SPOILER ALERT
In Episode 22, Cüneyd had asked Mira to look out into the anonymous city and pick a house without lights, to imagine it as her own. As the poeticism of Attila Ilhan’s Zeynep, Beni Bekle evokes his memories of a Zeynep being an important person to him, it leads him to the streets of his neighborhood. He looks at one dark window after another but he rightfully stops in front of the home he had shared with Zeynep. It pulls him in and, finding the girl he had met earlier that day, he keeps demanding of Zeynep if she is the one. He grabs hold of her arm and her alarmed look of disbelief triggers his first seizure since he lost himself months ago. And thus we get another eventful episode that artfully explores Cüneyd’s painful path back to himself, his tenuous hold on what he holds dear and Zeynep’s interplay within his consciousness.
Within the backdrop of an escalating showdown between Vahid and Levent, Zeynep emerges as the brilliant puppet master. While she focuses on being a savior for all girls in her sect, we have the contrasting selfishness of Mira who hides her sense of inadequacy under her obnoxious behavior in making Meryem choose between her and Zeynep. While the restrictive rules imposed in the sect by Vahid reveals the resilience of the people suffering under it, we see the self-centered narrative of the secularists in the way of Mira, who take such freedoms for granted.
From the innermost journey of a troubled mind looking to connect with a sense of self to broader societal conflicts, the rich narrative in Kızıl Goncalar brings viewers back week after week.
Who is Cüneyd?
Much of season 1 was littered with Cüneyd’s recurrent nightmares of being chased by an unknown force, as he asked himself ‘where is Cüneyd?’. His mother’s echoing voice always tormented him, as a reminder of events he needed to remember. Upon Vahid’s return, confronted by the trauma of understanding that he was instrumental in his mother’s death, Cüneyd’s guilt suppresses the fragile self that had emerged since her death. During the months of his dissociative state, his subconscious has now replaced a loving mother with a demanding one, who has every right to command his next actions. After all, he killed her and he owes his life to her. Her voice has become increasingly belligerent, the red guard against any step that can take him back into his past self.
Once again, Zeynep becomes the catalyst for Cüneyd connecting with his truth. Similar to Episode 4 where her touch ignites his memories of his mother, once again her touch ignites a re-connection of his alter ego Levent with Cüneyd. After he falls unconscious upon holding her arm, she cleverly gets him to safety while putting herself out in the front lines to keep him protected.
His first encounter with Sadi and his followers is overwhelming. Prompted by his self-protective subconscious in the form of Gülayşe, he makes a run for it until he is subdued by Levent. Being seen by Vahid’s followers is dangerous and, as such, being in the hospital under Levent’s care is the safest choice.
His conversation with Levent is enlightening. He accepts that his name is Cüneyd. Through his questions for Levent, we also see Cüneyd remember snippets of his former self. Most of his sense of being as Cüneyd is related to his feelings for Zeynep, because she is the reason for his strongest positive feelings about himself and his physical life. In a repeat of the mystical story about the two fish in search of water, he remembers that Zeynep is the other fish searching for water.
The example of the little fish who question ‘what is water’ to the example of the blue and red pen, both are rooted in German philosopher Hegel’s theory of duality and the self. The theory explores the relationship between the self and otherness as a central element of human awareness and activity. How one defines oneself is not only a function of what he is, but also a function of what he is not.
As in the discovery at the end of Amak’I Hayal by Hikmi that is referenced in my review for Episode 22, nothingness and existence is the same. That is a concept Levent had alluded to in the library in 22 but he makes it more concrete through his examples here. Thus, Levent seeds the idea for how Cüneyd begins to accept himself as Cüneyd, an important member of his sect, and how he slowly transitions away from thinking of himself as Levent. He seeds Cüneyd with the idea of self-awareness. Interestingly, after this scene, while he continues to hear Zeynep refer to him as Cüneyd, his next hallucinations of Gülayşe refers to him as ‘müjdem’ or the chosen one. He is beginning to separate from the tight hold Gülayşe has had on him since the start of his dissociative state.
Still swirling within this existential crisis, Cüneyd feels crushed under the guilt he has internalized. He believes that everything he touches dies, while Gülayşe’s insistence increases in having him run away from his past. In this demented state he runs into Nihal, a girl he had encountered in the first episode. A fellow mate of the psychiatric ward whom Cüneyd helped to heal, through his words and actions against her incestuous father, Nihal evokes other memories of himself. She obviously knows him as Cüneyd while he still struggles to understand who he is. He runs back to his room, tormented from the struggle between his mind and his soul.
