It definitely has all the hallmarks of a mystery series—intertwining investigations, corruption at the police level and higher, a dark past that vaguely reflects the central cast—but there’s something about P.I. Meena that keeps it from being more than just a collection of genre markers. It neither feels urgent nor specific enough to separate itself from so many similar shows, and it often jumbles up the stories it tries to tell, leading to a fluctuating tone and hurried pacing. Tanya Maniktala makes for a charming lead, but she can’t help but be overwhelmed by the show’s attempts to hit the familiar beats we expect to see.
Haunted by flashes of a tragic past, a private investigator, Meenakshi Iyer, aka P.I. Meena, starts investigating what seems like a routine hit-and-run case, only to discover that there's more to it than meets the eye and becomes entangled in a web of conspiracy that is tearing apart the worlds of everyone who comes close to it.
After she witnesses an attempted murder, young private investigator Meenakshi Iyer begins uncovering a larger conspiracy, while continuing to grapple with the accident that killed her mother and hospitalized her brother.
Still, Meena is a likable, watchable protagonist who thankfully doesn't fit into the stereotype of the stoic, burnt-out detective. In fact, her genuine compassion for every victim involved isn't just a welcome change to the trope, but it becomes one of her strongest assets. At a certain point these kinds of stories just ended up believing that getting personally invested in cases would make the investigator weak and emotionally compromised. So it's good to see P.I. Meena believe in the opposite, and to reiterate the importance of caring for those affected by corrupt exploitation and wanton violence.
I know it's pretty common for private eyes to have a lot going on in their lives, but this might be getting out of hand.
