Given the vast amount of terrorism-based fiction out there on the digital space, it is a challenge for a writer to come up with fresh material. Fauda, the Israeli series made for Netflix, has enough ‘fauda’ (chaos)—both internal and external —to warrant each of its 12 episode-long seasons. The third season premiered on Thursday, and maintains the tempo established in the first two.Starring Lior Raz as an Israeli Defence Forces operative, Fauda was created by himself and Avi Issacharoff.
The fact that Lior was a former Israeli commando in real life and Avi, a journalist, lends the series a Paul Greengrass-level of verisimilitude and sense of urgency. Adding more weight is the fact that Lior has experienced a personal tragedy similar to what his character Boron Kavillio endures in Fauda. A former bodyguard of Arnold Schwarzenegger, you may also know Lior from playing the main baddie in Michael Bay’s 6 Underground, also backed by Netflix.
The first season of Fauda began with Boron being pulled out of retirement after his superiors learn that a Hamas operative named Abu Ahmad a.k.a The Panther, who was supposed to have died at Boron’s hands, is still alive. When Boron and team go undercover and infiltrate the wedding of Ahmad’s son to get him, it sets off a chain of events with repercussions that last for three seasons.
There have been severe casualties on both sides, and Boron has gone through enough to put him close to Daniel Craig’s James Bond in the brooding department. The Bond similarity doesn’t end there. While his physique may intimidate, Boron has enough charm for women. Also, the exchanges between Boron and his superiors, and the change of leadership after season 1, is reminiscent of the Bond films.
What actually sets Fauda apart from similar work is its focus on families, on both sides. The bad guys are not depicted as the mysterious, one-dimensional terrorists that we usually see. It’s their actions that make them menacing, not their appearances. Each of the main villains in Fauda carries a distinct personality. We also get to see their fathers, mothers, wives, children, in addition to all their shortcomings.
We get a similar picture of the good guys too. There is a constant struggle to maintain a work-family balance and not be influenced by emotions in the line of duty. Both the good and bad guys have to deal with the after-effects of decisions made when logic takes a back seat. It reminds me of that line M says to Bond in Casino Royale about being dispassionate; it is a quality Boron hasn’t quite mastered.
The women in Fauda get as much importance as the men, and interestingly, it’s the bad guys who have fewer relationship problems. Boron has a tendency to be absent for long periods, and season 1 had his wife get intimate with his team member. So, it’s not surprising to find Boron divorced at the beginning of season 3.
Fauda also manages to find short but potent moments of poignancy amid all the action, and it mostly has to do with a recurrent theme that runs throughout the series—the bond between fathers and sons, of which we see variations in all three seasons. The primary conflict of season 2 arose from sons avenging their fathers. In season 3, we see sons who don’t want to be like their fathers. One father deals with multiple conflicts: Struggling to adjust to society after a long stretch in prison, resisting the urge to go back to his old ways, and keeping his son out of harm’s way. On the other side, we have Boron making attempts to reclaim the bond with his now-estranged son.
However, as consistently engaging as the series is, one can’t help but feel a sense of deja vu creeping in from time to time. Perhaps it has to do with the cyclical nature of revenge. Aside from the similar openings of season 1 and season 3, we also occasionally get situations which feel like remakes of similar scenes in previous episodes. But the raised stakes and considerably amped up tension make Fauda worth watching. As they say, why fix something that ain’t broken.
Series: Fauda (Season 3)
Starring: Lior Raz, Itzik Cohen, Tzachi Halevy, Rona-Lee Shim’on
Created by: Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff
Streaming on: Netflix