2- I don't recall how crazy Seda had started acting by episode 10 but I am pretty sure you've seen some fairly out of control behavior from her by that point. Seda comes by her craziness honestly; her mother is as delusional as she is, though she is able to act fairly normal most of the time. I don't recall if the mother is in the picture yet at that point either but pretty soon she will come to take care of Seda. Her ideas for winning Mete back for Seda are insane. They're the sort of thing that would turn me against her forever. And she keeps telling Seda that once she forces him to marry her, he will fall in love with her again. She is serious and Seda believes it, mostly because she just wants to believe it. Whenever I see her getting her hairstyle tweaked or touching up her makeup or buying a new dress and talking about how Mete will love it I think " no amount of makeup or styling will cure your out of control craziness.

I am on Ep 13 and I have seen the abortion attempt - so a man can bring in a woman who is no relation to him and demand she has an abortion and nobody asks any questions? She had to escape instead of just phoning the police and telling them she had been kidnapped with the intention of physical assault? I'm glad I don't live there!! Nisan has played Judas yet again and Kadim barely escaped with his life - Seda's mom has appeared and she has a beef with Efe's family as well. I am getting really tired of people listening at doors and interrupting vital conversations at inopportune moments and overhearing remarks like Fatma did with Burkat - she just happened to be passing at that exact moment .- I also dislike their annoying habit of repeating the first minute of a scene we have seen before. Even I don't forget what happened three or four minutes ago! Yakup is a real villain and the way Efe's stepfather is going on he is going to end up at the bottom of a cliff as well. The guy knows what a ruthless operator Yakup is so why antagonise him. I suppose the next thing will be the finding of Kadim's daughter - she will be about 26 by now - so maybe she will be someone we have already seen - or more likely she will be like Elizabeth in "The Blacklist" and turn up with a vengeful expression and a desire to kill the father who abandoned her by getting hung - tortured - beaten - pursued etc etc etc. At least we had the removal of the bullet scene which is pretty much compulsory - but so far no gay scenes. Thank heaven for small mercies.

That's the good thing about Turkish TV shows, no PC gay stuff. You're prescient about Kadim's daughter coming into the picture, but thank goodness she is nothing like "Lizzie" on Blacklist. I thought it was pretty good the way they brought her into the story. And she will be someone we have seen before, but not a major character. At ep 13 Nisan is still not totally on board, doesn't trust people and is still spinning and hurting inside from getting cheated on and then learning the truth about Efe as Mete. The dirty cop is still peddling the story that Kadim killed Efe and that he is a dangerous hitman. Well, the second part was right I suppose. Nisan won't be the first person to make the mistake of believing the police story about Kadim. Yakup will try to use less than lethal means of controlling Mazhar. But Yakup isn't above killing whomever he feels he must, provided he can make someone else the fall guy for the killing. Yakup's wife has already overheard him talking on the phone to his underworld contacts and realizes that he is into more than just the fashion industry, but she doesn't know the details. But Nisan has no idea. I am sure at some point she too will learn something to make her start to doubt his goodness and innocence but so far he appears squeaky clean to the others.

I don't recall who Burkat is. Never mind, I just saw him. It's Efe's fishing buddy, right? I could not remember that name. He is sweet on Efe's foster sister Nadide.

ismail, the foster dad, is bad news. Too bad he is not on somebody's hit list. Seda's mother could use a serious accident also.

I just realized that is the secret to these soap operas. They have these terrible characters that people love to hate.

2- I am getting really sick of these scenes where Efe capitulates and accepts responsibility for someone else's irresponsibility. Example. Seda's mother threatened Efe not to leave to help Nisan because if Efe left, Seda would get up and follow him and have a miscarriage and then she would hold him responsible. And Efe stayed. This after Seda and the mother accused Nisan of trying to kill Seda. (Seda had attacked Nisan and then tripped and fell down a staircase, her own fault.) This stuff is too much.

