I did not have to go through a box of tissues for this week’s episode which nonetheless had me transported to Gazientep for my weekly one-sided conversation with these endearing and not so endearing families. It’s one-sided because I keep asking questions and giving them advice which they consistently ignore!
This episode starts where the last ended; Cumali unconscious on the floor of his bakery overcome by smoke while the flames tear through the shops around him. Friends, neighbors, shopkeepers and family arrive from every direction to help the fire brigade put out the fire; even Kenan, the reviled partner of the even more reviled Alpay is there doing his best to help. Walking in on the scene is the aforesaid reviled Alpay who starts throwing out accusations that the blame for the fire must go to the kebab shop who didn’t turn off their barbeques at close of business. Everyone looks at Mahmut who has lately become the family punching ball and it becomes clear he will be the scapegoat…at least for now. He doesn’t make things better for himself by saying he had left work early leaving other employees to closed up.
In the melee of smoke, water, fire and people running around, Mirza announces that he can’t find Halil. A fireman shouts out that there is a body in one of the shops and Melek becomes frantic believing it is Halil. We know of course that it isn’t since we saw Cumali collapse in the shop last week. Happily, Melek’s misery is only short-lived as Halil suddenly appears by her side. He mentions that he couldn’t find Cumali and all eyes now turn to the burning shop. Seyit Ali douses himself and a towel with water, covers his head and rushes into the burning building. We suspend our disbelief (a necessity in Turkish dizis) as somehow this elderly gentleman unleashes his superhuman powers and carries a deadweight Cumali out to safety on his back.
Driving home after the fire, Kenan stumbles upon Alpay in the street and slaps him around since he has realized that Alpay is the one who set the fire. He told Alpay that by doing so, he’d ruined all the plans that Kenan had prepared to exact revenge from the families. Alpay won’t listen to reason and being a firm believer that he is in the right whatever he does, tells Kenan he’s tired of being told what to do.
At the hospital, Cumali undergoes treatment and remains unconscious. The doctor says his many underlying health conditions and the smoke inhalation are cause for concern and recovery will take time. This provides the necessary gloom and doom for those in the waiting room. Zümrüt, Seyit Ali, Halil, Vildan and Melek try to reassure each other that Cumali will pull through. As Melek walks off to take a call, she meets her oncologist who reminds her not to forget her pills and to have her bloodwork done. Seyit Ali overhears this and asks Melek what’s wrong. She makes light of her conversation and says it was to do with her nose bleed last week and it’s nothing. Her name is Melek (angel) after all!
Halil and Melek have a heart to heart; he has suddenly realized how important his father is and that he gets all his strength from the knowledge that his father is by his side. This unerring love for a father, even one who is rigid, unforgiving and rules with an iron fist is very Turkish. A foreigner would more likely walk away but as we see throughout these episodes, Melek, Mahmut, Mithat and Halil all continue to strive for their fathers’ acceptance and approval no matter how stringent, inflexible and unloving he is in return.
Melek tells Halil how frightened she was that it might have been him in the fire. He reflects that we live as though we have all the time in the world and yet suddenly it might be too late. Melek is touched by this and puts her hand on his shoulder and he looks at her hand on his shoulder! Yes folks, that’s all you’re going to get! They have done a very good job of showing love and attraction in this show without much contact and I know it’s set in a more conservative part of Turkey where PDA is frowned upon but a teeny hug at this point would have been gratefully accepted…
Back in the waiting room Seyit Ali is on Mahmut’s case again blaming him for not paying attention to the shop, not doing his job and leaving the closing of the store to others. Halil calms everyone down before things get out of hand and they all head home except for Seyit Ali who will stay overnight with Cumali.
Zeynel and Mithat get together and start clearing up the burned out shops that night and are joined the next day by all the shopkeepers including Kenan who work together to clean and paint the shops. Seyit Ali arrives and proudly watches as Mithat installs the storefront window of the family’s kebab shop. The men are all singing as they work, which is both remarkable and not unusual in Turkey. Everyone seems to have a good voice and a penchant for melancholic songs.
