2- stupid decision again. Serhat and the other two had just gotten information from a thug about where the hideout and staging area for human trafficking was located so they could go there and save the girls. The thug's phone rang and Serhat answered it and insulted the guy. Fine. So the guy asked where Serhat was so he could come and make him pay for what he had said. And Serhat says, no need, I will come to you. Your man just told me where you are.

What the hell? If you want to storm the place and save the girls, if you don't want them to be moved elsewhere by the time you get there, then you don't let them know you're coming. You don't give away the element of surprise. Now, maybe the crooks are as dumb as Serhat and they won't think to move the girls or get ready for the trio. That is very possible. They could all sit there fuming, talking macho, and competing with each other to see who can think of the toughest thing to say, who can brag the most about their honor, and express their desire to kill Serhat with the most intensity. Then when the trio rolls up one of them will say "oh dammit, they're here. You know we should have moved the girls".

Don't worry about spoiling stuff for me - as soon as I start watching it and get involved I just go with the flow. I am on Ep 24 now (I think!) And oh revelations have been made - Umut is Serhat's son - I had an inkling this was the case. Erhan has just bedded and deaded his mistress because she tried to blackmail him into signing the villa over to her and she is now buried in the basement of it. Burkat has had a personality transplant - from being the rather drunken irresponsible drop-out he has gone to being the psychotic maim and kill on film nutcase. After Nurgul was almost raped by the grocer and Ertan rescued her - she has now been attacked by Burkat who had plans to relieve her of her kidneys I think - however Ertan saved her again. He has taken something from her - it may be her wedding ring - I am not sure. Hamido and Serhat were kidnapped by girl Taylan and Hamido was killed - Serhat was rescued from the hospital by his mates. The Dons have got together after discovering the bugs left by Nasim in Bici's house and are formulating a plan to trap Serhat. I think Ertan is falling in love with Nurgul but she is not ready for another relationship yet and anyway she knows he is married. Your expectation of the possible ending is horrifically hilarious!! I am not sure why they bothered to include Daydali's visit to his girlfriends house with a spud in his sock - nothing seems to be coming of that. Maybe in the last episode it will show them getting married and - grinning.

Nurgul's aunt is a conniving, disgusting, greedy old hag. She charged that grocer 5000 lira with the promise that she would talk Nurgul into marrying him. Now that he is gone and she has seen Ertan she is pushing Nurgul to hop in his lap and go to town. Ertan was about to shoot Nurgul once when he was furious with Serhat but she began telling him how thankful she was for the job, and to have him as her friend, and that he is a good person she feels safe around. That shook him because nobody ever called him a good person before. Since then he tries to spend as much time around her as he can. He is in love with her, or as close as someone like him can come to falling in love. I thought it was a little bit odd that Serhat never checked on Ertan's businesses since he seems to study what all these guys are into. At some point in the story I am sure he will discover that Nurgul is working at one of his restaurants. And if things continue the way they're going, she may become involved with Ertan. But she told her aunt that there is something in his eyes she cannot trust, so even though she feels calm and safe around him, she can't feel anything more toward him. Ertan and Merve have a show marriage for their son and the family, but have nothing for each other. They are headed for divorce court eventually.

There is a new twist now; the Russian Mafia, the biggest in the world, is moving into Turkey. Cyber friend has warned Serhat not to try to take them on. They have 300,000 members worldwide and make $250 billion per year. Too big to go up against. Of course Serhat doesn't like being told he can't win. This is getting crazy. Mission creep again. It started with revenge for his son, and now he might be going up against the Russian Mafia. Nazmi witnessed them capturing one of the crime bosses, the other Ismail. They stopped him in traffic, and when he wouldn't get out of his bulletproof car, they placed some C4 explosive charge (I guess it was C4, or RX or some plastic explosive against his windshield, so he got out of the car and was kidnapped. The way they got rid of him was pretty crafty. I will let you see that part. They didn't have to do a thing.

I have to leave one of the big developments a secret. It's something you figured was going to happen somehow at some point, but I want it to be a surprise.