Refusing to take his medications, he further slides into a full psychotic episode as he finds himself back in the same morgue where he took refuge after his first relapse in Episode 4. We haven’t seen it yet, but the morgue must hold some significance to his past. Perhaps the morgue is where Gülayşe’s body had been brought and maybe that is where he first experienced a psychological event that started to erase his memories surrounding Gülayşe’s death. It might have been the beginning of the illusion that helped his spiritual and intellectual growth into who he became, at the expense of his physical memories. Thus, if this assumption proves correct, a return to the morgue where he faces the worst of himself is an important aspect of his recovery.
During his last psychotic episode ending in the morgue, Levent had made Cüneyd look into a mirrored tray which answered the question of where is Cüneyd? He had said Cüneyd was there, in the present, with Levent. This time, Cüneyd picks up the tray and blocks out Gülayşe so he can see himself.
It is the continuation of his separation from Gülayşe’s influence on his psyche. He’s fighting her as he looks to reconnect with himself.
As he dares to look into the mirror, we come to understand an important concept in Sufism. Mirrors are an essential symbol in the belief system where everything we see out there is a reflection of our inner self. If we see flaws in our reflection, it is not the mirror that is flawed. When Cüneyd looks at himself in the mirror with the awareness that he is looking at Cüneyd, he tells Gülayşe that “The flaw is in me.” With this declaration he devolves into a violent psychotic episode that can only be brought under control with strong-armed restraint and sedation.
Let Him Free
During his next conscious moment, he sees Zeynep after she saves him from an attempted electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), a method often used for mental health patients experiencing hallucinations or delusions. It is still a procedure with controversial outcomes such as memory loss, a forcefully subdued personality and more. Through her timely intervention, Cüneyd is spared. As soon as he opens his eyes, he recognizes her. He accepts that they know each other, that his only memory is of her because she is important.
This has been a recurring theme. Zeynep’s compassionate and loving presence is the only positive in his recent memory while most of his other relationships have been traumatic. From Sadi’s power struggle with him, to Hasna’s manipulations to Feyza’s obsession to Vahid’s oppression, since his mother and grandfather’s death Cüneyd has no one in his inner family sphere he can fully trust and love. Sadi has redeemed himself in our eyes since but the doubts may have remained in Cüneyd’s mind from their troubled history.
And this is why Zeynep’s words and actions reach him in ways nothing else does. She invites him to embrace his fate; seeing his struggle with himself, she tells him to follow his heart. Even if he chooses to live without remembering, she wants him to live because knowing that he is out there somewhere gives her hope. She gives him back his book of poetry and releases him from any emotional shackles he might feel he has with her.
This is the depth of Zeynep’s love for Cüneyd. Stuck in the depths of the swamp created by Vahid, Zeynep has learnt to become her own savior and she ceases to look for Cüneyd to come and save her. This has always been Zeynep’s unique story. Gifted with the genius of a discerning mind and the clarity of her soul, she has always been the perfect complement to Cüneyd’s spiritual genius. They complete each other but they can also be their own people without the other.
And this is also why it is with Zeynep that Cüneyd takes another important step forward. He is able to tell Zeynep about his dream about being chased by another version of Cüneyd but then not being able to get through an important door. He plaintively asks Zeynep what would he find if he opened it and she says he would remember everything. At the same time, Gülayşe tells him that she’s the one holding the door. We can only see it in the masterful performances by Mert and Mina, but Cüneyd finds clarity about how Zeynep is enabling him without any strings attached while the manifestation of his mother holds him back. He leaves the hospital to go far away as Zeynep suggested, but there is purpose in his gait as Cüneyd.
External Forces That Define Us
Levent suggests to Cüneyd that it is the sect and the life he was forced to live there that are partly responsible for his current state. For all his wisdom and constructive methods of helping Cüneyd, Levent’s biased approach to his healing process is a disservice to the kind of help Cüneyd really needs. In the first season, Levent’s decisions were colored by trying to save Zeynep and this season his decisions are colored by the sect’s misdoings under Vahid’s leadership. He wants to keep Cüneyd away from the dangers of the sect while he ignores the spiritual healing Cüneyd can explore through his faith, among people who love him.
The reality is that Cüneyd is destroyed by both his parents’ psychological torture, inadvertent or intentional. Pinning issues rooted in such broken relationships within his core memories to a wider systemic problem is irresponsible. Every answer to Cüneyd’s problems isn’t to walk away from the sect. Much of it is in healing from the trauma of the psychological pressures created by his father Vahid, that made him believe he killed his mother and that he kills whatever he touches. More than Levent, the only person who truly began to heal Cüneyd from this trauma is Zeynep, whose spirituality and clarity of thought is as strong as his. While Levent gave him tools to understand his psychological challenges, Zeynep gave him the strength to overcome them.
