Andheri Raaton Me: Into the Night

Of late, there has been a rising trend of non-English shows being translated into English on the Netflix platform. My first experience with such a show was Money Heist, a fast-paced Spanish thriller. But there were so many plot gaps in the story that I am surprised at how they got away with what they did. Anyway, that is a story for another day. The next series that we recently finished (recently as in yesterday) is Into The Night, a Belgian apocalyptic series.

When the sunrise has become a death sentence for the world, there is a small group of passengers stuck in an airplane trying to find a safe haven while trying to escape the sun rays and disappear into the night. 

A brief synopsis: At Brussels airport, it is business as usual with passengers from various backgrounds and countries boarding a plane to Moscow. The crew is preparing the plane to welcome the next batch of passengers, the co-pilot is prepping the plane and ensuring everything is okay. Some of the passengers have occupied their seats while some of them are still strolling down the aerobridge. Suddenly, a NATO official, Terenzio, sees a piece of shocking news on the television and immediately hijacks the plane, forcing them to take off without boarding all the passengers. While at first, no one believes Terenzio, but later they understand the gravity of the situation and start on a life-saving race with the sun.

This is the first season with 6 episodes has each episode covering the circumstances that led each of the characters to board the plane and what their lives were before. There is a substantial growth in each character as they learn to mold and adapt themselves to the situation. They learn to accept themselves and others with their flaws.

The characters are (top left to right, then bottom left to right):

• Ayaz: A mysterious Turkish passenger who finally earns the redemption of the team with his honorable decisions.
• Gabrielle: The stewardess with a maternal attitude towards the passengers
• Sylvie: A former military helicopter pilot who is mourning her partner’s death and takes over as the leader of the group with her presence of mind and sense of compassion.
• Laura: A homecare nurse traveling to Moscow with her patient Mr. Volkov and has basic medical training.
• Mathieu: The co-pilot who is injured by the NATO official, Terenzio and uses Sylvie’s assistance to fly the plane. A seemingly selfish person at the start of the series, the responsibility of the group of passengers inspires him to be selfless.
• Ines: An Instagram influencer traveling to Moscow to launch her new brand of champagne
• Osman: An airport cleaning staff who gets caught in the plane when cleaning the tray table.
• Zara: A Russian single mother traveling to Moscow for her sick son, Dominik’s surgery.
• Horst: A climate scientist with technical knowledge and one of the level-headed persons in the group.
• Rik: A security official traveling to Moscow to meet a lady he met online. Presumably a lonely person, he seeks approval from anyone and everyone he meets and happens to hero-worship Terenzio.
• Terenzio: A NATO official, Terenzio seems to be a small-minded person, rebelling the pilot’s decisions for no reason. A short-tempered person, he later learns to make amends for his behavior at the end. But apparently, it is not enough.
• Jakub: The plane mechanic who has left his wife back at home to attend a training session. One of the level-headed characters.

It is interesting to see that there are people speaking multiple languages such as Russian, Arabic, Belgian, Turkish, Italian and, I think, some Polish too. Having grown in a multilingual culture as that of India, I was able to connect with the characters and see the advantage of knowing languages other than English. In fact, this multilingual facet of the group is useful when they have to deal with one of the challenges they face during a stopover.

The series ends with the airplane team facing a new challenge, and we are looking forward to seeing how the story progresses ahead. Perhaps we may find out behind why the friend has turned into a foe.

Check out the trailer here.