When Dimple Met Rishi aka Mismatched

 I'm not sure what made me try this one. And I didn't know going in that Mismatched is based on a book called When Dimple Met Rishi by an Indian American author. The Netflix show has the former as a title, when I rather wish they'd kept the original. It's more charming and less typical. 

I gather from reviews that there are some differences between the novel and the show (surprise), so I'm just going to talk about the show as I haven't read it. I'm actually through three episodes of the six, so I'm halfway there (and hoping talks of a second season are true). 

Dimple is a 17 year old geeky gamer girl. She's smart and has dreams, most of which revolve around developing apps and making it big, like her hero (someone who gives a lot of TED talks...). So she's really annoyed by her mother's constant harping about getting married. So she's super excited when her parents agree to let her attend a summer camp for app development in Jaipur (also, they aren't rich, so the fact that they're willing to pay for it, is also good). She thinks, hey, maybe mom is finally supporting me! Dad is less stringent on the marriage thing, but it's obvious who holds the power in the house (mom). 

Rishi is an 18 year old with the sensibilities of a 35 year old. He's a hopeless romantic and loves movies. He'd really love to do something with animation, but is ready to take on the family business when it's time. His family is rich, but there's definitely some past issues -- he and his younger brother live with his grandmother and there's a scene where you see the mom leaving them behind. At any rate, he's smitten when he sees Dimple's picture. Out of all the girls, she's the only one without piles of makeup on and a natural smile. Of course, it's a picture that Dimple's mom appropriated and Dimple has no idea it's on some matchmaking website. Grandma arranges with Dimple's mom -- which is why the mom is okay letting her go to Jaipur. That's near where Rishi is. Rishi, in fact, even signs up for the course, along with his best friend since forever, a girl that I honestly have not gathered the name of. 

Er, she's sweet and nice and the two of them, while best friends, have no interest in each other at all in a romantic sense. In fact, she attends the camp with him and, at the end of episode 3, there's hints that maybe she's into Dimple's purple-haired roommate, who is also a girl. So that's kinda refreshing.

Anyway, Rishi and Dimple's first meeting is utter disaster for him. He finds her, says "Hello, future wife," (assuming she knows about the whole meeting/arrangement) and she calls him a creep and throws a cold coffee all over him. They soon work out that she had no idea he was going to be there or expecting to, you know, marry her, and he's apologetic. Honestly, he's a super sweet guy. Though I totally get Dimple's anger. She feels betrayed, perhaps doubly so since she'd thought that finally! mom was supporting her. 

The thing is, he's actually a fairly good for her her, temperament-wise. And they get on pretty well when she's not throwing coffee on him. Their biggest hurdle might be Dimple herself. 

Anyway, there's also an American dude who winds up being Dimple's app dev partner who's not really interested in being there and is avoiding his Indian family--he mostly signed up to get WiFi, a streamer gamer guy in a wheelchair that is a HUGE asshole, an Instagram Influencer rich snotty girl and her boyfriend, an older lady attending the seminar after her husband died (omg she's too precious and must be protected), and the rather snotty professor. To be fair, everyone has their quirks and shortcomings, Dimple and Rishi too. 

I'm quite liking it. I hope the last half of this season lives up to the first. Good amount of character development, interesting characters with distinct personalities, decent plot/conflict set up. I have high hopes. I do dread a bit that it's so short and that there's no season 2 announced. Is it going to wrap up enough? I dunno.

Edit: Well, that was really kind of fucking depressing. Agh. So, I finished it. And I guess I should say first that it is good. It's just not what I wished for, especially given the way that it ends--which is to say, with nothing at all wrapped up and obviously set up for another season and on a bit of a cliffhanger. I'm not saying the story is wrong or the character choices were wrong--they were all true to the characters--but holy fudge. Bleh.

Honestly, after the 4th episode, I kind of thought things were headed the way they went. I was just hoping not. Especially since we're in another strict lockdown as of today. Sigh.

So, Rishi wound up telling Dimple about how Namrata (his best friend...I've got her name now) likes Celina (the purple-haired roommate) when Dimple is being a bit jealous of them, thinking that he likes Namrata. He makes her promise not to tell anyone. Probably because he doesn't realise that a) Dimple is a hot-headed mess and says things without thinking and b) she's also a terrible liar. So, later on when Dimple walks in on Celina having sex with some dude (er, I think Rishi's brother?), she winds up telling Celina, not so much on purpose, but because she's crap at lying. This may not have been so bad except that Celina has her own secrets and is apparently, not comfortable being the object of Namrata's affection (even though she'd literally been putting her hands all over the girl). Rather than the rich daughter of a Brigadier (like she'd told the snotty kids), she's poor and works as a delivery girl. She's been trying to fake it, but gets caught out when she delivers food to Harsh's (the Naughty American) house & snotty Instagram girl answers the door. 

Meanwhile, Harsh has finally arrived at the not very hard to reach conclusion that his new friends (wheelchair asshole, Instagram Snot, and Hair-Plug boyfriend) are actually assholes when they crash at his grandparent's house and are total dicks to his grandparents. He's not been super nice to them, but in a lowkey way, but seeing them being so disrespectful finally pings something in his brain. He'd been showing he was uncomfortable for a while, but that drove it home. 

Anyway, Dimple and Anmol (the wheelchair streamer ass --who, incidentally, we get a glimpse into his past before his accident and all it shows us is that he was always an ass and the accident was his own fault for drinking and smoking and flirting while driving...so, yeah, I get his annoyance at all the ways India & the campus aren't set up for disabled access BUT he's still a complete asshole. I have no sympathy for him at all) get into a sort-of fight and they wind up in a gamer challenge (he's ranked 16th in the world; she's unranked). 

She does beat him, which is literally the one bright spot, but her success is short-lived as meanwhile a) Celina outs Namrata in front of a bunch of people, which is bound to get back to her overprotective parents, which means she'll be married off or something, b) Namrata tells off Rishi & declares their friendship over, which makes him realise that c) Dimple had to have told someone, so he goes to find Dimple to have it out with her (oh, and I forgot that they'd just gotten over a fight where Dimple was mad at him because he'd lied about his parents being divorced) but d) Dimple had just found out from her teacher that someone stole her code and is launching her app so she e) accuses Rishi of having sold her out as he's there upset about his best friend and they f) both say regrettable things...basically, he tells her that her app is all that's important to her and there are living, breathing people that matter (and, you know what, he's not wrong) and she says so what, you're a liar just like your dad and I don't care. 

So, yeah, ugh. 

Oh, and then, at the very end, Harsh is trying to comfort her and she kisses him. The girl who had only recently had her first kiss ever. I mean, I get it, plot-wise/character-wise -- she's upset and looking for comfort and blah blah and he's an 18 year old dude, so yeah he's gonna kiss her back (especially since he'd realised that she was decent and his "friends" weren't--he's been kinda jerky, but not an asshole up to this point). But, still. 

Honestly, I don't know that a relationship could or should come back from where they've left Dimple and Rishi. And I gather from a broad review of the book that they do wind up together? Man, I dunno. 

All that said, it's a good show and believable. But, yeah, depressing where they left it. If a second season comes out, I'll probably watch it. As long as it isn't during lockdown.