Netflix‘s new Indian import The Royals has me wanting to issue an apology to The Perfect Couple‘s Ishaan Khatter. I knew when I interviewed the Indian megastar last fall, he was a big deal abroad. I understood that he was handsome, charming, and down to play a romantic lead. What I did not quite fathom until I saw The Royals, however, was the extent of Ishaan Khatter’s game.
The Royals is a very silly, unapologetically sudsy new rom-com about what happens when a playboy prince meets his match in a startup CEO. It’s also an excuse for Netflix to give us more Ishaan Khatter: shirtless Ishaan Khatter, flirtatious Ishaan Khatter, horny Ishaan Khatter, and terribly charming Ishaan Khatter.
Basically, The Royals proves that Ishaan Khatter might be one of the hottest men on Netflix — and that The Perfect Couple grossly underused him.
**Spoilers for The Royals, now streaming on Netflix**
The Royals opens at a luxury resort in Sri Lanka. Sophia Shekhar (Bhumi Pednekar) is a self-made success story. Her hospitality brand, the ludicrously named WorkPotato, is about to launch its most ambitious project yet, “The Royal B&B.” The idea is that ordinary people like you or me will be able to stay at one of India’s gorgeous historic palaces with the royal family who calls it home.
Naturally, because this is a Netflix rom-com, Sophia’s plan immediately has a hiccup. The show opens with Sophia shrugging off staffers telling her she can’t continue her idyllic morning jog on a beach because a “VIP” is having a photoshoot. That VIP is none other than royal prince Aviraaj “Fizzy” Singh (Ishaan Khatter), one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, as proven by his Fabio-esque styling and dating history that supposedly includes Taylor Swift. Naturally, sparks fly.
The thing about The Royals is that it’s the kind of show that you can only really watch a few glasses deep into a box of rosé. I cannot stress how often this series made me chuckle and say out loud, “Oh my god, this is so stupid!” The storyline falls apart under any scrutiny. The dialogue feels crafted by a teenager who just discovered profanity. For instance, there’s literally a part where Fizzy’s more serious younger brother Diggy (Vihaan Samat) seriously informs his siblings that their family has been living off of the money generated by selling the bat shit being accumulated in a rundown wing of their palace as fertilizer. Is that a major plot point? (No, it’s just there for the “shit” jokes.)
So what makes The Royals worth watching? Ishaan Khatter, duh.
From the moment we meet Fizzy, it’s clear that we’re supposed to believe that he’s the hottest man in the world and Ishaan Khatter damn sure sells it. Sure, it helps that he’s buff and perfectly styled and literally introduced on a white horse, but there’s an indescribable light behind the actor’s eyes that lures you in. When Fizzy smiles, it lights up the entire scene. When, later in the series, he is pensive, shadows seem to overtake the series.
As we get to know Fizzy more, we learn that he’s been reluctantly thrust into the role of Maharaja. He is the sun that everyone else in his world revolves around. What’s incredible is that Khatter literally is able to be just this in The Royals: the center of everything.
Of course, what makes Fizzy literally sizzle on screen is Khatter’s incendiary chemistry with Bhumi Pednekar. The two Indian stars are able to channel both the crackling, sparring energy that has defined so much of the rom-com genre, and base, seedy desire. In a rare twist, the two characters attempt to get into bed with each other right off the bat, all the way back in Episode 1, only for a few missed cues to soil the mood. There’s something deliciously honest in their horniness for each other, right down to the awkward bits played for comedy.
All of this is to say that while The Perfect Couple might have introduced Ishaan Khatter to western audiences in a big, showy way — straight down to that shower scene — the show never let him really shine. Maybe it’s because his character, Shooter, was meant to be the lower key love interest for Eve Hewson, or perhaps it was simply that Netflix didn’t know the seismic sex pot they were dealing with in Khatter.
Either way, The Royals makes the argument that Ishaan Khatter is a supernova of sex appeal and Netflix ought to figure out how to harness that power as much as possible.
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