Our outlaw hero Lin is operating out of highway this week on Shantaram, and everybody needs him lifeless or just out of the way in which. Karla is neck-deep in a determined try to clear Lin’s title — and makes Bombay a battle zone within the course of.

Additionally on this week’s episode, entitled “Banquet of Penalties“: Lisa and Modena’s nice escape turns into no such factor. Prabhu makes a promise he can’t maintain. Wally Nightingale closes in on his prey. And Ravi decides he’d relatively not change in any case.

It’s an exhilarating penultimate episode, because the Apple TV+ restricted collection finds all its bloody items falling into place.

Shantaram recap: ‘Banquet of Penalties’

Season 1, episode 11: Prabhu (performed by Shubham Saraf) is anxious about Lin (Charlie Hunnam), and it’s attending to Parvati (Rachel Kamath). She hears about his tour with Lin and Abdullah (Fayssal Bazzi) to bust up the drug racket, and makes Prabhu promise he received’t take any extra silly dangers on behalf of his loopy Aussie pal. He begrudgingly agrees, though in fact he informed Lin to not get entangled within the first place.

Madame Zhou (Gabrielle Scharnitzky) and Maurizio (Luke Pasqualino) had Karla (Antonia Desplat) adopted when she left with Sunita (Tharanya Tharan) to offer her testimony to Kavita (Sujaya Dasgupta). So their solely recourse now’s to go to battle. Zhou doesn’t know Karla acted clandestinely — Khader Khan (Alexander Siddig) didn’t know. Not that that helps anybody now. There’s going to be bloodshed.

Zhou goes to Walid Shah (Mel Odedra) for backup simply as Kavita hits up Minister Pandey (Alvin Maharaj) for info. Khan confronts Karla about this and is correctly outraged. Karla walks away and Abdullah is dispatched to get Lin so Khan can hear from him that he had nothing to do with this. There might but be a strategy to salvage this earlier than a battle begins on the streets of Bombay.

Abdullah picks up Lin, and meets a disaffected child with a nasty perspective. Lin’s behaving like an adolescent now that he finds out everybody on the town’s been mendacity to him. Undecided what he anticipated, however I suppose in the end it’s true for this character to be so insanely proud and obstinate.

The hunt for Lin is on

In the meantime, Australian detective Wally Nightingale (David Area) continues his hunt for Lin. He has Didier (Vincent Perez) picked up so he can interrogate him about his involvement with the fugitive. Didier doesn’t quit Lin, however finally, info on Lin’s residence within the slum reaches Nightingale’s ears. Didier is about free, however he notices he has a tail, so he slips out of the cafe he goes to for a celebratory drink. A few of Shah’s males attempt to kill Khan throughout breakfast, however Abdullah saves him they usually escape unscathed.

Whereas Lin talks an enormous sport about not caring about Khan and Karla, the following day he goes again to Karla and Lisa’s (Elektra Kilbey) place to speak to her about her alternative anyway. He agrees to remain as a result of she lastly admits she did all of this for him. Lin goes again to his shanty in time for Shah’s males to return to kill him, they usually practically kill Qasim Ali (Alyy Khan). The cops present up and Lin remains to be treating Qasim, refusing to go away behind any person who’s dying on his account.

Modena (Elham Ehsas) exhibits as much as get Lisa and escape, however Maurizio and a bunch of thugs present up and cease them. He shoots Modena and leaves him to die, taking the women again to Zhou. Wally and another cops torture Prabhu for information whereas Lin saves Qasim from a hematoma. Ravi (Matthew Joseph), nevertheless, doesn’t care how a lot he’s finished for the village. He nonetheless needs revenge. He turns Lin into Nightingale — and it’s solely as a result of Prabhu heads them off and slashes the cop’s tires that the 2 escape.

Wizard of Oz

This was a very thrilling episode of Shantaram. I like that we’re lastly meting out of dramatic lifeless weight, and in addition we’re taking free threads from early within the season and utilizing them in ways in which observe. Ravi nonetheless having a chip on his shoulder about Lin strains up with every little thing we all know concerning the child, and certainly about how children course of trauma and perceived betrayal.

Lisa doesn’t do a lot for me dramatically, however as a conduit to the killing of Modena and the apology between Karla and Lin, the character serves a function. Modena being killed is an effective use of a personality we didn’t care about, as a result of it hotwires the seriousness of Maurizio and Zhou’s battle on Khan.

Prabhu’s resolution to carry up the police can be a very thrilling and tense use of this character. Shubham Saraf’s efficiency has been glorious and likable all season, however in moments like this, he actually earns his paycheck.

In reward of Prabhu

We like Prabhu as a result of he’s a pragmatist and he’s loyal, but additionally as a result of he is aware of proper from mistaken in a approach guys like Abdullah don’t. Lin likes each of them, however he is aware of Prabhu is the angel on his shoulder, who will lie a bit to outlive however received’t give in to the larger sins that maintain Bombay’s wheels turning.

So, when Prabhu agrees to face between Lin and the police, we all know he doesn’t actually know what he’s signing up for, as a result of he nonetheless type of believes there’s an ethical order to the universe. When it seems to be like Nightingale would possibly truly blind him with a damaged bottle, there’s actual rigidity. Nightingale’s a bastard who thought nothing of killing Lin again in jail. Why would he blink at completely crippling somebody he doesn’t know?

It’s very good things, the type of glimpse into darkness that Shantaram provides as a riposte to its normally breezy environment (even with all of the intercourse and crime and drug use). I’ll miss a number of components from this present when it ends, and Saraf is certainly certainly one of them.

★★★☆☆

Watch Shantaram on Apple TV+

New episodes of Shantaram arrive on Apple TV+ each Friday.

Rated: TV-MA

Watch on: Apple TV+

Scout Tafoya is a movie and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay collection The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Movie Remark, The Los Angeles Overview of Books and Nylon Journal. He’s the writer of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Type of Tobe Hooper, the director of 25 function movies, and the director and editor of greater than 300 video essays, which may be discovered at Patreon.com/honorszombie.