The benign and bonhomous Bengali detective with a streak of ruthlessness is back on Hoichoi with yet another new case. After cracking puzzles in Bengaluru, Dhaka, Santiniketan, Murshidabad and Darjeeling, Eken Babu is on the trail of the mastermind behind a series of murders in Kolkata.

Directed by Joydeep Mukherjee and streaming on Hoichoi, the sixth season of the Eken Babu franchise — Eken Babu Ebar Kolkatay — is a whodunnit littered with banter and jokes that have become familiar to us by now.

To catch a serial killer

A serial killer is on the loose in Kolkata. Panic spreads as dead bodies start piling up across the city. The clueless police approach Ekendra Sen aka Eken Babu (Anirban Chakrabarty) to solve the mystery behind the killings. Among those murdered are a young businessman, the owner of an eatery and a college professor. Assisted by his sidekicks Bapi (Suhotra Mukhopadhyay) and Pramatha (Shomak Ghosh), it’s now up to Eken Babu to connect the dots and unravel a dark past.

As always, the eccentric sleuth and his quirks are at the heart of the plot. It’s not much of a murder mystery as you could guess the identity of the killer after a couple of episodes, but what keeps you glued to the screen is the manner in which Eken Babu, as a quintessential middle-class Bengali, arrives at the conclusion. Whether it’s mixing up proverbs or being all over the place with his Hindi, the self-deprecating detective is a constant source of mirth and merriment. However, the funny moments have become a trifle cliched after five seasons as there is no character arc of Eken Babu and his sidekicks and they continue to deliver the same jibes and jokes, sometimes at the expense of the flow of the story.

Delightful performances add to the fun

Anirban Chakrabarty breathes life into the character of Eken Babu, created by Sujan Dasgupta, and delivers once again in this season. One wonders whether it was a conscious decision of the makers to give a makeover to Eken Babu’s wardrobe this season to separate his look from that of Lalmohan Ganguly (Jatayu) in the Feluda series. To Anirban’s credit, Eken Babu does not suffer from a Jatayu hangover.

Suhotra Mukhopadhyay and Shomak Ghosh, who first appeared as Bapi and Pramatha respectively in the feature film The Eken (2022), reprise their roles on OTT for the first time. They look well-settled into their characters this time and have established a chemistry with Anirban. Subhrajit Dutta’s Rakhal, a hapless police inspector, was an interesting addition to the series.