Amazon Prime Video’s Series, The Village takes us inside the eerie town of Kattiyal, where three groups of people accidentally bump into each other, not knowing that it was going to be the most horrifying night of their lives. Something strange was happening in Kattiyal, and there were many myths about the area. Nobody who was aware wanted to go there. When Gautham and his family got stuck in a traffic jam, they decided to take a service road, not realizing the kind of jeopardy it would put them in. So, let’s find out what happened to Gautham’s family and if he was able to save them.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Sairaj sell the land to GSR?
The Village series takes us back to 1989, when in a place called Kattiyal in Thoothukudi, an authoritarian named Sairaj and his brother, Ponraj, made the lives of the people a living hell. The common man worked day and night, and still, in the end, they had to live like insects and fight for their survival each and every day. Pavazhakodi and her elder brother Karunagam also worked for Sairaj, and though they were extremely unhappy with the state of things, they somehow bore it all as they knew that their survival depended upon it. But one day, the water went over the bridge as Ponraj came and did something with Pavazhakodi that he should never have done. He molested the girl in front of everybody, as she had hurt his ego. He ripped her clothes apart, and Karunagam just couldn’t stay quiet. He castrated Ponraj and then took him to his brother’s place to tell him that they wouldn’t be oppressed any longer. That day, Sairaj’s son, Shakthivel, somehow was able to bring the situation under control and did not allow any bloodshed to happen. Shakthi was Karu’s friend, though destiny had led them apart and now they had two very different kinds of lives.
Soon after that, in The Village, Sairaj made yet another cruel move, and he sold the entire land of Kattiyal to a company named Exogenyx. The company was owned by a man named GSR, and he was going to start mining activities there and, in addition to that, establish a laboratory for some secret experiment. The houses of the poor people were destroyed, and lucky for them, they had to leave for a nearby village called Navamalai. Shakthi also left his friend, Karu, though he knew the consequences of doing that. His father and mother both disowned him for leaving the sacred place and going to another town to settle. Sairaj and his wife, Subhadra believed in a lot of superstitions, and according to them, leaving one’s birthplace was no less than committing a sin. So the arrogant Sairaj stayed, and at that moment, he was not aware of the fate that awaited him in the near future.
What was GSR trying to do at the Exogenyx lab?
GSR was obsessed with finding the cure for his son’s ailments. His son, Prakash, couldn’t walk, and GSR wanted to find a way to regenerate his dead nerve cells and make him walk again. His explorations had led him to Kattiyal village, as he had come to know that a rare earth element named Lanthanite was found there. The element was present only in a handful of places around the globe, and GSR was eager to know what it was capable of doing. So, a laboratory was installed, but the results were not in line with his expectations. It was no doubt a powerful element, but GSR and his entire team of scientists were not able to extract its properties and make it safe for usage. The animal trials had failed, and if the scientists had stopped, things would still have been under control. They saw that the animals showed violent behavior, and most of the time, they weren’t able to survive after the sample liquid was injected into their eyes.
But greed and that desire to achieve what they had come out for made them cross all boundaries of humanity. They ended up poisoning the air, and the village people started to suffer. Sairaj and Subhadra decided to gather all the people and raid the compound of Exogenyx. Around 2004, GSR and his entire team were forced to abandon the area. Sairaj and everybody else went down to the mines as they wanted to stop the air from being poisoned. They wanted to destroy the secret laboratory, but just then, a tsunami hit the coastal area, and they were all trapped inside.
How did Sairaj become a mutant?
Subhadra died in the mine itself, but Sairaj and a few others were able to survive. They had no food or water inside the mines, and they slowly started to lose their minds. They ate every animal present there and drank all the solutions that had been prepared by the scientists of the Exogenyx lab. Some structural changes started happening in their bodies, and slowly, they started to transform, becoming more powerful than average human beings. Their skin texture changed, and they felt that they were being transformed into mutants. Sairaj believed that it was his wife who had convinced the goddess to make them more powerful, but he was wrong. It was not a blessing but a curse.
At the beginning of The Village series, we saw that Mala and Sethu’s bus was attacked by these mutants, and everybody on board was killed. We realized at a later stage that Mala was Shakthi’s daughter and Sethu was Karu’s son. When Gautham, Karu, and Shakthi met Sairaj in the mines, they were told that the latter had taken Mala into his custody. All the women had become infertile due to the toxins in their bodies, and Sairaj needed a woman to have babies. He had kept Mala alive for all those years, and the poor woman lay in the deepest part of the cave, writhing in pain and crying for help. Her hands and legs were severed, but somehow, she was kept alive. That is how the mutants were increasing, and they had taken over the entire area.
Was Prakash able to get the samples?
Prakash had hired a team of people who specialized in the kind of operation he was sending them for. The clean-up squad was led by a man named Farhan Hameed, and they had been given the task of bringing back the samples that had been carefully stored in a vault kept inside the Exogenyx lab. Farhan and his men had no clue what lay inside those mines, just like Gautham didn’t when he planned a trip with his family. Gautham’s family was abducted when he went to ask for help as he needed a spare tire for his vehicle, and luckily, he bumped into Karu and Shakthi, who knew what he was up against and the kinds of myths the people had for Kattiyal. After facing the wrath of the mutants, Gautham, Karu, and Shakthi met Farhan’s team, and they decided to try to find an exit together and save their lives.
At the end of The Village Season 1, Karu was killed by Vettaiyan, the largest mutant of them all. Shakthi sacrificed his life, took revenge for the death of his best friend, and killed the demon. Shakthi had earlier also killed Mala so that she could rest in peace, and that entire act had left a void inside him. He had lost the will to live, and he knew that if he could put his life to some good use, he would be more than happy.
Farhan, Gautham, and his entire family, as well as Tejas, the scientist, were able to come out of the mines alive, only to find that Prakash was already waiting for them on the coastline. Prakash sent his men inside the mines, as now there was a threat, and he collected the samples and the mutants that were still alive. Even after such destruction, Prakash wanted more, so he took everything with him to Singapore to conduct experiments so that he could walk again.
Will Gautham’s daughter become a mutant?
During The Village‘s ending, Gautham went back home with his family, and he thought that soon, they would be able to get over the nightmares. But something happened that made Gautham realize that he was still not done dealing with the ghosts of his past life. His daughter Maya was bitten by their dog, Hectic (who we realized was infected), and she saw that it left a purple-colored mark on her hands. Just then, Gautham got a call from Farhan, who told him that his daughter was not safe. Gautham and Neha came running to Maya, only to find that, miraculously, her wound had healed all by itself. Something similar happened with Vettaiyan, too, and we saw how his bullet wounds were instantly healing. Maya had accidentally come into contact with the liquid kept in the vial of the Exogenyx lab when it fell on the ground and spilled on her hands. Maybe it was because of that that some structural changes had happened in her body, and she was now immune to a lot of things. At the same time, Prakash took the serum that was being prepared by the doctors at a premature stage, and his body wasn’t able to take it. He stood up from his wheelchair and walked a few steps but then fell to the ground, and foam started oozing out of his mouth.
In The Village season 2 (if there is one), Gautham would have to figure out what exactly happened with his daughter and if she was going to transform into a monster like the ones he had seen in the mines. As of now, it was good news that the dog bite hadn’t affected Maya, but Gautham knew that there would be side effects and that he would have to be ready with a cure.
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