So finally after 27 weeks there was an end to Jackson Heights today. When the drama began, like everyone else, I too had really high hopes. I thought with a director and writer as brilliant as Mehreen Jabbar and Vasay Chaudhery and such a dream cast, this was sure to be a hit. And to be honest, Jackson Heights had its share of some great episodes, the operative word being ‘some.’ When they tackled the domestic abuse issue, I was so happy that finally it is being brought out, and that too in a serious manner, but woh bhi kaheen beech mein kho gaya. A long time abuser and wife beater did a complete 180 without any help. When Jamshed was standing outside talking to Bhatti saying, “yahan rehna waaqi bohut mushkil hai,” please tell me Pakistan mein rehna kitna asaan hai? This drama was 10 episodes too long and it showed. I still had hope though…I thought the ending would perhaps make up for all the weeks most of us went ‘HUH?’ I was wrong again. Here is how it ended.
Bhatti’s brother and bhabi wanted the house, so he gave it to them and started a car rental company. I’ll say this much, when he took that call from Salma, it was the first time I actually felt something for him, but that went away very quickly.
Iman realized on Salma’s birthday that she has been really selfish and four months later, (yes, four months later) she gave her actual birthday gift in a form of the divorce deed signed by her father so Salma could go to Bhatti, which she does, hamesha ke liye.
Michelle decided she was going to go to London to find herself and figure out what she wanted from life. Before leaving though, she went to see Jamshed (who at the time was working at a food shake street cart) and gave him an envelope to open only his “zameer aur dil eik he cheez chahein.” She then takes a cab and leaves. I guess she only asked Rizwan to come early so she could go see Jamshed. She leaves Rizwan waiting again, which begs the question, was Rizwan just in the drama to wait for her?
Jamshed somehow (four months later) manages to get a student visa and start going to school. In the last episode his visa was to expire in 2 weeks, right? But this is Jackson Heights, and all of this only needed to make sense in the writer’s world, not the real one in which you can’t actually come on a visit visa and convert it to a F-1 student visa, especially once even that expires.
This was it, this is how it ended. A few minutes ago I saw the facebook status by Vasay saying he has actually never been to NYC or even the US…that clearly showed in his script and my question is, why write about something you have no clue about? Vasay, you are a brilliant writer. You gave us the Barat Series and Mein hoon Shahid Afridi, some of the best writing I have seen. Even in Jackson Heights, when you wrote about anything non-US related, it was fantastic. I absolutely loved all the lines Nani had. Please, please write about what you know and have experienced because everything you have written as life pertaining to the US, was either hugely exaggerated or just plain false information, not to mention extremely anti-US. If you are going to write about something outside the box, then at least do some research about it. Be it immigration, hospitals, police protocol, or even how much money Bhatti actually had (couldn’t come up with $1500 to give to his lawyer 15 episodes ago, but had $25K to give to Sikander’s gangsters)? There were more holes in this script than there are potholes after the snow melts in the Midwest. Stick with what you know because that is what you excel in!!
Mehreen Jabbar did what she could with a weak script and the cast was absolutely fantastic. Ali Kazmi, Amina Sheikh, and Marina Khan were just outstanding. Ali Kazmi was so good that I hated him as Sikander, but when he changed after the accident, I felt for him and was rooting for him and Salma more than Bhatti and Salma. Neelofar Abbasi, Adnan Jaffer, Mehr Jaffrey, Noman Ejaz were all in their element and did full justice to their roles. The drama definitely showed how hard everyone worked.
My apologies to Team Jackson Heights for the negative reviews…trust me, no reviewer wants to write a bad review!
