The romantic partner of a cop is hardly a thing of mystery in Tamil films. She almost always dies, martyred just to be associated with a cop for a husband. Inspector Rishi flirts with the idea, but in the most beguiling way possible — when death occurs, it isn’t just a tool to get the story moving, but an actual detail that leaves us positively terrified. Filmmaker Nandhini JS flings enough surprises at us through the Prime Video thriller to leave us curious, as slow-moving as the ten-episode series can occasionally be.
The handsomely produced series is set in Thenkadu, a village that constantly struggles to navigate notions of superstition and reality. So, when a wealthy photographer is found dead under a macerating cocoon in a tree, villagers wonder whether it’s cold-blooded murder or the return of Vanaratchi, the twig-crowned spirit goddess of the forest. Even the assembly line of cops and forest rangers summoned to solve the case are an amusing mix of believers and non-believers. Heading this bunch is Rishi (Naveen Chandra), an inspector, who is immediately dismissed as an outsider by Ayyanar (Kanna Ravi) and Chitra (Malini Jeevarathnam), village cops who look at the case with a discerning eye.