The fourth episode of Breathe: Into the Shadows starts by taking us into Kabir’s past. We’re taken 12 months back to Mumbai. Mandar Vardhe, a money extortionist is in a hotel and Kabir is outside the hotel to arrest him. Kabir calls Prakash to come and also bring back up. Kabir doesn’t wait for Prakash and goes inside the hotel alone. Mandar sees the inspector and a chase between the two ensues. 

Now, we come to Meghna. She is a guest at the hotel and Mandar uses her as his shield against Kabir. Kabir tells Mandar to leave Meghna alone and the three of them reach the balcony of a room. Kabir tells Mandar that he will give him a 5-minute lead if he leaves Meghna out of their fight. Mandar leaves Meghna and she runs to hide behind Kabir. At that moment, Prakash arrives with back up. Feeling cheated, Mandar shoots at Meghna but Kabir pushes her off the balcony and she falls. Now, everything starts to make sense.

In the present, Inspector Kabir talks to Pritpal’s wife and son. They tell Kabir about the garbage incidents that occurred before Pritpal’s death. Kabir also talks to Pritpal’s friends and the news channel that first aired the video of his murder.

Avi tries to find links between the kidnapper and the victims and also the links between the targets. Avi and Abha contemplate the motives of the kidnapper. Abha believes that the kidnapper waited for 9 whole months before making any contact with them to push them to their limits to bring Siya back. Avinash considers the possibility of the kidnapper being one of his patients who he sent to jail.

Meghna gives an inspirational talk about her life at a drug rehabilitation centre. We learn that she was a drug addict before she went clean for 2 years and got an exciting job opportunity in Mumbai. However, she lost her ability to walk in the unfortunate Mandar Vardhe incident. Kabir is also present in the audience. After the talk is over, he gets emotional and leaves but Meghna stops him. She talks to him in a normal way. She doesn’t hold him accountable for her condition as she believes if Kabir hadn’t pushed her off the balcony, she wouldn’t even be alive. She has beautifully accepted her reality and moved on. However, Kabir holds himself responsible for Meghna’s condition. He tries to explain to her that he didn’t think that the damage to her would be of this magnitude. But she doesn’t want any explanations. To ease the tension, she asks for Kabir’s phone number.

Kabir checks Pritpal’s call records. Jaiprakash takes Kabir and Prakash to a nearby Dhaba for lunch. They also call the passport verification officer who visited Pritpal’s house a day before his death. The officer tells them that he doesn’t remember anything about the man who was present at Pritpal’s house the day the officer went for passport verification. While leaving the Dhaba, Prakash weirdly flirts with the cashier. We learn that the cashier is an old friend of Prakash who owns the Dhaba. They promise to stay in touch.

Late at night, Abha finishes work and prepares to leave. She unlocks her car and finds a dictaphone and some insulin pens on the seat. A lullaby plays on the dictaphone in the kidnapper’s voice. She gets scared and runs to the control room of the parking lot to see the CCTV footage. She sees the kidnapper drop things in her car but his face isn’t visible in the footage. Panicking, she calls Avi and tells him all about this incident. Avi gets up from the bed to leave for Abha’s hotel when he sees blood stains on the floor of the room. The blood stains lead him to Siya’s room where another parcel from the kidnapper is kept. The window of Siya’s room is open. This means that the kidnapper was present in their house while Avi was sleeping. Inside the parcel is Siya’s shoe covered in blood.

Avi brings Abha home. Fearing Siya’s life, Abha takes up the task of luring Natasha. Avi isn’t in favour of this idea but Abha insists.

At the crime branch, Kabir reports to Zeba and the DCP about his findings in the case so far. He tells them that Pritpal never got angry and had germaphobia. Kabir feels that the killer was trying to instigate the victim because the killer probably wanted to give the public a message through him. Zeba listens to all of this carefully and speaks about it to the media.

Gayatri tries to break the washroom’s wall further while Siya keeps an eye on the cards’ pyramid. Siya has both her feet! Thank god!

Avi and Abha put their plan to seduce Natasha Garewal to action. Abha makes herself seen to Natasha outside Natasha’s business meeting. Abha acts as if she is stuck and alone. Natasha offers to drop her home. Abha tells her that her name is Aarti Rao and she is a food blogger from Bangalore. Aarti is working on an article and thus, she is in Delhi. Since Natasha has a keen interest in photography, Abha takes the conversation to photography. By the end of their interaction, Abha successfully convinces Natasha to be the photographer for Abha’s article. They exchange phone numbers and Natasha drops Abha at a hotel. Once Natasha leaves, Avi comes to pick up Abha from the hotel.

Gayatri manages to break the washroom’s wall to find a shaft. But it is difficult to climb and looks too small.

Avi drops Abha home and goes to his clinic to study his patients’ background. While skimming through the patients’ database, he finds a man who broke his leg and is prone to aggression. He immediately goes to the man’s address but he learns that the man is at Ramleela Maidan right now at his sweets’ shop. He reaches Ramleela maidan and finds the sweets’ shop. However, the owner of the shop doesn’t walk with a limp. Disappointed, he walks back amid the crowd. Ramleela is going on as actors enact the ‘ravan vadh’. The commentator on the mic says something about the sins in Hinduism like anger, lust etc. This strikes Avi and he has a realisation. Here, the episode ends.

A lot of things happen in this episode. It will be interesting to see if Abha will be successful in murdering Natasha in the next episode of Breathe: Into the Shadows.

Episode Rating: 3/5