Kizil Goncalar

This series tells the story of Turkish society in its extremes: on one side we have an ultra-Islamic religious group, on the other an ultra-secular family. The story begins where their roads intersect.

The truth is, I think most of Turkish society swims somewhere in between these two groups, but this series decides to focus on the extremes- that is, on the pure black and pure white, and shows how they mix to become grey. I saw somewhere a quote saying "like front and back side of the same paper, we go through life together, but never see eachother". This series is kind of bringing the front and backside together, forcing them to look at eachother and accept eachother.

The characters are extremely interesting, as well as the dynamic between them. The conversations between psychiatrist Levant and Cuneyd are a thrill of every episode, with how profound and philosophical they can get.

To me the most interesting is the dynamic between Zeynep and Cuneyd. You find yourself in a strange position observing two individuals who understand eachother as if they're soulmates, so much so that you tend to forget how inappropriate the situation is.

So far, I have only watched the first season and I am positively surprised at how thought-through the scenario is. It's promising so far. There are, obviously, inconsistencies tied to the plot, and also the super annoying advertising within the series, but what can you do. As far as Turkish series go, this is just about the most thought-provoking one I have ever seen.

Warning for the future watchers: The series includes heavy themes of trauma, mental health, religious sects and secularism, feminism and anti-feminism, domestic abuse, as well as child marriage and child abuse. While there are no extreme scenes, these topics are around the centre of the story and it can get disheartening and disturbing at times. The topics are there to serve the message however, and in contrast to the the other series, there are no blatant displays of heavy topics such as showing abuse just for the sake of it.

I got hooked to this series very early on and did not get bored for a second during the philosophical exchanges for instance between Cuneyd (Mert Yazicioglu) and his psychiatrist, Levent (Ozcan Deniz) or the religious exchanges between Cuneyd and his uncle Sadi Hudayi (Erkan Avci). I appreciated the wonderful mother-daughter relationship between Meriem (Ozgu Namal) and Zeynep (Mina Demirtas), and also the touching relationship between Zeynep and Mira Alkanli (Esma Yilmaz), who is the same age, and whose goofiness added a light touch to the generally heavy atmosphere. I did not expect to root for Zeynep and Cuneyd but they turned out to be real soulmates who understood each other so well. A compelling element was also the relationship between the physics professor, Suave Alkanli (Serif Erol) and Zeynep. Secondary characters such as Birgul and Arif were charming too. I thought some of the women were a bit caricatural (especially Sadi's wife and daughter), and Hande Elkanli as a journalist was not very convincing but on the whole, the series was quite riveting and hope the second season will be as compelling.

In the world of cliche and repetitive Turkish dizis,this series is an exception. The way that the storyline is woven and the events are designed makes you hooked all the time.

What I liked most is the dialogue and the magnificent way the senarist is trying to deliver the ideas without making the viewer feel like they are taking a lesson.

The focus onto details and the acting is something else! Every single person from the cast lives their role in a way that you forget that you are watching a series and feel like it's a real life experience. Congrats to both Mina and Mert on the huge success!

Never have I ever waited so inpatient for an episode. I love everything about this series. So well written and beautiful story. Cüneyd is my spirit animal love him and Zeynep. Watch it watch it watch it. There is always an hidden plot twist that is a bomb and I feel so bad for cüneyd and Zeynep cause all the people around them are evil. Sadi is such a funny character. I always laugh he is funny without even trying. I hate vahid so so much and I need someone to take this evil man down. I love the Islam thematic so much. Me as a Moslem learned so much from it. I need the series to keep going like this. If you want something as beautiful to watch then watch THIS.

Edit: Please, please don't let us wait too long for season 2! This is an absolutely brilliant series. My goodness. Who is Hollywood...they can only dream of filming such a brilliant series! I wish I could give this series more than a 10 star rating.

Wow, I didn't know what to expect from this series but am I stunned!

This series is beautifully written and casted. This series draws the viewer into this story and grips the attention from beginning to end. I can't wait for the next episode.

As a foreign viewer, who doesn't understand the religion and differences, I find this series so interesting. Regardless of belief system, there are good and bad characters everywhere.

From a child-bride to a blossoming love, while keeping respect and integrity. In contrast, the mother was also a child-bride but experienced the opposite as her daughter, in an abusive relationship and she would do anything to prevent her daughter from suffering a similar fate. She tries her utmost, with the help of a psychologist to get her genius daughter to rather study, but the restriction in the religion won't allow it. And they find themselves in life-threatening situations regularly. But all plans fail and it's as if fate is keeping her and her husband together.

Every week, the series keeps revealing different layers.

Really a series worth watching. Hope it continues for many more episodes!