Title: Black, White & Gray – Love Kills
Director: Pushkar Sunil Mahabal
Cast: Mayur More, Palak Jaiswal, Deven Bhojani, Edward Sonnenblick, Hakkim Shahjahan, Anant Jog, Kamlesh Sawant, and others
Where: Streaming on SonyLIV
Rating: 3 Stars
In a world obsessed with clear villains and heroes, this series boldly reminds us that the truth, much like guilt, often lurks in the gray.
There is something both endearing and exasperating about Black, White & Gray – Love Kills, a series that adopts the docu-drama format with the zeal of a rookie crime reporter on their first big story. Directed by Pushkar Sunil Mahabal and produced by Swaroop Sampat and Hemal A. Thakkar, this earnest, semi-stylized narrative may start off feeling rough around the edges, but once you’re pulled into its world, you realize the informality is part of the design—and the discomfort is very much the point.
Following Daniel Gray, a journalist with more tenacity than subtlety, the series excavates a cluster of grim murders tied to a young man from the economic peripheries. What unfolds is not a slick whodunnit but a patchwork of murky realities where morality is a spectrum and justice a moving target. Think Crime Beat if it had a conscience—and a distinctly Indian dustiness around its edges.
The story kicks off at a highway dhaba, where a weathered manager shares how he crossed paths with the so-called- "desi serial killer" accused of extinguishing four lives, including that of a politician’s daughter and a weary-eyed police officer (Tigmanshu Dhulia, who ambles through his scenes with unsettling naturalism). The accused is the son of the politician’s driver, and thus, the subtext of class and caste permeates every frame like humid air refusing to dissipate.
This series isn’t interested in linear storytelling or neat moral resolutions. It lays out competing narratives with a docu-drama’s studied neutrality, daring the viewer to sit with ambiguity. We are shown that not all crimes can be painted- black or white; the more sinister truths often fester in the uncomfortable gray. The accused’s perspective is given space—not to exonerate, but to complicate—and in doing so, the show acknowledges the fallibility of media, police, and public opinion alike.
Mayur More and Hardik Soni, sharing the mantle of the accused across timelines, inhabit their roles with a rawness that transcends their physical dissimilarities. Deven Bhojani, as a mercenary in a role that deserved sharper writing, is largely wasted. Yet the larger ensemble—Anant Jog, Hakkim Shahjahan, Palak Jaiswal—manages to ground the drama in a lived-in, bruised realism that feels stubbornly authentic.
While the direction sometimes leans into clumsy earnestness, and the pacing drags in patches, the series remains oddly compelling. It sketches a scathing portrait of how crimes are often reported—or conveniently buried—based on whose daughter is dead and whose son is accused. The series reminds us, not without irony, that- "smoking gun evidence" usually points to whichever way money and power lean.
Is it perfect? Hardly. But perhaps slickness would have diluted its rage. In an era of algorithm-massaged narratives, this series dares to stay messy, raw, and defiantly uncomfortable—like the truths it seeks to unearth.