You Devil!! I can't wait to see that bit! So they have introduced the Russian Mafia - and Serhat has a glint in his eye. Surely they aren't going to have him go up against them - that would be ludicrous - but then - Seda gave Nisan a bone marrow transplant so I suppose anything is possible. I don't think they will let Nurgul actually have sex with Erhan - she would probably commit suicide if that happened and she subsequently found out what he did. I had to laugh when Merve told her mother that her relationship with Serhat had "turned romantic" that's a nice term for bumping naughty bits I suppose. I am surprised at the differences in Turkish men - I have never been to Turkey (or anywhere else for that matter) but somehow I expect them to be small and dark with brown eyes. Ezel - Omer - Serhat - Efe - all very tall - and Serhat has piercing grey eyes - if you put a turban on him he would look like an Arab. Oh well - I will continue watching this evening. I usually watch a couple of episodes at least every day - sometimes more. What are you watching in between times?

I have just finished Ep 29. There are long interludes where nothing of any import happens - Nurgul's aunt has collapsed and Nurgul is in tears? Why - that old ratbag has been nothing but a conniving baitch to her since she met her - but no - it is an excuse for Ertan to turn up again and pay for private treatment. He and Merve are now agreeing that they have a sham marriage - given the way that Merve has been running after him - bringing him blankets - telling him to come to bed - and generally sucking up to him - that is a bit of a turnaround. Ertan has bought Nurgul a necklace but she turns him down again and has a flashback to eating bagels with Serhat. There are endless fights and chases which have nothing to do with the original revenge mission. Stealing gold bars - which they carry in a holdall to the car - apparently gold doesn't weigh very much in Turkey - drilling holes in heads - saving women from becoming sex slaves. All totally off piste. Now Ertan has shot the Don and he is in hospital fighting for his life - meanwhile Ertan has got videotaped evidence against Bici killing his wife and her lawyer lover and Comba - whom he helped bury a maid - one of three - that he had his evil way with and then killed - he was with Comba when he did that apparently so Comba knew he had stuff on him. No idea who videoed the wife and lover killing and nothing is explained let alone how Ertan even knew about it or obtained the footage. Now Ertan and his father and the two other elders have accepted Ertan as their leader and he is on a killing spree. Gone with the wind is the old agreements that no women and children will be hurt. Serhat STILL has no idea that Nurgul is working in Ertan's restaurant - apparently he doesn't keep an eye on her since their divorce. He has an argument with Nasim and goes off guns blazing to Ertan's house - but he takes refuge in an armoured car and gets away. Serhat is so blinded with rage that it doesn't occur to him that armoured cars have rubber tyres. When Serhat goes to meet Erhan with the intention of killing him via Daydali with a snipers rifle - he doesn't dream for a minute that Erhan might have the same idea. Once again it is hard to imagine how this can continue for another 20 episodes - are they going to bring in more pointless characters and situations just to pad it out? And who on earth is cyber friend and how does he know so much - and why would he want to help them? Given his knowledge of the gold - that according to the Don nobody knew about - not even his wife - how did Cyber pal know? It has to be somebody who worked for the Don. Now Serhat has declined to kill Burkat after he got in the trunk of the car and tried to kill him so that has to put the Don under some obligation to him. Maybe the Don and Serhat will form an alliance against Ertan who is now certifiably crazy. I don't think Erhan can be allowed to survive - he has gone too far with his ruthlessness. They have obviously shot some of the storyline out of sequence because Ertan's eyes were very inflamed in some shots and not in others - as if the actor suffers from some allergy or infection. I have to have a break for a hour or two - the endless fighting sends me to sleep.

You're catching up. Ertan shooting the Don was the part I didn't want to tell you about. Ertan is really a cruel and brutal, bloody, killer who enjoys what he does. I am only up to episode 34. I started watching an Indian show, a short series called Bard of Blood. An ex intelligence officer stated teaching Shakespeare. But when 4 Indian intelligence officers were captured in Pakistan he was recruited again to go rescue them with a small team. He knows there is a mole in the Indian intelligence services so he does the job off the books, only relying on people he knows and trusts, and telling them as little as possible. ...I have good instincts about things but have never been trained in how to handle things and it doesn't come naturally to me. I don't know that world, and I would have trouble killing someone,even someone who was evil. I mean, I would def. fight for my life and kill them then. But planning to kill someone, that would take a real learning curve for me. I could sense when something wasn't right, I believe. I have done so in regular life a few times. But if I were in that whacky Muslim world in a foreign country, damn, I would not like that. Anyway, this team is looking for the Taliban leader who they believe is holding the kidnapped spies they are there to save. I have a feeling you will catch up to me in Kacak soon so I may have to put this show on hold as well.

