Citadel: Honey Bunny – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Episode 1

Episode 1 of Citadel: Honey Bunny begins in Nainital in the year 2000. A woman named Honey drops her young daughter Nadia to school. She then heads back to the café that she runs with her partner Vivek. When she goes to the market, she realises a suspicious man is following her.

She hides and sends Nadia a text on her pager: “Play.” Nadia sneaks out of school and reaches a theatre. She texts her mother the word “cinema.” Meanwhile, Honey is chasing the man when somebody else sneaks up on her and knocks her out.

The scene shifts to 1992 Bombay. We are introduced to Bunny, a stuntman working for a movie. Honey is an aspiring actress giving an audition. When the director tries to take advantage of her, Honey kicks him.

She and Bunny seem to be friends as we see them eating together as Bunny tries to comfort her. When she describes how desperately she needs money, Bunny tells her about a side job from where he gets extra cash. But Honey doesn’t want to get involved in anything illegal. She changes her mind when her landlord kicks her out and she has to sleep at a friend’s place.

Bunny and three others, including a man named Ludo, discuss the new job. A man named David D’Souza is coming to town for a high-tech deal. They need to steal the tech from his room. Sometime later, Honey turns up on Bunny’s doorstep and says she’ll take the job.

We move back to 2000 where Honey is stuck in the back of a car. She texts Nadia to call Vivek and she does so, telling him to come pick her up.

In 1992, Honey stages a scene in the hotel and distracts David D’Souza. Bunny and his team search his hotel room but don’t find the disc they’ve been told to find. Honey is about to leave when Bunny mentions David might have the disc in his pocket. She goes to David’s room, drugs him and then finds the disc in his pocket.

Unfortunately, David wakes up and attacks her. He asks her if Vishwa sent her but Honey doesn’t know who he’s talking about. Despite his colleagues discouraging him, Bunny runs inside and fights off all of David’s guards to save Honey.

As they run away, David pages another man waiting on the street. He and his men chase Bunny and the others. One of Bunny’s men, Jagan, falls behind. In the chaos, Honey gets shot but Bunny manages to run away with her.

The man chasing Bunny, named Shaan, reports the situation to a woman named Zooni. She talks about a Project Talwar which was meant to fight people like Vishwa. Elsewhere, Bunny reports to Vishwa, who chastises him for getting a civilian like Honey involved.

Once again, we move to 2000, this time in Bucharest. Bunny is part of a band and sleeps with a woman later at night. In the morning, his phone gets a text reminding him to “check portal.” Bunny goes to a cyber cafe and sees his message: “Honey alive. You have a daughter. They are in danger somewhere in Nainital.”

Back in Nainital, Honey fights her way out of the trunk, kills the drivers, and escapes the car. Nadia is almost asleep at home when some mysterious men turn up to get her and kill Vivek. She pages Honey, asking for help at the end of Citadel: Honey Bunny Episode 1.

The Episode Review

Citadel: Honey Bunny Episode 1 is a fairly average start to a story. This Citadel spin-off’s fast-paced, and between the dual timelines and multiple locations, there is plenty happening. However, there’s a lack of intrigue that makes it easy to have the episode on while scrolling one’s phone.

It seems pretty obvious that Honey’s 1992 escapades with Bunny must have landed her in the spy industry and knowing that Nadia grows up to be Priyanka Chopra’s character in the original Citadel TV series lowers the stakes as well.

The action is tightly choreographed and visually sleek, making it a decent watch. But it was the sequence at the end of the episode, where Honey fights her way out of the car to ‘Raat Baaqi Baat Baaqi’ that really catches the eye. This short sequence shows how a change in soundtrack can change up a scene and make it all the more fun to watch.

Ultimately though, with so many characters and names of projects and devices, this series needs more emotional heft to capture its audiences. We need to know more about these characters to want to know what happened to them, in either timeline.