I found this series by accident while reading a biography of James Krishna Lloyd ( The Good Karma Hotel) and sat up all night watching the story told from a non US side. The lukewarm reviews might be from American critics unaware that the US isn' t the only player in the Iraq,/Syria debacle. They just started it. The story follows two separate themes, a young Frenchman looking for his missing sister who was presumed dead, and three young boyhood friends in working class London, who never really fitted in due to the Arab ancestry of two, who go to Iraq to join the fight for Islam. Throw in a deceitful foreign agent, a few converging plot twists, and the Kurdish female fighters and you get an engrossing series showing some of the reasons that many Europeans went to join the cause, whether it be for excitement, alienation from the countries where they had grown up, or genuine patriotism, set against the desperate fight for survival of the Kurds. The fact that the series is French/European gives it a quieter feel than the frenetic 'Homeland' or similar US shows. I sincerely hope to see a season 2.