All the Dons are using bullet proof cars now. I believe there are different armor options for cars. I know the President's car has solid tires that cannot be shot out. Whether they are solid rubber or something even more sturdy than that, I don't know. There are places which will take a standard automobile and make it bulletproof, changing the glass, adding plates to the doors and all around the passenger area. I would guess they also protect the fundamental areas involved with locomotion as well. It's no good if the car becomes disabled. Given enough time and with the right equipment, someone may be able to get inside. But as I said, there are different levels of protection you can buy. If you're only concerned about not getting shot by thugs looking to hold you up in traffic, as happens in some large cities, the simple glass and door option may be all you need.

The writers are making Nurgul some kind of saint almost. When the aunt had to go to the hospital I thought "oh good, now we don't have to listen to her scheming for money by trying to sell off her niece". But Nurgul acted genuinely concerned for her. When Ertan gives Nurgul a restaurant to run, the aunt suddenly wants a job there, whereas previously she complained that she was unable to do anything. That tells me she just wants to collect a paycheck, or maybe stand around and boss others around, complain about how little others do while she does nothing, and look for wealthy customers to glom onto. Nurgul was noncommittal about the job. She is also wary about Ertan's motives for doing this. I wonder when she will begin to wonder where his money comes from. It seems most people know he is a hood, but Nurgul has never heard the gossip about that. ...Meanwhile Ertan's dad has warned him to fire Nurgul before Serhat learns that she is working for him, causing even more trouble for them all. Ertan seems done listening to his dad, who beat him almost daily as a kid. And he doesn't seem at all worried about Serhat anymore.

I guess the rest of the show will be a cat and mouse between Serhat and Ertan, with involvement by other gangs and new characters. The show ran from 2013 to 2015 so whatever happens, it ends with episode 50. We shall see.

2- I am pretty sure Serhat and Merve will get together. Nurgul could never live with him in the world he inhabits now. And now that Ertan is trying to destroy her family, Merve will be inclined to align with Serhat and then they will get closer. That is what I think will happen. I also don't think Ismet Ali Topcuoglu will be around for too much longer. I think Ertan will find a way to finish what he started.

3- I started watching episode 34 now. The writers used another stupid decision plot device to put our trio of dumb heroes in trouble with the local Russian mob. Doc tried to get a job with them, but he gave the name of a reference who died 6 weeks prior. Serhat and Dadayli came running to the rescue with guns drawn, but neither of them thought to cover the door they just came running through, and more Russians with guns showed up behind them. Then once about 15 Russians came into the room, Serhat thought it would be a good time to start a fist fight. No point in fighting until they had plenty of guys there. They tried to break the Russian guys hands with their face bones. But after a while they got tired and quit. Then they woke up tied together with rope out in the woods, and they are all laughing. Yeah, this is just a good time for them. Then just as they are about to be set on fire, someone shoots the Russians from the shadows, their cyber friend Hawkeye. But none of this was necessary.

4- Mission creep. It started out as revenge for Omer's death. Then it was about destroying the Topcuoglu crime family bosses, then they added the Russian mob. And now, they have heard about homeless people being kidnapped and possibly being used as involuntary medical test subjects for experimental drugs. Serhat says, "If people are disappearing, it doesn't matter if it's about the Russian or not. We're going in."

"Wherever there is injustice, Wherever there is suffering, Wherever liberty is threatened, you will find, the Three Amigos!"

They just need some super-hero costumes and a theme song. I'm getting punchy.

