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Everything Wrong with “Mismatched” Season 3

The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Bowling Green chapter.

Mismatched is a Netflix original, romantic drama about a group of students taking a summer course at The Aravalli Institute in Rajasthan, India. This show is based on When Rishi Met Dimple, a novel written by Sandhya Menon. Before I go on a huge rant, let me introduce the characters. Warning: there are *MAJOR SPOILERS* included in this article, so please read with caution. 

Meet The Main Characters:

Dimple: an ambitious female character who wants to study coding, create apps, and build her empire in the tech world. Her mother is constantly pushing her to wear makeup, date boys, and have fun in college. This is what drives her further towards her passion for technology and away from “silly things,” like boys. 

Rishi: a hopeless romantic male character who is looking for a unique love story like those he sees in old Bollywood movies. His family is very rich in wealth but broken in love with his parents being separated. Rishi is extremely talented in the field of animation but considers it a “hobby.” 

Namrata: Rishi’s childhood best friend who is queer and unfortunately has to hide her sexuality because it is not accepted by her family or society. Only Rishi knows her secret and supports her. Namrata often lives through Rishi’s love stories and dates but doesn’t seem to have any of her own…yet.

Celina: a bold female character, known by the dark purple highlights in her hair. She is Dimple’s roommate and quickly becomes her best friend. She struggles financially and works as a delivery girl to sustain herself and pay her tuition. Celina is ashamed by this fact and hides it from her friends and family.

Harsh: an international student from California who has begrudgingly come to India to spend time with his grandparents. Harsh is only taking this summer course for the free Wi-Fi and doesn’t really have much interest in coding. His passion is music. 

Anmol: a hot-headed, physically disabled male character. He lost the ability to use his legs after an unfortunate case of drunk driving. Anmol spends most of his time playing video games in which he can run and jump and escape his disability. 

Simran: a female character who is the typical (stuck-out) Instagram influencer whose entire life is her social media presence. She is always on her phone, posting stories, recording lives, and interacting with her fans. Because of this, Simran has developed many insecurities about her body and being the “perfect” girl/girlfriend.

Krish: this male character is basically just known as Simran’s boyfriend. He’s the classic, arrogant, player rich kid who bullies others. 

Zeenath: an older, recently widowed, female character who wants to learn more about the tech world. Zeenath has never stepped foot outside her hometown, so moving to another city for a summer course is a big deal for her. Not to mention, being twice the age of all the students is very intimidating for her. 

Sid sir: the chill but passionate professor for this summer course. He seems laid back but pushes his students to their limits to help them grow and succeed. Sid sir has a true passion for tech and treats all his students with equal respect. 

A Little Refresher From Season Two

Dimple and Rishi are back together. Harsh left India to study music at the Berkeley School of Music. Celina leaked Dimple’s app code to a major tech company, hurting Dimple’s career, and breaking their friendship. Namrata’s secret was revealed to her parents, so she ran away from home to live in Delhi with her girlfriend, Ayesha. Simran and Krish broke for many reasons, but honestly, they were a toxic couple, soooooo we saw this coming. 

We end season two with Rishi, Anmol, Krish, and Celina getting into the new fancy tech institute NNIT, founded by Nandani Nahata, (Sid sir’s ex). Nandani unfairly rejects Dimple’s application to NNIT for an unknown reason, but I believe it is because she is jealous of Rishi and Dimple’s seemingly successful relationship. 

Season three jumps forward three years. Rishi and Dimple were secretly dating long-distance for three years, with Rishi living Dimple’s tech dream at NNIT and Dimple just trying to focus on her online schooling. Anmol has been dating Vinny from the end of season two. Krish is the new f-boy at NNIT and Celina is the new f-girl. 

Why Season Three Sucked (in my opinion)

#1: Ummm plot? Hello? 

According to LitCharts, a “plot is the sequence of interconnected events within the story,” but there was no interconnectedness. The entire season lacked a basic plotline that would tie its events and characters to each other. The new characters introduced didn’t really harmonize or complement the past characters. It seems that the writers attempted to address topics related to LGBTQ+ awareness, plus-size characters, and other sensitive issues, but they struggled to clearly and effectively explore any of them. 

The main new character Rith, who identifies with he/him pronouns, deeply desires to surgically change their gender to male. Rith wants to hack into Nandani’s virtual reality world project known as Betterverse to see how living life as a male would feel like. However, this plot isn’t clearly explained until the middle of the season. The first four episodes are just filled with PDA and sex scenes. I’m not against PDA or intimate scenes but there should be a reason or purpose behind it. The storyline moves forward a little bit in episode five when Rith successfully hacks into Betterverse, but then completely moves off-course again to a disconnected plot twist of Dimple’s loving father passing away. 