A meeting is being held at the Han amongst all the shopkeepers. Kenan tells Alpay he should be there otherwise his absence will draw attention. Alpay begrudgingly agrees and sits sprawled in a chair looking at the sky; his insouciance fully on display. The police are preparing their report on the fire and everyone will be advised as soon as it’s ready. As Cumali and Seyit Ali arrive Alpay opines out loud how coincidental it was that a fire should start on the return of Cumali to the Han. This gets a rise out of Halil who is always primed and ready when it comes to the possibility of planting one on Alpay but Kenan intervenes. Halil asks Kenan if they could have the camera recordings for the night of the fire and he agrees to provide them, much to Alpay’s consternation. Alpay pulls Kenan aside and says if he thinks of burning him, he will get burned too…Alpay our tough guy!
Asli tries to make Kerem jealous as payback for not having called her, by showing interest in one of his teammates. Kerem confronts her and she tells him she did that to get his attention, that she likes him. They go out for a coffee.
Alpay sees Funda out shopping but she heads off in a taxi before he can catch up with her. He calls her but she hangs up the phone. He borrows a passer by’s phone to call her and she answers since it’s an unknown number. She tells him that until he comes to his senses, she doesn’t want to see him.
Seyran, upset at how miserable Mithat is due to the estrangement with his family decides to seek help from Nefise Hala (Mithat’s aunt). She explains how sad Mithat is and lays out her plan to reconcile them. Seyran will invite Melek and family for dinner and asks Nefise Hala to come with Seyit Ali. She does not hold out much hope that he will, however.
Our resident highly-strung bad guy Alpay angrily confronts Kenan and tells him he can’t go to jail again; that if Kenan gives the police his camera recordings, he will be done for. Kenan tells him he should have thought about that when he was burning the place down. Take that, Alpay!
Nevertheless, still helping out his friend for no good reason, Kenan gives Alpay the address where Funda is staying. The fact that Kenan had the address and didn’t tell Alpay earlier gives Alpay another excuse to strut his stuff and yell at Kenan. He then trots off in search of Funda to read her the riot act for daring to leave him…conveniently ignoring the fact that she did so because of his unreasonable jealousy of Melek.
Kenan tells his strong-arm man (Idris) to be careful with the cameras as Alpay is a loose cannon. Idris asks him if he is really going to turn Alpay in and Kenan says everyone has a day of reckoning…leaving us, the viewer, none the wiser.
Ünzile and Zeynel come across each other at the market. With regret, he explains that he won’t be able to keep his promise to ask for her hand in light of the fire at his shop. She expected this since a Turkish man without means cannot contemplate taking a wife. He tells Ünzile that he knows he can’t ask her to wait but if she does, he will come knocking as soon as he can. Ünzile’s response is a curt “geçmiş olsun” (there is no comparable English saying but it means “may it pass soon or hope you feel better soon”). We can’t tell from that what she thinks of the matter.
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The Police come around to the copperware studio and tell Halil that arson was the cause of the fire. They are all immediately convinced Alpay is the culprit.
Alpay sneaks his way into Funda’s hotel room by means of a room service waiter where he meets Funda’s niece who, no surprise, turns out to be the girl Kerem has just started showing an interest in. Alpay promises Funda he will not do anything again to upset her and convinces Funda to come back to him. Melek rushes off to confront Alpay about the arson. He tells her that the police report does not prove he did it and suggests that it was Mithat since he was not getting on well with Mahmut and might have wanted revenge. Melek looks at him with disgust and tells him that the truth will most certainly come out and she will remind him of this conversation then.
Once Melek leaves, Funda asks Alpay if he had anything to do with the fire. He says “of course not”..liar, liar, pants on fire! He says this fire has caused a problem between him and Kenan and he must go now and get hold of the camera records. Funda believes Alpay as always and forecasts Kenan’s demise..at least in Alpay’s life.