I have to admit the ff button is being used again. I am not interested in Serhat and his buddies as super heroes swooping from nowhere to save the weak and oppressed. If that is the way they want to go then they should simply have them as friends who fight injustice with a different story every week. Like "Person of Interest". There is some incredibly stupid scenarios - like the way they always select Dardayli to dress up and go on missions alone - the man is an idiot - he can't even get a telephone call right "concert" cars - for goodness sake - as if that wouldn't have raised the red flag immediately - then photoshopping him as a businessman - as if they wouldn't check with the guy he was supposed to be in business with - Gomma or whatever his name is. That would have been their first enquiry. Now Ertan has come from "don't bother me with your car - I am busy - go away" (to Umut) and "don't bother me with the pedagogy" to Merve - to a loving father who wants to spend time with his son - and the kid is just as bad - suddenly he is a daddy's boy. The Don has had a meeting with all the chiefs of the gangs to ask them who will stay with him and follow the old code and who will follow Ertan. Burkat demanded to be in the meeting but in the event said nothing. All but two of the chiefs got up and left and Ertan has killed at least one of them. He may have killed the other - but I get so bored I do tend to skip violent scenes - especially as some of them are so unconvincing. There is no hope for Ertan in my view - I think he will start killing his own men for minor infringements and they will turn against him and return to the Don. Nurgul is proving a hard nut to crack - I think in an effort to alienate her from Serhat - Ertan will tell her what he has been doing and how many men he has killed and that will put the kibosh on any reconciliation. I think this will clear the way for Serhat and Merve to get together - especially when he realises that Umut is his son. The problem of course is going to be Burkat - he is a loose cannon - he wants to be a Don in his own right - this might lead to him being the one to kill his father On the other hand the wheelchair bound spoon fed Nimet may produce a machine gun from underneath her blanket and kill Burkat as he pulls a gun on the Don. I think it would be good if Nurgul finds out that Ertan killed her son but strings him along and makes him fall even more in love with her - she gets a gun from somewhere and when Ertan proposes to her on one knee she shoots him between the eyes. It's only fair.

The weakest part of the whole story is Serhat's team. The accountant/almost doctor/computer whiz and technical expert Nazmi is pretty good most of the time, but they use him on their special operations missions as well, and he isn't very good there. And Dadayli is a special kind of goofy, too goofy. I guess he is supposed to be comic relief but it gets irritating. His stupid and annoying folk songs, his off the wall crazy talk poems and trivia, and his ineptitude blamed on his disorder, which is apparently service related. Did they ever say if he was too near an explosion or just what screw him up?...And Serhat plays the serious one to get them back on track, except when he screws things up himself by playing the macho man. I mentioned a scene already in which the gang learned the secret location the Russians used to hold their slave sex working girls so they could effect a rescue. And Serhat got on the phone with the men at the secret location and told them "your man just told us where you are so we're coming to you". That allowed the Russians to prepare a welcoming party for them.

At first Serhat was very good at his work, ambushing the crime family business. He knew what he was doing. But since then, especially more recently, the 3 amigos seem to screw things up themselves each time they try something. The writers need to create a problem for the hero to solve, right? Fine. But now the problems are all created by the crime fighting trio themselves, and it is through very stupid decisions, lack of planning, or inept execution. Dumb Dadayli says "uh HO!, whoops! uh oh." or something like that as things go wrong. And it is stuff that anyone could see was going to happen. So the formula is the gang makes a rash decision to try something dangerous, they screw things up and are in danger of being killed, but because of their amazing ability to absorb blows with no damage, or through some lucky turn of events, they escape.

On the Turkish crime family side, Ertan seems to have the upper hand over Ismet Ali for the moment. Ertan is willing to do things Ismail isn't which gives him a tactical edge. Ertan cares nothing for the life of an innocent woman, but Ismail does and I think this difference will give Ertan the winning edge. I imagine Serhat will become active in this fight soon, but for now he is still fighting "the Russian".

Merve is angry with Ertan and doesn't want him to see his son. Ertan has court ordered visitation rights for once a week though. I have to say that Ismail Ali seems somewhat impotent and gets caught off guard a bit since he was shot. I don't think his prospects are good in the long run.

If Nurgul ever does find out that Ertan shot her son (though he claims it was another man who shot him), I bet her aunt will still advise her to marry him, because he has lots of money. I wonder if Ertan will kill her once she finds out it was him. He is a psycho. Once she finds out she won't see him as a good man anymore, and then his attraction toward her will be over.

