Esaret

Cenk Torun's portrayal of his character Orhun is Oscar winning; equally so is Mahassine Merabet's portrayal of Hira.

Hilal Anay as Meryem and Ali Yagiz Durmus as Kenan also give outstanding performances.

From the opening scene of the first episode to the 100th episode (so far), you will be captivated by the multiple storylines, that weave and develop through the series, and the emotional rollercoaster.

There is intrigue, secrets and webs of lies that slowly unfold and come to light, innocence, pure hearts, strength to stand tall and never to lose faith or hope, remorse and regret when the truth that is sought is revealed, and love.

Friendships and the surprisingly turn of events and emotions, enthralls you into the series.

Just when you wish something will happen or wonder why something hasn't happened or want characters to meet, it happens. The writers have done wonderful storylines. The entire crew and production team are to be congratulated on the setting, the music and the production of this fantastic series.

Few Turkish productions have made me wanted to forcefully castrate the person who wrote it and this is definitely one of them. So how insultingly inaccurate this writer continues to promote her shows in a governmental family channel in Turkey that doesn't allow kissing scenes but violence especially towards women. She never changes her style of writing and needs to be put into mental asylum. Same writer of Emanet (Legacy) & Yemin (The Promise), I wouldn't be surprised that if this one will also will reach success and she and the producers will condemn it!

Whoever is reading this review, don't watch this series and don't expose your child to it either. And definitely do not watch her previous series, Emanet, because it is 5x worse.

I struggled if to review this series or not but I think some warnings have to be issued. You should be able to tolerate watching a lot of abuse if you want to watch this one.

This series is all about abuse on women.

We can start with Meryems mother (abusive husband), Meryem herself (abusive husband and abusive father that sells her for money), Meryems daughter (witness to all the abuse going on in the house) and Hira.

Let us focus on the main couple Hira and Orhun.

Orhun thinks, that Hira killed his twin sister and therefore tortures her for 26 episodes now. Here we have the whole package: starving her, intimidating her, forcefully grabbing and hurting her, letting her spend the night in a grave, shooting at her (but not shooting her), putting her in chains, the psychological terror by threatening her to take her honor and so on. Hira is terrified of Orhun and this shows in every single one of their interactions. She cries, she trembles, she backs away, she dares not look at him....watching all of this and thinking, that THIS should develop into a romance turns my stomach. Promoting, that a woman will fall in love with her abuser is wrong on so many levels - Stockholm syndrome and love are not the same thing!

Two stars for the actors.

If you have little bit patience, you will discover Esaret as the most romantic and unique love story in the world. This is an artistic TV show, a depiction of true love. Initial trauma is necessary to understand the outstanding qualities of innocent Hira (perfectly played by beautiful Mahassine Merabet) and how she went about changing the tyrant personality of elite Ottoman royal family heir Orhun Demirhanli (played by best actor in the world Cenk Torun). Esaret is free from vulgar and does not treat women as objects. If you seek true romantic show, this is the one!

Orhun himself had a traumatic upbringing by her strict Royal family mother Afifa. Hira goes about healing Orhun in an unique way.

It's not easy to tell as story of women slavery and human trafficking and hard to believe this still happens in our modern world, but it does and it is absolutely horrific.

My heart goes out to those who have this or worse as their reality and may they find an escapement for them. The story does make a parallelism that we are all slaves to something in our lives or allow our lives to enslave us as well. I have found this a very interesting story and the characters do to great job in portraying their roles such acting is very difficult to do but when done right it looks so realistic. Great actors.