'Two Much with Kajol and Twinkle': Manish Malhotra and Sonakshi Sinha Episode is an Exhausting Charade

Two Much breaks my heart because it keeps showing us what it is capable of, into what sticky mud-pit it is plausible to take the conversation—and then actively, forcefully swerves in the opposite direction, towards safety, blueballing insight, intimacy, or at the very least, information. 

In the previous episode, when both hosts, Twinkle Khanna and Kajol, and Karan Johar, one of the guests, gave jovial excuses for physical infidelity—”thand lag rahi thi”; “raat gayi baat gayi”—with Janhvi Kapoor, the other guest, standing her ground, the internet did its work, turning a moment into a meme, a possibility into a conclusion. Accusations were made, marriages were stained, characters were shredded, but the question of the shredded person at the center of this stained marriage, this stained relationship, was forgotten. 

What does it feel like to be in a relationship where physical infidelity is expected and exercised? At what point does a marriage or a relationship become open without one realising it? Nope, nothing.

Marriage is not about love, but compatibility, Khanna noted, and what this compatibility without love could look like is brushed aside. Rarely are you able to look at a film, a show, an episode in its face and really slot it against its own lapsed possibilities. Two Much wears its failure on its sleeve—and I am beginning to feel this is not a bug but a feature of this show. 

What helps the show do this disappearing trick—where what disappears is any voyeuristic pleasure that is the bedrock of this genre, but also ultimately the long rope we give to such terrifying mediocrity—is the way the episode is structured. Even the conversation has such a rigidity, it quickly and unsubtly segues from one topic to the other, before things truly rattle. You can feel the urge to move on even before a topic has been freshly slipped into. It is so frigid, even kindness feels like a conversation lubricant, to push things along. 

In the latest episode with Manish Malhotra and Sonakshi Sinha, for example, Sinha’s wedding is brought up—not its contentious context of interfaith marriage, with her father and brothers not in attendance, but what kind of sari she wore. (Upcycled from her mother’s wardrobe, in case you were interested.)

Later in a game, they discuss the prompt—whether family members are okay with whom one marries as long as it is of the opposite gender, same caste, and respectable bank balance. What is missing? Religion, of which Sinha might have something to say. She had to even turn the comments off on her wedding photos.  How can a show be so spectacularly oblivious, hoping its oblivion is contagious, and ultimately forgiven? 

The desire to speak of these intimate exhaustions is put aside to instead school Malhotra, who thinks India is changing, that families don’t care for caste, gender, or class. He has worked the room so many times, he speaks in polite aphorisms, insincere platitudes, and high cheekbones. India is not his latest collection, so he doesn’t need buzzwords to sell it—to us. 

Honestly, if, as Khanna notes in the beginning, he has Botox in his tongue, why invite him? Why have him over, with another guest whom he isn’t particularly close with—he quickly gives an excuse for not being at her wedding, having fittings at Jamnagar.

These are not people invited for their ability to speak freely, but for their ability to give the illusion of bare speech—an illusion that is sustained by their online presence, the parties they throw, the friendships they perform. These are people whose mere presence is meant to offer some succour—the point is to get Manish Malhotra, not what to do having got him.  

To make up for lost intimacy, the show vrooms overdrive into its embarrassing obsequiousness—calling Sinha a “bindaas babe” and hailing Malhotra for draping all possible actresses across generations. Quality is of no relevance. 

Sonakshi Sinha will list a bunch of films she has done—all irredeemable flops—and no one will bat an eyelid, interrupting her that these films have not worked, and perhaps that requires a reckoning. The one exceptional film from her filmography, Lootera (2013), is neither discussed nor referenced, perhaps, the sole film from her career where Sinha secreted promise. Instead, she gets introduced the following way—she acts, raps, and paints. It takes so little for words to become a formality. 

Malhotra’s penchant for maximalism—what some might call tacky, others a seismic shift—is spoken of in adoring terms, and a brief sting by questioning why he been unable to work with Sanjay Leela Bhansali since Khamoshi (1996) is left unanswered, especially given Bhansali’s embrace of craft over glamour, and a certain kind of rigorous beauty, preferring roots over Malhotra’s ramp. 

Malhotra’s foray into film production, too, keeps getting brought up, but not a peep on the shelved Meena Kumari biopic. What are the heartbreaks of envisioning a film, an ode, that you don’t even get permission to begin? 

Patience runs thin when Khanna brings up the topic of discussion that a woman’s worth is defined by how she looks. It is all daft talk, but I like that Khanna recognises the hypocrisy of the whole thing—she hates heels, but she points that she must be in it for the show, so really, how far does one’s desire take us when we are part of a world where decisions are made for us? They laugh it off, and take a selfie. 

Maybe that’s all the show can offer—a glimpse into the fact that this is all an exhausting charade, and everyone is participating in a hypocrisy that they both resent and encourage. Glamour is self-swallowing. And so might be this show.