An emotional end to ‘Gentleman’ – with an unexpected twist!

By Maliha Rehman

You can’t watch the final episode of Gentleman with dry eyes.

For the considerable audience who has followed the drama episode by episode, the final parting between Munna and Zarnab is heartbreaking. He stares at her sadly, resigned to his fate, with a sense of loss for all the dreams that he had dreamt for the two of them which will not be fulfilled now. She stares back, pain in her eyes, her mouth downturned, trying to be brave even as she contemplates that the man she has loved may now be lost to her forever.

The music plays out – sad, poignant – on cue. There are flashbacks – memories of happier times, of hesitant confessions of love, of days when there was hope. And there are dialogues, emotional monologues that talk of love in the same vein as the battle between good and evil.

It is so sad and so well-narrated that the many invested into this star-crossed love story may feel their hearts sinking.

Credit for this largely goes to director Haissam Hussain and the drama’s exceptional cast. The director plays with light and shadow and for a large part of the final episode, his camera veers into the spooky corners of a graveyard, giving a sense of foreboding as to what the story’s conclusion may be.

The final clash between Rehmati and Munna takes place, symbolically near Dilbar’s grave. Rehmati seeks forgiveness but ultimately dies when Munna shoots him down. And then, Munna and Zarnab meet one final time. Standing surrounded by gravestones he tells her to keep fighting and not cry. The police then arrest him.

What brings the emotions to life are the actors. Gentleman’s strongest suit has been its cast and the final episode is testament to the prowess of actors Humayun Saeed and Yumna Zaidi. They speak their dialogues very well but even before they say the words, they emote with their eyes. Humayun, one of the country’s most-loved heroes, is remarkable. The flashbacks throw the audience’s memory back to a fumbling, mumbling Munna bashfully declaring his love for Zarnab. And then the story spirals back to the present, where he stands drained, dejected, contemplating death or a life behind bars.

Similarly, Yumna Zaidi is remarkable as the upstanding, brave, hopelessly in love Zarnab. In her earlier memories, she is seen smiling slightly at Munna, coaxing him back to health, telling him that he wasn’t to die, slowly realizing that the man she thought was a thug – a ‘ghunda’ – was, in fact, a gentleman. In contrast, she now stands distressed, her hair in disarray.

Much of Gentleman’s success is certainly because of its exceptional actors; not just the main male and female lead but also Adnan Siddiqui as the nefarious but comical Rehmati, Ahmed Ali Butt as the dependable, likeable Dilbar, Zahid Ahmed as the cunning Faris, Sohai Ali Abro as the complicated but good at heart Mifra and Khaled Anam as Zarnab’s well-meaning, wise father.

The actors perform so well that to the best of their abilities they make up for the flaws in the script. It is true that Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar is one of the country’s finest drama writers but it is also undeniable that Gentleman cannot be ranked as one of his finest works. There were times when there were loopholes in the story or when scenes were unnecessarily dragged out because Khalil sahab went overboard with longwinded poetic dialogues.

And yet, Gentleman’s end was memorable. It is a drama that has walked the path less trodden, delving into a social commentary on good and evil rather than the saas-bahu narratives that tend to dominate TV. It is a story pushed forward by Green Entertainment, a channel which is still in its fledgling years but which has significantly been making efforts to push TV drama narratives into more challenging, intriguing directions. It reflects the vision of producers Sana Shahnawaz and Samina Humayun Saeed of Next Level Entertainment who have a penchant for telling unique stories.

There is no dry eye while watching the end of Gentleman, yes – until the last few seconds of the episode when there is a sudden twist that gives you hope. You may have cried but suddenly you realize that it’s a happy ending after all.

Delicious.