Can someone please explain to me what happened to Jackson Heights? I don’t get it…I don’t get how a serial with a cast as powerful as this one, a writer like Vasay Chaudhery, and a director like Mehreen Jabbar can confuse me so much. The initial 5-6 episodes were fantastic, absolutely brilliant… then we had some average and some not so average episodes (which is pretty normal when channels and production houses make the writer stretch the script). Then  last week I thought the serial had taken a turn for the good and I thought ok, we are finally moving forward, but then we had today and I’m left baffled.

We start out in the park with Salma and Bhatti because 3 episodes later we are still forced to celebrate Bhatti Saheb’s birthday. He is touched by Salma’s gesture of cake and card…he tells her that ‘kisi apne ne kabhi aisa nahi kya,’ making her feel bad for him. Didn’t we see in episode 10 that poor Mark spent his entire allowance on a cake for Bhatti Saheb? Didn’t his wife in the last episode suggest that they both get away and spend time together as her way of making up for forgetting his birthday and didn’t he have an attitude with her because he was PO’d at Salma for not showing up? Didn’t the cabbies want to go have a birthday dinner with him, but he blew them off to meet Salma? So my question is, are none of these people ‘apne’ or do they just not count? Or, or did the writer think the audience was going to forget all of this two episodes later? Anyways, Bhatti and Salma are getting too close for comfort…he has started to randomly show up at the salon to take Salma out for coffee and a stroll  in the park. and even they are finally realizing it. I did enjoy Salma saying “Alya ke ooper saara kaam chor ke ayi hoon, yahan date maarne.” While I find that amusing, I’m also disturbed at Bhatti calling his family ‘jahil’ when he complains to Salma about Izzi and her boyfriend (apparently the concept that a step-parent can also care for a child is hard for the ‘goras’ to understand). To bhai, aap ne jahilon mein shaadi kyoon ki?? Was a green card that important? Eik to you are using these people for your own purposes, you are seem to couldn’t care less about their feelings and now you are bad mouthing them to another married person that you  have a disturbing crush on? Khaire, they both do realize that they are married and perhaps getting a bit too close for comfort. On the way back Salma almost runs into Sikander.

Speaking of Sikander, he now has gone from owing $4k to $25K and Tai Jee has pointed him towards Salma’s jewelry that she had her eyes on. Yes bilkul, bhaar mein jae aisi parhai…what will Iman do with an education anyways? On the topic of Iman, how is it that she saw her mother get beaten up by her father and the next time she comes on screen, we are to pretend nothing happened? She is asking about Bhatti Uncle and if Salma gave him the card, talking about career day; its as if the entire episode never happened. As their daughter, wouldn’t Iman have questions as to what happened and why? Wouldn’t this have been a great opportunity to discuss domestic abuse and try to answer some questions? The writer missed a fantastic opportunity to address the issue by choosing to not acknowledge it and I just don’t understand why. Moving on, I believe Salma is aware that Sikander is up to something…he brought Iman chocolates, agrees to go to career day (to talk about his years in Jail?), and asks how her day was…you can tell by Salma’s expressions she knows there is another battle in her future.

Now to Michele and Jamshed…first of all, Marina Khan is absolutely beautiful!! I was just staring in awe when she was putting on her makeup. I’m not sure of Michelle is, (consciously or unconsciously) trying to impress Jamshed, or does she miss Rizwan so much that he has become a replacement. She invites jamshed to have lunch, gets him jalebis when he says that’s the only meetha he likes and then surprises him at his house to invite him for a walk in the park. After initiating all of these actions, how is she surprised when Jamshed starts to flirt with her? Why is she telling him to flirt with women his own age? What was she thinking was going to happen? Jamshed is a player (and that too a bad one) we all know, so she is just making it easy for him.

As impressed as I was with Vasay Chaudhery’s script in the first few episodes, now I’m just confused. The direction is superb…Mehreen Jabbar succeeds in extracting great performances from the cast, especially Amina Sheikh, Mehr Jaffri, and Ali Kazmi. The cast is doing their level best in portraying the characters they are given, but the script is now lacking and it shows. I’m hoping it will get better, but having Iman completely ignore her father beating up her mother was a huge mistake…that magic wand that erases events is used too often and its like they (almost) expect the audience to either forget what happened in the last episode, or just ignore it and move on. If anyone from the team is reading this, please don’t do that.