicked, there’s a throwback scene from her childhood showing how she became a liar. These scenes help us understand how she often lied to deal with many situations as a kid. No one stopped or doubted her lies. Hence, as an adult, she became a troublesome person.

While I understand that the makers wanted to show Maya as a “sassy” human being and lawyer, it’s difficult to ignore how it mocks something as severe as cancer. Maya comes across less as a clever, funny and sassy person and more as a stubborn, insensitive adult who would rather ruin another person’s life than deal with her issues.

She lies most of the time because of her rivalry with colleague Sahil (Vaibhav Raj Gupta). But her entire act of being a breast cancer patient and gaining all the sympathy and attention is quite unsettling to watch.

At one point, the level of insensitivity heightens so much that she’s asked to be an influencer with breast cancer! That’s the point where I wanted to stop watching the show. But I continued with a hope that she might have some redeemable qualities. Well, she’s nothing but a selfish person with no empathy and consideration towards others.

For the argument that it’s just a comedy show, there were hardly any scenes that would make one laugh. Even though actor Samridhi Dewan is as impressive as Maya Ahuja, her character’s actions keep bothering one till the end.

The show could’ve been a movie where we see Maya being the Govinda from Kyo Kii… Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta. But there are 9 episodes where the story doesn’t progress much, but we only get to see more lies.

Good Bad Girl Review: Final Thoughts

Overall, surprisingly, Good Bad Girl is SonyLIV’s one of the few weakest releases of 2022. The series tries to be savage, funny and dark but fails because of the subject it took to make jokes about.

The show is now streaming on SonyLIV.