At the 2023 Filmfare OTT Awards, Happy Family: Conditions Apply received 4 nominations – Best Comedy Series, Best Actress in a Comedy Series (Pathak Shah), Best Actor in a Comedy Series (Kulkarni) and Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Das).
Plot
Revolving around the lives of four generations of the Dholakias, Happy Family shows how most families are dysfunctional, and are a blend of traditional and modern values. The Dholakias are known for their high-spirited personalities and inimitable idiosyncrasies. These quirks land them in situations that are hilarious and quirky.[4]
Main plot
The story starts with Hemlata Dholakia waking up in the late night, hearing the voice of pigeon inside the house. Following that, she screamed and woke up everybody in the house. Everybody tries to find the pigeon in the house. However, after that they were successful in sending the pigeon outside the house. After which, Ramesh tells Tisca about living together in the family. But, Sanjuoy and Tisca had a different plan about which they are finding a suitable time to reveal it to others. On the next day, during their weekly Sunday meet in a place, they reveal their plan of shifting, with buying a new flat, which was already happened one year back, through a game made by Ayushi. Hearing this news, Ramesh gets shocked. But he is more shocked to know that except he, everybody knows about this decision. However, on the other side, Hemlata tries to convince Pallavi to stop giving nod to everything said by Tisca. She also alleged that Tisca has given Pallu the temporary job of babysitting and she should take salary from Tisca for doing this. Hearing this, Pallavi becomes sad and angry on Tisca at the same time. Seeing this situation, Mansukhlal scolds Hemlata of brainwashing Pallu.
Back at home, Ramesh and Pallu have regret of becoming separate from their grandson, Aryan. Pallu starts more caring of Aryan, saying that only few days are left to become separate, so let her take care. To manage this situation, Mansukhlal intervenes between them. He calls them both to the garden and talks with them and make understand Pallu that there has been some confusion. Thus, Mansukh was successful to remove the conflict between both of them.
In the late that night, his elder son Suresh who lives in US, calls Mansukh, revealing a secret about him only to him. Next day, Suresh again calls her mother Hemlata to reveal his secret, which was already told to his father. His father tells him to reveal the secret. Before he tells something, Hemlata tells Suresh to marry to a Gujarati girl, as early as possible until she gets more old. Then Suresh tells his mother that he already married a woman last week while living in Las Vegas. After hearing the news, she gets shocked and asks whether he married a Gujarati girl or not. He said to meet by her own. Then he introduces his wife, Kwamboka, who is a Kenyan-American, but now she is Indian-Gujarati. She gets another shock and sad at the same time of Suresh for not being married to a Gujarati girl. However, everybody except her was very excited to meet her.
Meanwhile, next day, Hemlata threatens of doing suicide to the family if they recognise Kwamboka as the wife of Suresh. But nobody takes her seriously as she is not taking such steps at all. She calls her daughter Falu and her son-in-law Dr. Jatin Kumar to her house to come in their doctor's dress.
On the other hand, Ramesh still angered on Sanjuoy for getting separate to a different house. He said of his dream to his father of making a separate house and living with his wife and son.
In the episode, the introduction has been done. Hemlata Dholakia and her husband Mansukhlal Dholakia lives with their son, Ramesh Dholakia who lives with his wife, Pallavi Dhokalia (Pallu) along with their daughter Ayushi Dholakia and son Sanjuoy Dholakia and his wife Tisca Dholakia and their son. On one day, they visit a park for a vacation, where Ayushi decides to play a game of 'Truth and Dare' where the water bottle has been moved towards Sanjuoy and forced him to say the truth, where he reveals the decision of buying a new flat which was done one year ago to the family. But, after hearing the decision, Ramesh gets shock and asked why Sanjuoy wants to buy a new flat, but he didn't answered. However, Ramesh tried hard to convince Sanjuoy not to buy flat. But he was not being convinced. Meanwhile, Hemlata continues to blame Tisca for the decision of buying new flat. But she denied. After some days, Hemlata's another son Suresh who lives in US gave another shock to Hemlata, saying that he married a Kenyan-American girl last week while in Las Vegas. She got disappointed and ashamed that instead of marrying a Gujarati girl, he married a foreigner.
The trailer was launched on 3 March 2023.[8] During the first screening of the series just before the release of it on 9 March 2023, several actors including Pankaj Kapur, Supriya Pathak, Aanjjan Srivastav, Sarita Joshi, Hussain Kuwajerwala and others were present in the screening in Mumbai, who have praised the series as a leading family comedy series that everyone should watch.[9] Archika Khurrana of Times of India gave it 4 stars out of 5 praising the direction, comedy and performance of the ensemble cast. she stated that this series did not a single dull moment.[10]
Nirmal Gayatri of Pinkvilla also gave 4 stars out of 5 praises the Ratna Pathak Shah and in her final conclusion she said "Happy Family: Conditions Apply" is the ideal remedy for your yearning spirit if you want to binge on a weekend show during the workweek.[11]News18 gave the series 3.5 out of 5, and said it includes much comedy like Sarabhai vs Sarabhai and Khichdi, which were directed by Jamnadas Majethia and Aatish Kapadia. Happy Family puts an upper-middle-class Gujarati family's lives in focus, all while being relative.[12] Tushar Joshi of India Today rated the series 3.5/5 and wrote "The biggest USP of the show is the writing and the direction. Keeping the scenes as real and relatable as possible, you get drawn into the lives of these characters. Their fights, worries, wins and defeats suddenly seem to be all yours."[4]