It is one thing for the writers to put the lead character in a crisis he has to work his way out of. But when the problem is a result of him being a weak willed, pansy who caves in to obvious manipulation, I want to throw up.

Yes - that scene does sound a bit silly - it's straying into farce there. They are making Efe look stupid rather than conflicted. You make me think about Kadim's daughter - it is either one of the girls in Efe's office - that short haired blonde one we seem to see most of - or his parents maid - Durgus - or something - and of the two she seems the most ethnically likely. Your analysis of why people love soaps is perfectly correct !! I will watch some more tonight - you will probably have finished it by then !!

Update - I am on Ep 16 now - how many times can a person say in an episode "Calm Down" ? Efe has revealed himself to Fatma who amazingly was in the right place at the right time AGAIN and found Nisan's phone. He has told her that he is Mete - Efe's twin and she seems to accept this. Seda has tried to commit suicide - and Efe has gone to visit her - Seda's mother arranged for a photographer to be present and he took photos of them leaving the hospital. Seda finds the letter that Mete wrote to Nisan - the one Efe found and did not destroy - the way she found it was so contrived - but then most everything in this show is. Everybody follows everybody - overhears everybody - and are there any more wrong conclusions left that Efe can jump to? Anyway after showing Nisan the letter and Efe telling her he used to feel that way but doesn't any more Seda has phoned her mom and told her Publish and be Damned. As if that photograph proves anything - I am waiting for the DNA results and the furore that will surround that - I am not sure if identical twins share the same DNA - it may well be because they come from the same egg. It is wonderful how a camera can pick up an exchange from what is obviously about twenty yards away and get perfect sound. It was a surveillance camera according to Yakup so I doubt that would have had sound capability anyway. I am puzzled why Seda continues to relentlessly pursue a man who obviously doesn't want her - and her mother is even worse. I am still awaiting her back story. Oh well - at least we wont have Fatma fainting and crying My Son My Son any more - now it seems to be Ismael's turn to try and make some money out of the situation - of course he doesn't know that Efe knows exactly what he is. Efe has led Resnat to Kadim AGAIN and neither of them notice him hanging out of a car door watching them from about twenty feet away. What is it with Istanbul - is it the most populated city in the world with the busiest population? The streets are always packed full of people walking purposefully somewhere. What ep are you on SoapMaster? !!!

I am starting episode 29. You haven't seen anything yet with Seda and her mom. Both of them must share a gene which makes them think "If I make his life a living hell then he will HAVE to love me!". Of course, our hero Efe cannot ever get angry about any of it because Seda is pregnant with his brother's child and he is a good person who cares about Seda, even though she has "problems". Mega-soapy. Designed to evoke feelings of sympathy for Efe, and astounding disgust and outrage at the moral bankruptcy and gall of Seda and her mother. Viewers begin feeling that Yakup was right; Seda's genes need to be stopped in their tracks and not allowed to spread any further into the greater gene pool.

Efe and Nisan will decide they must hurry and find the bad guy behind the killings so they can give Seda the bad news; Mete is dead and she will have to live without him. You have to wonder how that will play out. Will Seda have a meltdown before deciding that she must have the carbon copy of Mete? I can picture her screaming, demanding that Efe must love her as a consolation. Presently it doesn't seem to matter how many times or how firmly and unflinchingly Efe as Mete tells her he doesn't love her and prefers Nisan. Seda rejects it ("You're lying") and insists that she can make him love her again. And her mother is worse. She believes she can manipulate Mete into being with Seda by any means and that he will have to love her. Those women are just insane. Her mom thinks that if she forces Efe and Nisan to divorce, Efe will have no recourse other than to marry the psycho pregnant suicide girl. Right. That's his only option.

Seda tells Efe "I can't breathe without you. I cannot live without you."