#2: Dimple is SUCH a red flag

No, like… it’s a problem. Dimple has the sweetest, loving, supportive boyfriend. Rishi created a home in Betterverse for their future together filled with memories from their dating life and even plans for the future, including cute couple pictures he wanted to recreate with Dimple. He created a beautiful field with many hot air balloons in the sky as a token to remember their landmark date on a hot air balloon where they first say “i love you” to each other. Rishi gave Dimple access to the Betterverse server so they could meet in VR, so they would feel less of the distance of their LDR. Trust me, it doesn’t get better than Rishi Singh Shekhawat.

Rishi often calls Dimple silly but sweet nicknames like cutie, sugarplum, buttercup, cupcake, sweetu, boo-boo, and even Dimpiya babu. Every time Rishi says one of these names, Dimple just scoffs or rolls her eyes. Even with his busy schedule, Rishi makes it a point to spend time with Dimple, support her, and make sure she’s happy. But no matter what Rishi does, Dimple is still upset with him. She blames him for living her dream of going to NNIT. She often blames her failures on him, calling him a “distraction.” And instead of reaching out to her green forest of a boyfriend when she faces dilemmas (like her father passing from cardiac arrest), she calls Harsh (her ex) and opens up to him about her problems?! Girl, please. Rishi deserves better. 

The ending of season two really gave me hope that Dimple and Rishi would evolve into a stronger couple who would communicate, prioritize, and support each other; but, I guess only Rishi did learn how to truly do these things. He loved more, so naturally, he got hurt. 

#3: Zero Decision-Making Skills 

Was everyone’s mental ability to make decisions just completely reset? Dimple was happier about getting into NNIT, than any memory she made with Rishi. 

Celina was in a no-strings-attached FWB relationship with Krish for a few weeks. Krish had started to develop real feelings for her. Celina also had some feelings but impulsively chose to start dating Rith because he kissed her on the cheek ONCE. Make it make sense, people! 

Anmol and Vinny were having some serious relationship issues. Anmol was insecure about his ability to be “the man” in the relationship because of his disability. He was afraid Vinny would leave him because he couldn’t walk with her, couldn’t stand next to her, and was physically taller than her, etc. Vinny was internally frustrated that Anmol wouldn’t open up to her about his problems. They had a huge fight, talked it out, and came back stronger. (Yay!). I just don’t understand why these couples will talk to everyone except their significant other about their issues. 

#4: Absolute Randomness

In the middle of all of this, there’s a theater production of Romeo and Juliet??? How is it related to anything else in the show? It’s not. Other than the fact that Dimple forced Rishi to audition for the part of Romeo and then is jealous every time she sees him rehearsing with Anuradha: the girl playing Juliet. Anuradha has a major crush on Rishi, but she’s aware that he’s taken and respects that. 

Akshat, a newly introduced plus-size character has a crush on Anuradha, but he is very insecure about his weight and labels himself as not good enough. He participates in the production of Romeo and Juliet just to spend time with Anuradha. Anuradha knows Akshat has a crush on her, but really doesn’t know what to do about it. 

The attempt at including this vulnerability has good intent, but it fails to connect with the rest of the plot or characters. If Akshat and Anuradha’s storyline was better blended with the rest of the plot, it would’ve made a much stronger impact. 

#5: Stagnance

The story just doesn’t seem to move forward until the second half of the season. There’s almost zero character development in anyone. 

The Only Good Things About Season 3

Anmol and Vinny continue dating, working on their relationship, and growing together. 

Zeenath and Sid sir break up. I admire that the reason that they separate is completely valid, understood, and well-communicated. Zeenath wants to adopt a child, and Sid sir doesn’t want to have children. It was very bittersweet.

Rishi and Dimple finally broke up. Rishi can hopefully move on and find a partner who matches his effort and love. And Dimple can live her dream in the tech world, away from the emotions she so desperately wants to escape. 

I’m Almost Done, I Promise

There were so many things that could’ve been done better with season three. The producers had numerous avenues to evolve this show with a thrilling roller-coaster ride of third a season with ups and downs, unexpected twists and turns, and new characters that added depth to the story. Instead, there was just confusion and frustration.

If you’re still here, thank you for listening to my rant. As much as I hated season three, I do love the first two seasons of Mismatched. I highly recommend watching seasons one and two. If there is a fourth season, I really hope it is better written, and they magically fix everything they messed up in season three. 

Anya Shah

Bowling Green '27

Hi! My name is Anya. I am a second year studying art education at BGSU. I want to be a high school ceramics teacher! In my free time, I enjoy reading, writing (duh), working out, spending time in the arts studios, and hanging out with friends and family!