I also wondered about how his men would react if Ertan killed one for some minor infraction. But he has done that sort of thing since the beginning, and the other guys look at each other as if to say "whoa, we better be careful or that could happen to one of us". But they don't do anything about it. They don't quit or try to get rid of him.

update. Ep 33. So Nimet is no more. Not that she was a relevant character anyway. Going back a few episodes I failed to mention the guards they had accompanying that psychopath Girl Taylan in the back of a prison van - how old were they - about 16? When Nasim is sent to watch the Russian house - what does he do - he hides behind a wall and pops out every now and then with his binoculars - when he is spotted he runs to his bright red car (last seen with it's door wide open parked outside a subway but somehow miraculously back with it's owner)which is parked directly in front of the house. Ertan has bought a shabby looking restaurant for Nurgul and this she somehow deems is not inappropriate even though a necklace was - her avaricious aunt wants a job there. I think Ertan will pretty soon get fed up with her constant presence and will want to buy a house for Nurgul where they can have a bit of privacy. When Nurgul was talking to Ertan in the old restaurant and his father came in she just stood there and waited until the father made it plain she should shove off. The way Serhat and Dardayli stole that highway repair equipment and tied those two guys up in full view of the road - and it was a pointless exercise anyway - why include it? That "deadman" incident - they approach the house and a machine gun opens up on them - amazingly none of the bullets hit them - Serhat goes to the back leaving the two idiots behind a small wall in the front - Dardayli goes out into the middle of the path and shouts some ridiculous nonsense which is responded to with a grenade - which he picks up and throws away before diving back under cover. Having rolled out a barrel into a minefield in the barn Serhat holds a gun on the machine gunner who is still firing into emptiness with no target in view. He gives them yet another password - something like we are looking for timber for Russian oaks - to which Nasim responds - oh it's a reference is it? I don't know if it is the translations but some of the dialogue is total nonsense. It is farcical. Now Erhan has accepted the Russian's offer so maybe he will try to double cross him and get dead that way. I am so tired of all these shenanigans which have nothing to do with the original plot - what happened to that?

I wonder if the show was originally mapped out for one season and then it was renewed and they had to find a way to extend the story. That might explain some of this stuff, the Russians, the Bonsai gang (I have not seen them yet, but I saw the name in one of the episode summaries), and the various new characters they keep adding to the story. I don't mind when shows do that provided they try to put the work in on the extra episodes instead of just repeating the same worn out plot devices. The gang gets into a shootout, or some guards get into a shootout, and they stand out in the open instead of ducking behind something solid. Our trio can stand out in the open and fire away with no worry about being shot. But the stupid guards are just extras, so they get shot right away. It is really stupid for security people to expose themselves to gunfire. They're supposed to know that bullets are dangerous and try to avoid them.

Once in a while Serhat will run to cover and then shoot from there, like you are supposed to do. But...he pops out just as the other guy disappears behind a concrete wall, and he fires several shots at the concrete wall! Idiot. That won't do anything. Then Serhat ducks behind the wall and the other guy pops out and shoots at Serhat's concrete wall. They keep doing this until they run out of ammo. It is so stupid. Serhat should shoot once or twice and then wait for the other guy to pop out to shoot, and then shoot him. But that would be too smart. He needs to empty his pistol so he can get into a fistfight.

Or they sit in plain view with their binoculars or cameras to surveil some stronghold, and they are surprised when a bad guy glances their way and spots them. They can hardly do anything right.

And the grenade, oh boy. Nazmi sees it land near him and shrieks. Then Dadayli runs over and picks it up and then walks out into the open and holds the grenade up beside his head as he shouts to the guy who threw the grenade at them. Those things have a short fuse, maybe 6 or 10 seconds. It should have gone off before Dadayli started talking, but he stood there shouting his crazy man goofy talk for another 10 seconds and then tossed it, then stood there until the guy with the mini-gun, the thing that looks like a gatling gun with all the barrels, he opened up again and missed everthing as Dadayli then ran for the mound behind that wall. Then.........finally, the grenade went off. If grenades took that long you could throw them back and forth a few times. Also, Nazmi and Dadayli were fully exposed where they were lying. The wall was a retaining wall, it didn't offer them any cover at all. But still somehow they didn't get hit.

Burkat is anxious now to become a Mafia man since his dad got shot. But his dad knows the kid is too immature and unstable, and he had never learned anything about the business. Still, Burkat thinks he should be second in command. How he has managed to stay alive this long is a miracle of sorts.

2- I keep seeing someone named Tulay mentioned in some of the episode summaries but I can't figure out who she is. Keep an eye out for someone named Tulay mentioned during the show and tell me who she is.

3-Ertan is a bigger bastard than we thought. That's all I will tell you. I don't want to spoil it. Nurgul is more suspicious of Ertan now. Umut told her something she could not believe.