Efe ought to tell her "well, you win some, you lose some. But chin up, suffocation doesn't take that long, then this will all be over. And who knows? Maybe the Hindus are right about reincarnation and things will work out better the next time around."

ismail the drunken gambler doesn't have any income now that Efe is gone and he is looking to milk Mete's folks for money. He's got to piss away somebody's money, and he doesn't have an income. But in that society, Fatma has little recourse. Efe has dropped the ball here; he should realize that his foster family is busted now that he is gone. Apparently he has forgotten that detail.

By the way, security at that company is a joke. Yakup gave orders that psycho girl Seda was not to be allowed inside, but she just pushed on past the security guard who stood there looking at her as if to say "hey, she wasn't supposed to do that." Great security. Yakup is making sure Mazhar appears to be the dirty player at the company, the one who signs for the arms shipments. Why does Mazhar have to sign? Yakup is one of the partners too so he should be able to sign. But Yakup has plans to make Kadim believe that Mazhar is the dirty player who called the shots on killing Efe's father. You should be watching that now. Resat is involved in telling Kadim this lie. Isn't it funny how Kadim can move around so freely in a city whose entire police force is looking for him?

By the way, do you know who Yuksel is? I saw that name mentioned by didn't catch who that is. Must be somebody's wife or maybe a minor character.

The crap hits the fan when those photos hit the paper. Yaksup and his wife are furious with Efe. But things with Nisan and he are actually starting to get better as she has adjusted to the shocking revelations and gotten to know Efe better.

Seda will use it to manipulate things, complaining that everyone is talking about how she is an unwed pregnant woman, wherever she goes people recognize and talk about her.

By the way, I went back and skimmed episodes 16 and 17 again. You have seen Kadim's daughter in a few scenes by now. Within the next few episodes the mother and father and daughter will meet, but not realize it at first. The daughter will figure out who the mother is, and she has seen Kadim but doesn't know who Kadim is to her. Later on Kadim will see something and figure out who she is, and call her Efruz. She asks how he knows her name. After that Efruz becomes a more central figure in the story....Also, in episode 20 Yakup finds out he has another daughter....Also, I think Yuksel might be Seda's crazy mother. See if you can confirm

I don't know who Yuksel is - could be male or female I suppose. I am guessing that the pretty female doctor is Efruz. I am on Ep19 now. Yakup has told Resnat to let Kadim catch him and tell him under torture that Mazhar is the villain - he does - and then Yakup renegs on the money and sends two guys to kill him. One of them hurts Farise who mutters "The Key" but she is of course ignored. Now Nisan is going to the old factory with Resnat to meet Efe and Kadim. Theoretically this should be the bit where all is revealed to Efe - and make him regret giving his stepdad a heart attack - but this is a soap - so somebody will probably turn up with guns blazing and Resnat will probably be killed just as he is about to say who is really the baddie - (it was....ugh). Burkat has finally made his move on Nadiya or whatever her name is and its all twinkly romance and shell necklaces at the moment - whilst Fatma has a new hobby of delivering goodies to the door of the company with an invite to dinner and then waiting long faced at the window for Efe and Nisan to turn up whilst the abominable Ismael stuffs his face. I can't see how they can stretch this out for another 30 episodes without adding in pointless characters and situations. Seda has now gone to loopyland and says that Nisan humiliated her outside the hospital - that she stole her life - stole the man she loved - and that she is going to kill her . Excuse me dearie - but that was YOU.

Yes, Seda and her mom can only see things one way; Nisan is the devil and they will MAKE Mete fall in love with Seda and live happily after ever. No matter how diabolical the plan, whether it is to publicly humiliate him and try to cause a divorce that way, to threaten to kill herself and her child, to kill Nisan (and Seda will try this at least a couple of times) they always see the result being that, once Nisan is gone, Mete will look around (Where's Nisan?) and see Seda instead, and Cupid's arrow will pierce him and Seda will have him again. - I am pretty sure Yuksel is Seda's nutty, angry, conniving mother. And yes, Seda always blames Nisan for the damage Seda does to herself. That theme will continue.

