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Quantico review: Like it or not, you can't ignore Priyanka Chopra

One of the best things about the show is getting to watch Chopra do things that female protagonists still don’t in our mainstream films.

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ABC was not kidding when it dubbed Quantico as Homeland meets Grey's Anatomy while promoting its newest drama. Within the first five minutes of its premiere episode, the show manages to squeeze in hat tips to its references. FBI rookie Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra) wakes up on ground zero of what is dubbed as the “biggest attack on US soil since 9/11” (Hello Homeland!). The story soon goes into flashback as we see Alex as part of new recruits being initiated into FBI’s training academy at Quantico, in a scene closely mirroring the tough talk that the interns of Seattle Grace first got, while also managing a nod to Annalise Keating of How to Get Away with Murder (What’s up Shonda Rhimes?).

The first episode of Quantico is about setting up the premise that we are all now familiar with, thanks to the show’s aggressive publicity. Newly trained FBI agent Alex Parrish is the prime suspect in a terrorist attack. The story alternates between two timelines: From Alex training at the academy with a bunch of new recruits, to Alex on the run to find the real culprits and clear her name.

The show wears its myriad influences on its sleeve. This can often come off as jarring, giving its tone a lack of uniformity. In trying to juxtapose the emotional drama of Grey’s Anatomy with the grit and intensity of Homeland, the show often veers toward being over the top. The next few episodes will tell if Quantico will manage to find its individual voice within this chaos of references.

One of the unlikeliest, and perhaps unintentional, influences of the show is Bollywood. No, there is no song and dance. Chopra has simply managed to tone down and adapt Bollywood’s school of acting and transpose it to suit the American show. You’ll see it in her come-hither looks to Ryan Booth (Jake McLaughlin), her shock when arrested by the FBI for the attack and her logic-defying escape from FBI. You’ve seen every expression before, just not in these contexts. This moment of recognition is amusing, heartening and disconcerting at the same time and when you allow yourself to look at it through this lens, it’s easier to buy into the world of this show. Successful as it may be, no one said this transition would be seamless and why should it be?

One of the best things about the show is getting to watch Chopra do things that female protagonists still don’t in our mainstream films. As Alex Parrish, she gets to be the person the entire story revolves around. She gets to be unapologetically in control of her life and do whatever the hell she wants. (Cue sex in the car with a stranger who later turns out to be a fellow recruit). She gets to be strong, messy and vulnerable at the same time. In short, she gets to be the kick ass action heroine Bollywood never gave us.

With that, let’s get down to answering the all-important question- Will Priyanka Chopra fulfil our expectations to successfully represent a billion Indians on American TV and should she?

Chopra’s successful transition from Bollywood to an American TV star is as much her achievement as her undoing. We, the Indian audience and media, are bent on scrutinising her, waiting to pounce when she falters as seen in our intense obsession with her accent. Let me say this. For every episode of Grey’s Anatomy you were willing to watch that hospital survive through apocalyptic disasters (there are at least two every season), for every time you were willing to go beyond what meets the eye and say ‘Yes, Jon Snow is alive!’, for every idiosyncrasy you put with on Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory or the times you sat through films where Salman Khan or Rajinikanth sent men flying through the sky, it is possible to use an ounce of that same willingness, to believe Priyanka Chopra/Alex Parrish has a mixed accent because of her mixed cultural influences. (She’s half American on the show, for crying out loud!)

Whether or not I buy into the world of Quantico (still on the fence about that), I cannot deny how immensely satisfying it is to watch someone like me (Indian me, not Miss World me) as part of the world I constantly consume.

To all those who are wondering why it matters that an Indian is playing the lead on an American show, you would be remiss to think we are not in the ambit of American pop culture’s influence. With the simultaneous telecast of new shows in India, reruns of older seasons and reruns of older shows like Friends and Seinfeld, as an audience, we’re one of the biggest markets outside of the US that they cater to. Generations have grown up on American shows and you can see their influence in the way we talk (Wassup!), to the way we dress and the stories we choose to listen to and whose influence we allow in our lives/minds. When we are a significant part of the audience, it’s only natural to want to make this a two-way street. This is where Chopra’s melding of our pop culture with theirs, becomes significant. Yes, it’s imperfect and narrow. Bollywood alone does not represent us. We are not all north Indians or urban. But this is simply the first step in what could be a broader exchange of influences, ideas and storytelling.

This is not a simple or straightforward path. Chopra cannot be held as the be-all and end-all of Indians represented on screen. Simple math will show she is one person and we are country with a multitude of cultures. But that also does not exempt Chopra from the part she is coming to play in the conversation of diversity on screen. She has a messy history of representation herself, using prosthetics to look north-eastern in Mary Kom.

So at the end of the first episode, here is where we find ourselves as viewers. Can we celebrate what Chopra has accomplished? Yes. Can we separate our image of Chopra and judge the show on its merits alone? Maybe. Should this popcorn drama be open to a critique of representation? Definitely. These three positions are not mutually exclusive and it’s not impossible to take them all at the same time.

Whatever turn the show may take, it has opened up a conversation of diversity and representation that now includes us Indians and that’s an opportunity we should take.

Also Read: What is the international media saying about Priyanka Chopra's performance in Quantico?

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