The Royals dropped today, on 9th May 2025, on Netflix. It is a Netflix original Indian series starring Ishaan Khatter and Bhumi Pednekar that, I think, didn’t settle on a target audience. They targeted Gen Z and adults at the same time, which was kind of a big blunder.
The Plot of The Royals
The plot is simple and quite boring. The Royals is the story of a self-made CEO, Sophia Shekhar, and a Maharaja heir, Aviraaj Singh. They had a moment at their first meeting, which lasted 8 episodes, I believe.
Sophia (Bhumi Pednekar) is the CEO of Workpotato and she is absolutely fire. She won an entrepreneurship award in Sri Lanka, where she and Aviraaj met for the first time. They had a one-night-stand kind of thing and then, boom! No one knew each other after that.
Sophia, coming back to India, is on a mission to prove herself to the company board and hence plans a new business trial “The Royal B&B,” where commoners pay to stay at a royal palace and spend time with the elites. This comes with a price; herself. She puts herself on the line: if the Royal B&B doesn’t work, she’ll quit.
As she starts implementing the plan, she and her team search for palaces. After one or two unwanted options, her stop is Aviraaj’s Motibagh.
Now Aviraaj’s backdrop: he wants to be a model and stay in New York but is stuck here as his father died, and he was supposed to take his father’s position. Aviraaj’s family includes his ma, dadisa, sister Jinnie, and brother Diggy.
The Morpur (fictional place) empire is in debt and must pay it off soon.
Sophia asks Digvijay to give her permission to work at his palace on the idea she had. He agrees, obviously, they could pay the debt with this. Now, since Aviraaj (short: Fizzy) and Sophia (short: Soph) had a one-day history, their dynamics become all frenemy. This whole frenemy thing goes on for another 8 episodes.
At the end of 6 months, Sophia is asked to step down from the CEO position of her own company, as her team members, plus Aviraaj, were apparently not happy with her, and the idea was a flop. She leaves for Mumbai, all devastated. And Zubin (a company board member) takes over the Royal B&B project. Aviraaj refuses to shake hands with Zubin, as it was all Sophia’s plan from the beginning. Zubin sues the Motibagh family and asks them to vacate.
At the end of The Royals, Aviraaj finds Sophia at her Mumbai home. They come together to save Motibagh with a huge, grand auction. They save Motibagh and end up together.
I’ve explained the story from the leads’ perspective, there’s a lot going on with the supporting cast as well, but it all seemed like messed-up elite problems they were facing.
Review of The Royals
As I said, it was more like The Mismatched with a royal budget. I believe the creators, Rangita Pritish Nandy and Ishita Pritish Nandy, were trying to mix the feel of East Asian dramas with Western boldness and some Bollywood twists. A high-budget, low-quality series that was boring throughout.
The actors also didn’t do well. I mean, you expect a lot from Ishaan and Bhumi when you’ve seen Dhadak and Toilet, respectively. They are fantastic actors who somehow lost their way here. Although the dance bit with Nora and Ishaan felt like two highly professional dancers sharing the screen; gorgeously done.
The dialogues were actually good, compared to the writing and acting. They were witty and had more of a Gen Z feel. The Royals was shot in Rajasthan and Mumbai, and it does have a feeling of eliteness. But I didn’t understand why Indian royals are so Western-influenced. They should have been more Indian, maybe.
The Royals is just an okay-ish attempt at the Indian comedy-drama genre. Could have been much better.
Review of Supporting Actors’ Work
The supporting cast didn’t really bring much to the table. Aviraaj’s family, like his mom, sister, and brother, were just there to add to the drama but didn’t have much depth. They seemed more like background noise than key players. Their acting felt forced, and none of them managed to make a real impact. Overall, they didn’t save the show from its messy script and direction.
Although the team of Sophia did a good job like Keertana was my favorite. She added the fun and the charm to the screen. Nora’s hindi accent is wierd otherwise she’s good too. Digvijay tried his best couldn’t achieve the results maybe but he tried.
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