After the warehouse shootout Kadim and Efe determine that Mahzar cannot be the shot caller and they are looking for someone else. Farise is comatose and mumbling Efruz, and The Key. Our doctor will hear these things and begin putting things together. Meanwhile the police will come to see her and tell her to be on the lookout for a killer on the loose who is married to her patient. She has already noticed him hanging around in front of the hospital.

Seda is still working on plans to make Mete marry her. I won't spoil the plot on that. No matter what happens, her mom is always there telling her Mete is about to fall back in love with her. At one point she advised her to remember to cry a lot in front of Efe.

Soon worlds start colliding even more. Ismail will go see Efe's biological mom and tell her they raised her twin son, but he was just recently shot and is dead. Great news, eh? It was kind of like, we cared for him so you owe us. What a jerk.

Episode 20 is pretty good. A couple of interesting things happen there.

2- I kind of miss those maxims we used to get from the old guy in Ezel. "The early bird gets the worm, but the second rat gets the cheese." Kadim never says stuff like that.

I'm back to episode 29 now. Efe's sister Nadoodle and Efe's fisherman friend are still together. I think they will stick, though I am sure there will be some drama along the way.

Kadim is worried that Efe will start remembering too much and might put it together that he was the hitman who killed his father, and saved his life. Farise is still comatose despite all their efforts but there is a special clinic in Germany that can help her. Kadim tells Efruz he wants to move to Germany to be near his wife, and that he is tired of living as a fugitive. She tells Efe and he isn't happy about it. They have not caught the bad guy yet.

3- Episode 30.
There is a scene where Nisan's mother Sumru finds Seda at Mete's mom and dad's house and she lets her have it.

What's this woman doing here?

Seda. I live here now. With my family.

Sumru to Leyla. Is this true? You let her in your house?

Leyla. She almost had a miscarriage. When her mother had to take off...we couldn't leave her by herself.

Sumru to Seda. So that's the lie you picked.

Seda. Watch your words, Mrs. Sumru

Sumru walks up to Seda and says You're the one who should watch it, darling. You ruined my daughter's life. You had her interrogated, thrown in jail. And you have the nerve to tell me I should watch my mouth? Who do you think you are?

Seda. I'm Mete Demircan's wife. The mother of his unborn child.

Sumru. You're a lowlife using her unborn child as leverage.

I loved that. It was the first time someone called Seda on her crap.

Another time Seda manipulates Efe saying "I need you here. The mom's mental state affects the baby very much." Efe should have said: "Then that baby is screwed because you've never been mentally stable a day in your life." Actually this time Efe showed a little more backbone than he usually does. I don't know what it is about this guy. When a woman tells him something he just capitulates most of the time. Nisan's mom called him one day and told him that despite all he had put her through, Nisan loves him. She said if he cared about her at all, he should set her free to love and marry someone else. And Efe sat there listening, and then apparently decided that she made sense. He didn't tell her that he and Nisan had a plan, that he was only supporting Seda because of her pregnancy so she wouldn't kill the baby, and he and Nisan would be together after that. Hell, he knows that it is short term, that once the killer is dealt with he will go back to being Efe and he and Nisan can tell Seda to go ahead and jump off the cliff. Once the baby is born he can have her locked up in a mental ward and they could raise the baby themselves if they want. but no, he listens to her as though he were really Mete. And most of the time when Seda cries and insists that he spend time with her, despite him telling her that he has no feelings for her, that their arrangement is just that the baby won't be a bastard and will be taken care of, he falls prey to her manipulations and goes running to her when she fakes being sick, or whatever. They play it as him being passionate, but to me he comes off as lacking a backbone and conviction.

update: Things have really picked up. A LOT of stuff has happened now. I am getting ready for episode 37 now.