In a similar vein, there is another scenario where Levent’s position is well-intentioned but misled. When he takes Meryem to task on what she told Mira about the value of the hijab to her, his lecture is condescending. He gently chastises Meryem for her views and tells her that she is being indirectly judgmental of secularist choices. On the contrary, she had shared the reasons why she valued the hijab and did not feel out of place at a restaurant Mira had intentionally picked to make her uncomfortable. He is also duped by Mira's act of demure acceptance of Meryem’s views as she pointedly throws bottles of alcohol away. Instead of giving Mira confidence about her chosen identity, our renowned psychiatrist once again ignores his daughter’s manipulation and tries to fix the other party. This assumption that his own principles are the gold standard is problematic. His self-righteousness hurts others in ways he doesn’t fully appreciate.
Much as I have admired Levent’s integrity and devotion to his loved ones, his lens is skewed with not enough self-reflection. He judges Naim’s fatherhood while his own daughter – the one stolen from Naim - is out of hand. He begrudges the moral corruption in the sect but doesn’t question ones in the secular world. Why is he not digging more into who is sponsoring Vahid? All the technology Vahid has access to is not created or funded by sermonizing imams with struggling purses. There are sinister forces orchestrating all this and, while it seems easy to demonize the religious entities, further investigation may expose an intertwined quagmire where the lines between the secular and religious are horribly blurred. I am hoping that future episodes will hold up a mirror to both worlds in a more balanced way.
Shero
On a completely separate thread, Levent, Hande and Zeynep are colluding to undermine Vahid after the opportunity created by Melike and her viral suicide video. After a couple of misdirections, Zeynep orchestrates an outcome where Levent exposes Vahid’s duplicity in creating an illusion around letting the girls from the sect study. Once revealed to the state agencies, Vahid is forced to allow the girls to go to school.
Zeynep is the soft-spoken shero who never took her eyes off her goal of taking care of the girls in the sect. Despite all her own troubles, she sacrifices her freedom to help improve it for everyone. She quietly champions Meryem’s proposed marriage to Levent because now her mother will be safe. Not once does she think of her own benefit first. She doesn’t need to be seen as the martyr or the long-suffering woman who gives up all her happiness for others but I see her as a symbol of faithful resilience who finds happiness in serving others. Her heart and intentions are so pure that the universe will reward her in ways she cannot imagine yet. For one so young, she has fully embraced her qadr and trusts that Allah will guide her to the right place. She’s no wallflower in this journey. My hats off to every writer who had any contribution to the creation of Zeynep because admirable female characters like her is very rare in diziland.
In contrast, Meryem is louder and the more touted shero of the story but her choices remain myopic even after all that she has been through. She glibly asks Levent to marry her so she can protect her girls. Once again, she is overriding Zeynep’s agency in creating her own space and wants to force her into the life that Meryem thinks is right for her. I imagine that Meryem will also force Zeynep to be the magnanimous one in forgiving and embracing Mira’s ill-mannered approach to their new discovery of sisterhood. It is repeatedly unfair to Zeynep to be burdened with forced acceptance just because she makes the effort to be more understanding.
This aspect of motherhood is a tough challenge but we must let our girls become who they wish and are meant to be. They are not gifted to us so we can build them in our image and keep being the puppeteer in what they can or should not do. While maintaining the respect a mother commands by being a mother, she must let go and let her girls fly. She can only provide a safety net when they fall but trying to hold on to their wings while they take flight may injure them in unintended ways. It will be interesting to see how Meryem manages the blending of the two girls as sisters.
Full Circle
Last week, I mentioned about the divine hand and how it is embedded in the artistic elements in the series. We see it again this week when Cüneyd finds his way to Lokman as Vahid descends upon him. As Vahid and his goons are roughhousing Lokman for the location of the La Adri book, Cüneyd appears with the book in hand and he burns it. He is nonchalant against Vahid’s ground stomping tantrum and when Vahid calls him brainless for the umpteenth time, he calmly says, “judging by your reaction, I did the right thing.” Without remembering what Vahid represents in his life, and the harm he has caused to Cüneyd, this revenge is simply divine!
Cüneyd may yet be far from fully reconnecting with who he used to be, but his journey back to self-awareness is beautifully written and executed. From directorial language to Mert’s performance, the story is stellar. With so many important threads running concurrently, it is a challenge every week to give each one its due importance. I noted the ones that I felt compelled to provide a commentary on and I hope they resonated with my readers.
Till next week!
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@ Article Copyright by mh./ [@entrespire, twitter]. Follow me on Instagram: @soul_phoems
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