5 min readMay 1, 2026 12:29 PM IST
Glory review: Somewhere in Haryana, there are two brothers with a conflicted relationship with their father, circling around sweaty boxing rings, mustachioed khap leaders, ‘honour killings’: familiar elements in an eight-episode show called Glory, whose meaning is explained to us as Love, Sacrifice and Pain, in as many words.
That little jerk you get every time a character with a strong Haryanvi accent says ‘glory’ never leaves us: it’s almost like the writers of the show want to convince themselves, as well as us, of the title they chose, because it never once sounds like a word that would come naturally to the key dramatis personae in Shaktigarh, the fictional town where ‘Glory’ is set.
And that faint unease never goes away completely, even when we do come upon parts of the show which feel like they could have emerged from the ground, rather than a show constructed in a writer’s room. And one following the dictum which all shows these days faithfully hew to: there shalt be a fatality in the first ten minutes. Spoiler alert: it takes about 9 minutes into the show to come up with not one, but two bodies.
Raghubir Singh (Suvinder Vicky) is a rough-hewn boxing coach whose hard-nosed training ways have driven away his sons Dev (Divyenndu) and Ravi (Pulkit Samrat): the two come together when trouble befalls their younger sister (Jannat Zubair Rahmani) back home, and find themselves at the short end of the stick when it comes to complicit cops, rival boxing club satraps, maniacal baddies, and femme fatales hiding in plain sight.
The best parts are wrapped around, no surprises here, Suvinder Vicky as a well-respected boxing coach, whose driving ambition for Olympic glory puts into motion the events that kick-start the violence, which runs as a constant streak, some of it earned (two boxers pummelling each other to bloody bits in a ring is a natural outcome of the sport), and some of it completely out of the left flank, gratuitously inserted just to jolt the viewers periodically: grinning goons, dressed in black jackets, shooting people at close range, cranes dropping heavy stone slabs on humans, splitting them in two. Animals aren’t spared either.
Glory web series trailer:
Some of the boxing portions are well-executed too, with an ill-tempered Malayali coach butting in whenever the script finds time for him. And it’s never a pain to watch Divyenndu mooch about, griping about his daddy issues; Pulkit Sharma too gets to drop his pretty boy image and throw his fists about satisfactorily during the bouts.
But every time the plot veers towards something we can wrap our heads around, the writers hare off and start throwing stuff at us — an investigative journalist (Sayani Gupta) asking uncomfortable questions is an eye-roll (it’s not the actor’s fault, but a female reporter floating about in this insouciant fashion in a Haryana town over-run by bristling machismo?) ; a Khap leader (Yashpal Sharma, one of the few people in the show who can actually rock a perfect accent) whose love for his star buffalo coming off as a superfluous add-on; a rival boxing ring owner (Ashutosh Rana) being made to alternately crow and glower; and Sikandar Kher strutting about in dark mines blowing heads off: you crack a smile at his apt name, Kookie Yadav, but what exactly is he doing in this show?
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How to add more women in this all-male show? Answer: bung in a good-looking creature (Kashmira Pardeshi) whose blatant come-hither-ness airs are matched by the obliviousness of her husband (Vishal Vashishtha), a rare cop who wants to do the right thing. Add a girl whose romance with a talented boxer comes in the cross-hairs of those who keep a sharp eye on such things. Closeted homosexuals pop up too. As do human trafficking rings, and gangs running prostitution rackets. Phew.
Never let it be said that a show can choose to focus on its strongest element: a man whose ambition makes him blind to his own offsprings’ feelings, and who gets lost in his own doing could be enough for a cracking show. But for that you need to have the confidence to let your main walk do the talk, without letting it become so loose and scatter-shot.
Glory cast: Pulkit Samrat, Divyenndu, Suvinder Vicky, Ashutosh Rana, Sikander Kher, Sayani Gupta, Kashmira Pardeshi, Vishal Vashishtha, Zakir Hussain, Yashpal Sharma, Jannat Zubair Rahmani, Kunal Thakur
Glory director: Karan Anshuman, Kanishk Varma
Glory rating: 2 stars