I have one question for you - how will you survive when this is finished? Will you write begging letters to the network to make another 50 episodes !! lol. The situations you describe are beyond farce - I think the old guy in Ezel would have had a field day with this soap. I think the writers seem to be piling it on in order to enrage their audience and make them root all the more for Efe. I have thought on a lot of occasions that Efe seems to be morphing into Mete - a lowly fisherman would have no idea how to dress and talk and carry himself - either at home or at work - but he took very little time to adopt that role - and now he acts as if he is Mete. I think he and Nisan will end up together - but they are taking a long time about it. Something serious has to be done about Seda - maybe she will do us all a favour and die in childbirth - her dying words - "it was Nisan who did this to me - it is all her fault that I got pregnant - and now she has caused me to die because she broke my heart - she stole my husband - my love - my baby - the teddy I had when I was three years old - my best dress - my lipstick - and now my life - kill her mommy!!" - "I will - my beautiful daughter - I will ".

Actually the soapy parts of this are hard for me to watch. For a few episodes a lot of things happened in the main plot which made them very interesting. The wholly predictable and hard to watch segments in which Efe as Mete is driven by duty or compassion, along with stupidity, to run to Seda when she fakes injury or threatens to kill the baby or whatever are transparent and getting monotonous. Much of what is coming is telegraphed to you episodes in advance. In one scene two people apparently die, but only one body is recovered, the other is assumed to have been dragged out by the tide. As soon as they told me only one body was recovered I was certain the missing person wasn't dead and would turn up again eventually.

You're right about Efe and Nisan getting together. There is still opposition to them as a pair however, and once again things are happening which telegraph that another series of segments of first one then the other looking heartbroken and pained by their separation will be shown before long. I can see it coming. ...I just saw Seda pull another trick on Nisan; she sat down with her and apologized and promised to work together with her for the good of the business, start with a clean slate, etc. And Nisan seemed to fall for it again. How is it that nobody is able to read Seda? How can they not realize that she is driven solely by negative emotions and motives, and that she lies continually? How can they not be suspicious of everything she does? That doesn't make any sense. This is what I call the stupidity trope, that device writers use to place lead characters in problem situations. Fake Mete is blind to most of Seda's manipulations, or else he caves in to her demands. They enable Seda each time the psycho stalker spins her crazy talk version of reality and they decline to correct her, each time they tacitly accept her version of things. If this series doesn't end with Seda and her mom reaping the fruits of what they've sewn all this time I will be disgusted with the show. Seda and her mother are the ultimate queens of blame-shifting and of posturing as injured victims. Nisan's mother isn't much better. When Yakup is revealed as the person who ordered the death of Efe's father, Yakup tells Nisan and Sumru that he is sorry about that but he "did it for the family" etc. before grabbing some cash and running to leave the country. But Sumru blames Efe for breaking up their family and forcing Yakup to have to flee.

It really is disgusting to see her, and Seda, and her mother, twisting things, shifting blame, and telling bald-faced lies to escape their own responsibility, spewing hatred on the innocent while seeking sympathy for themselves. They remind me of Democrat politicians.

There are just over 10 episodes remaining now. I have taken a break from it though. A steady diet of the stupid decisions, blame shifting, and predictable crises just wears me out. I want the series to end. I want the guilty to get their just recompense. If this turns out the same way Ezel did, with all the guilty parties teaming up with Ezel as his partners, I may give up on anything else by that director.

I can see me ffwd'ing through a lot of the coming episodes from what you describe. As you have probably deduced by now I am not the most patient of people!! If something makes me mad I will skip through it. Maybe in Turkey they have a different mind set to us in the West. Can you see Efe/Mete's parents accepting a pregnant mistress and her mother into the home where Efe and Nisan still live? That is so beyond ridiculous that I really don't want to watch it. I will probably miss half of the plot because I really cannot tolerate excesses of stupidity - the director must think he is entertaining morons and I take offence at that. I looked up the DNA question and what I thought was right - identical twins that come from the same egg share the same DNA and the same blood group but they have different fingerprints. So that will prove nothing unless Mete isn't the father - will that - I wonder - be the end of the Seda connection. Will it be a case of - well it only happened the once and it was Nisan's fault for upsetting me. Oh well - back to the grindstone - it is becoming a burden now.