Srikant Tiwari and TASC — they’re back.

And we take off from where Season 2 left off — China’s Project Guan Yu now challenges India’s sovereignty in the north-east. The Indian Government is currently working to bring peace to the region historically rattled by armed independence movements; while also trying to sign a new arms deal with an apolitical global evil group. And behind all of this lies a greedy Indian capitalist and an international criminal syndicate working desperately to stir the pot for their own nefarious needs.

Family Man Season 3 follows a rather predictable plot trajectory, not something that we haven’t already seen before. But that doesn’t take anything away from the entertaining nature of the show. The pace is electric, yet not overpowering. You keep biting at everything that is thrown at you. And it’s not long before you really are thrown into the thick of it.

As usual, Manoj Bajpayee doesn’t disappoint. He blends into Srikant Tiwari, right till the point when you can’t tell one from the other. The scene where his son tries explaining modern gender terminology to him is absolutely hilarious. He isn’t Manoj Bajpayee at all at that moment, he is just Srikant Tiwari — a father completely clueless about modern trends and nomenclatures that his teenage children keep coming up with. And Season 3 also brings in the fresh punch of new characters — be it the dripping evil of Jaideep Ahlawat; the cool, calculating Nimrat Kaur; the really suave Jugal Hansraj — they help keep a very familiarized series fresh and interesting. It’s the perfect mix of the familiar and the unknown, something that the Family Man franchise has managed to do consistently well.

The north-east of India, particularly Nagaland where most of the story is based, is perfectly captured through the entire series. It’s not only about the story being set in the region, rather it forms a very integral part of the narrative, something that becomes quintessentially necessary for the plot to thicken.

You are never confused about where you are at any point of the story. There are the few expected red-herrings, but it’s nothing that you can’t latch on to for the story to progress. Yes, you expect the story to come to its expected conclusion — but that doesn’t happen. Yet. No, the series is left on a strategic cliffhanger. Now we need to wait for Season 4 to know what will most inevitably happen.

But that’s what the Family Man franchise is all about. It’s about going with the ride, not trying to figure out where you’ll reach at the end of it. It happened in Season 1, Season 2 was as impressive in this regard — but Season 3 is just delaying that gratification that you know will come. You don’t mind, you really don’t care — only now you know you’ll most probably have to wait for a long, long time.

This month saw the return of two much-anticipated and much-awaited series on OTT — Delhi Crime on Netflix and Family Man on Amazon Prime. And even after having waited for this long for the both of them, you’re mostly done binge-ing them within ten hours each. Which is both delightful and immensely satisfying, as it is sad. Because now the wait begins again. And with the fate of Srikant Tiwari and the fate of his enemies hanging in the balance, the wait is just going to feel a lot longer.

And at this point, I am sure you can catch my drift; my main issue with Season 3 of a much cherished series is that I can’t wait for Season 4. That, I am guessing, should tell us how amazing the show is by itself. Family Man Season 3 is proof that a story can be entertaining for the sake of entertainment. And it keeps delivering.

Season 4. We await.