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26 episodes in, the only message Zanjabeel Asim’s Cheekh has managed to give us is that if you are a woman in Pakistan, you cannot fight for your or anyone else’s rights; that justice doesn’t exist – and if you happen to somehow get it, you lose everything and everyone in the process.

So basically, if you are a woman, sit down and be quiet.

In the last four episodes, Mannat (Saba Qamar) has not only lost her unborn baby, but her mother and husband too. Wajih’s (Bilal Abbas Khan) lawyer gets his cronies to threaten Mannat’s mother (Gul-e-Rana) so much that she goes to court and testifies that Mannat is actualy crazy, causing the judge to send Mannat to a mental hospital.

She can’t take the guilt of doing that and dies. In the hospital, the doctor is paid off by the lawyer to keep Mannat drugged and told to increase dosage daily. When Shayaan (Emmad Irfani) finds out, he goes to Yawar (Aijaz Aslam), who has no idea what is happening anymore and Wajih has taken over.

Wajih goes to talk to Shayan, the brothers end up fighting and Wajih pushes Shayan, causing his death.

Cheekh is leaving us with too many unanswered questions

I don’t understand what is going on. There are so many questions and so many holes in this script that it’s hard to believe that not only the actors but the director too agreed to do this drama.

All the doctors in Pakistan seem to have forgotten the vows they took and have no issues forging reports or overdosing a patient due to greed and/or friendship.

The lawyer that Mannat has is so incompetent that he called zero family members to the stand. Why didn’t he call Haya (Azekah Daniel) or Shahwar (Maira Khan) to court and get their statements? They all lived with Mannat and Wajih when the murder took place.

In fact, Shahwar even heard Wajih threaten Mannat and she herself was threatened by him so why didn’t she go to the police after Yawar divorced her?

She showed up at Mannat’s mother’s funeral for support, so wouldn’t it make sense for her to tell at least Shayan what happened? Even Haya has known for a while that Wajih has been lying and through Shariq, she heard Wajih confess so why didn’t she go to Shayaan right after?

Zanjabeel Asim knew from the beginning she would have to write 25+ episodes, so why couldn’t she change the narrative? If she had to kill Mannat’s baby, why didn’t she just stop there? Or better yet, instead of showing Mannat’s mother so weak, why couldn’t she show her to be strong and supportive to her daughter?

How did the judge just believe Mannat’s mother and send her to a mental hospital? We all know the police can be bought in Pakistan, so I won’t even go into why and how the inspector was bought.

The thing is that if Mannat was a lower middle class or middle-class woman, maybe (maybe being the operative word) I could understand. But she isn’t! Her husband was a doctor practicing in the U.S; if Yawar was able to payoff the inspector to lie, why didn’t Mannat give him more money to tell the truth?

Why couldn’t they get a competent lawyer? How did Shayan being a doctor, not know the medication Mannat was on or the dosage she was given till the last moment?

The story has been dragged so much that no one seems to know how to end it. I get that production cost must be recovered, but at what cost? Why was Mannat made to lose everything and everyone? Why is the overdose of tragedy so necessary? But, more than anything, why does the writer hate women so much?

Zanjabeel Asim knew from the beginning she would have to write 25+ episodes, so why couldn’t she change the narrative? If she had to kill Mannat’s baby, why didn’t she just stop there? Or better yet, instead of showing Mannat’s mother so weak, why couldn’t she show her to be strong and supportive to her daughter?

Why couldn’t she have given Shahwar and Haya the courage to go to the police? I’m going to compare this to Udaari again because Sheedo was the mother that should be shown everywhere in Pakistani dramas.

She wasn’t even lower middle class; she was less fortunate than that but she was strong and supported her daughter at every cost. She gave strength to Zebo and her mother to fight the case against Pa Imtiaz for Zebo’s rape.

Mannat just can't catch a break

The sector of the society that is liking Cheekh is the one that needs to be shown a different narrative. They don’t need to be told that women are weak and must endure so much pain, they need to be shown that women are strong.

Yes, I’m sure at the end, Mannat will have gotten justice for Nayab’s death, but again, at what cost? Why do these writers insist on insulting the audience’s intelligence?

Zanjabeel Asim had the chance to write a phenomenal script showing strong and resilient woman; yet she did the opposite. She was highly praised for making Shayan’s character a husband that finally supports his wife through thick and thin; even against his own family.

The story has been dragged so much that no one seems to know how to end it. I get that production cost must be recovered but at what cost? Why was Mannat made to lose everything and everyone? Why is the overdose of tragedy so necessary? But more than anything, why does the writer hate women so much?

Why didn’t she take that and explore further? She had a golden opportunity to completely change a narrative that is so deeply situated in patriarchy, but she blew it. She could actually have made Yawar’s character remorseful after divorcing Shahwar and given him a conscience. The only answer I can come up with is that she hates women.

In fact, why did the actors agree to do the script? No one is denying the phenomenal acting by literally everyone in the drama; that isn’t at all up for debate. One would think that after doing a project like Baaghi, Saba Qamar would think twice about going back to the bechari aurat type roles.

I honestly cannot think of any other drama where a woman goes through so much pain and suffering to get justice. I mean Farida aunty in Humsafar didn’t torture Khirad as much as the writer here has tortured Mannat.

There are apparently 5-6 more episodes left and the promo for the next episode is more comical than anything else when Mannat tells Wajih that she will now fight like him. Seriously? Why wasn’t she doing that before? She had the guy arrested in his own house so I was under the impression that she knew who she was dealing with. Guess not.