At the Antique shop, Alpay sees Kenan putting money into his safe. He argues with Kenan that Kenan is going to get him into trouble if he gives those camera records to the police. Kenan tells him that gasoline is his problem, that he made Melek an enemy and soon he will make Funda an enemy too. Alpay shouts at him and tells him that Funda was not in the hotel with anyone but her niece, she was not cheating on him. Kenan said he never inferred that in any case. Alpay gives a long parting look at the safe..so you just know!
Kenan who has continued his plan of revenge by buying up some of the neighboring shops in the Han now walks over to help Zeynel again with offers to assist financially. He fools Zeynel into believing that he thinks of Zeynel as a younger brother and offers to be his representative at the asking for the hand of Ünzile ceremony which Zeynel suddenly sees possible with the financial assistance on offer from Kenan.
At the Han, Halil tells Seyit Ali that the insurance people will be coming to meet with them concerning the fire. Seyit Ali calls Mahmut for the insurance policies. Mahmut doesn’t know anything about them. He says Mithat takes care of things like that. Seyit Ali says Mithat has not been working here for a while and it was Mahmut’s job. You can see Mahmut is going to die (figuratively).
Asli and Kerem are having coffee; they talk a little about their families. Asli tells him she’d met her aunt’s husband and his crazy ex-wife. She does not know that it’s Kerem’s beloved mother she’s talking about.
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The insurance agent meets with the two families at the Han. He assures Seyit Ali that Mithat had renewed the policies a few weeks ago and that all is in order. Seyit Ali is visibly comforted by this as a sign that Mithat did not completely write off is family…that and of course because it means they are insured for the fire! The police come over to Kenan’s shop and ask him for the camera records. He walks them over to the shop and in front of Alpay gives them the hard drive. When the police leave Alpay tells Kenan that he rues the day they became friends and questions how he could betray him like that. Kenan simply says we can’t go against the police.
Melek and Halil are in the hospital cafeteria. He says he will wait for the results and bring them over to her later. They are joined by Başak and Ihsan. Başak breaks down and tells them that Zehra has not been going to school and has gone off the rails. For this reason, they have no choice but to move to Ankara and be with her. I guess this is the end of Başak and Ihsan in the show.
Alpay goes home to pack a bag. He tells Funda he has to get away, to lie low for a while until the heat is off. He promises he won’t leave her, he will be back. He heads off to the antique shop. Kenan is not there and Alpay sends Idris away to buy him some pastries so as to get him out of the way and give him a chance to open the safe.
Back at Seyran and Mithat’s house, they are about to sit down for dinner when the doorbell rings. Mithat opens the door and is greeted by a sight he thought he’d never see; his father and aunt. Seyit Ali, realizing that Mithat had not given up on his family (having renewed the insurance policies even though he wasn’t working at the kebab shop) has swallowed his pride and made his family very happy at the same time.
Alpay figures out Kenan’s safe combination and removes a bunch of money from the safe. Just as he puts the envelope in the back of his pants, Kenan arrives with Idris. Alpay makes the excuse that he couldn’t find the car keys and came to the shop to look for them. Kenan reminds him that there are cameras everywhere and he saw him open the safe from his phone. Alpay says you gave the records to the police so our friendship is over…in Alpay’s mind enough reason to help himself to some of Kenan’s money. Kenan tells him he gave the police old recordings with the date changed to the fire day. He did not sell Alpay out and that from day one he has been trying to help Alpay even though Kenan’s own suffering with the death of his son was much more than anything Alpay was going through but Alpay didn’t understand and therefore their journey together is over. At this point, Idris shuts and locks the door on Kenan and Alpay and stands guard outside.
Halil meets with the oncologist for Melek’s results. He says the treatment is not working as they expected and they should be prepared for any eventuality. They will give Melek the dosage in smaller increments because it’s damaging her kidneys and hope for the best. Halil is in the car driving to Melek wondering how he is going to tell her this news and trying hard not to break down.
Approaching the final few minutes of episode 33..at Seyran and Mithat’s house Melek is trying to remove a stain from her father’s shirt when her pill container falls out of her pocket. Seyit Ali picks them up and asks her what is wrong with her…and there is our cliffhanger for the week.
