Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bhaag Beanie Bhaag’ On Netflix, Where A Woman Pursues Stand-Up Comedy Instead Of Married Life

Did you know that Mumbai had an exploding stand-up scene? Neither did we. That’s why we were interested in the idea behind the rom-com Bhaag Beanie Bhaag, about a woman pursuing stand-up instead of getting married, despite the pressure from her family. Then we saw that Ravi Patel (Ravi Patel’s Pursuit Of Happiness) is one of the creators, and we figured the show would have a bit of an American sensibility to it. We were pleasantly surprised to find a little of everything.

BHAAG BEANIE BHAAG: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Beanie Bhatnagar (Swara Bhaskar) is introduced on stage at a comedy club, but she comes out wearing an extremely formal dress.

The Gist: We back up a few years. We find out that Beanie always wanted to entertain, and eventually landed on stand-up comedy. As she entered her adulthood, she found herself at open mics and doing her “tight 5” at comedy clubs late at night. But, “like most middle-class kids,” she got an MBA and a desk job. She also started dating Arun (Varun Thakur), a nice but not very interesting guy whose family has money.

Three days before the first scene, he gives her a massive engagement ring and pops the question. Instead of being thrilled, though, Beanie starts to panic, thinking that engagement leads to marriage leads to kids, and that’s not what she’s looking for. To blow off some steam, she and her friend Kapi (Dolly Singh) go to a comedy club to see if there are any slots open. Beanie finds an American comedian named Ravi (Ravi Patel) and concocts a sob story about dead rabbits to get him to give her a slot.

She keeps saying she’s not a “comic comic,” but when she gets on stage, she does well enough to be invited to a “new voices” showcase, an important next step. The problem is: It’s the same day as her engagement party. She starts to be convinced that stand-up is the way she should go, even though Arun and her parents (Mona Ambegaonkar, Girish Kulkarni) think the comedy thing is a hobby.

She goes to another club and runs into Ravi again. He tells her why he’s plying his trade in India instead of the U.S. — it has an exploding stand-up scene — and he repeats Bill Burr’s words about playing it safe vs. following your dreams (she’s so into comedy that she knows exactly where Ravi cribbed it from). During her engagement party, she sees the new flat Ravi leased for them, with the king-sized bed Burr mentioned in his bit. Beanie panics, runs out of the party with Kapi and into a cab, where she quits her job and tentatively goes on stage to really begin her stand-up career.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The obvious comparison is The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, except it takes place in India in 2020 instead of New York in 1960.

Our Take: When we watched the first episode of Bhaag Beanie Bhaag, we noticed how American its comedy sensibility was, from its beats to its jokes to its emphasis on Beanie and Ravi getting to know each other. Then we saw that Patel and Neel Shah (The Bold Type, Powerless) were the creators and writers of the series, and it all made sense. We enjoyed the first episode because, while it concentrates on the very Indian tradition of women being paired off an married in order to start a family, it’s really about a comedy scene we didn’t know existed and are hoping to learn more about.

Bashakar isn’t a stand-up comedian herself, but she fills the role of a comic very well; during the stand-up segments the lines she given are delivered with the right rhythms and they actually generate laughs — though they might generate more if you relate to Indian life. What she also gets right is the fear in Beanie’s face as she realizes that the path she’s going down is going to make her miserable. She hates her job and her smarmy boss VIP (Shantanu Ghatak); she loves Arun but loves stand-up more. So the abject fear on her face when her family takes a photo of her displaying her ring is palpable.

Listen, it could be because we’ve been where Beanie is — facing a career crossroads, though not related to marriage like with Beanie — and we relate strongly to her dilemma. But we felt so good for her when she responded to VIP’s annoying voice mail by quitting and insisting to him that she patted his back “to keep him from dying” when he thought they shared a moment.

The other reason why we felt good is because, to be honest, we want to see an Indian scripted rom-com to not all be about marriage. We get that it’s a huge part of Indian culture, but we already have Mismatched, and reality shows like Indian Matchmaking cover this issue very well. We want to see Beanie succeed in what is likely a very male stand-up field in India. There will obviously be something going on with Ravi, and seeing his American sensibility butt up against Beanie’s will generate a few laughs.

But Patel and Shah have done a good job of setting up Beanie’s journey to being fulfilled, even if there will be a few comedic bumps along the way.

Sex and Skin: Arun talks about doing “strategic investor relations in the bedroom.” Other than that clumsy offer, that’s it.

Parting Shot: We go back to showcase night, with Beanie on stage in her fancy dress. “I’m Beanie and….” she hesitates, then says, “I’m a stand-up comic.”

Sleeper Star: Dolly Singh gives the best line of the first episode as Kapi, calling Ravi a “coconut.” When Beanie asks what that means, she says, “Brown on the outside, white on the inside.”

Most Pilot-y Line: Ravi bombs when he says all the “dumb Indians are in India,” then points at audience members and says, “you dumb.” Not sure how a professional comedian would think that was at all funny.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While we might want a little more depth coming from the show as it goes along, Bhaag Beanie Bhaag is off to a good start showing a woman pursuing an unusual dream, at least for an Indian woman of a certain age.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Bhaag Beanie Bhaag On Netflix