Episode 7 went from Serkan and Eda recognizing their vulnerabilities about falling in love with each other to a string of events that lead to Serkan asking Eda to leave. It is a beautifully crafted narrative of preconceptions, misperceptions, misinterpretations and a lack of faith in the reality of love and what that exposes the heart to. With a fandom that is heartbroken by the separation at the end of the episode, there is a proclivity to debate over the right and wrong of the character’s choices. The reality is that there are no winners or losers in the game of love – you either win together or you don’t. What I like is that Ayse creates credible scenarios that deepens the chasm of misunderstanding between two people who cannot help but be in love with each other.
LOST IN TRANSLATION
Serkan has made two things very clear from the beginning. His goal is to make sure Selin and Ferit break up and once the contract is over, he will not impose upon Eda any longer.
Eda has been unequivocal about verbally expressing how much she detests having to play his fiancée, how much she hates him and how much she’s looking forward to this contract period to be done.
More often than not, what we say and what we mean are completely different things. Judged by their actions towards each other, they have all the foundations for an epic relationship – mutual respect, mutual desire to protect the other, a mutual admiration for each other’s physical and emotional qualities, but because they both believe that the other wants to leave at the end of the contract period, they are restrained in how they express their love.
Since their start together, as they have gotten to know each other more, there has been a growing friendship, fascination with and comfort in each other that has been such a natural progression to their dynamics that neither realized how deeply they were embedded in each other until they shared their first hug after Serkan’s guitar performance for Eda. It’s as though the physical closeness finally broke the revere for Eda and she realizes that she has allowed Serkan into her personal space. Both are deeply affected by this development in their relationship. She welcomed his physical touch, and his soul will never be the same.
This, coupled with Ayfer’s assertion that Eda has fallen in love, leads to a state of confusion for Eda. She wants to believe that Serkan may truly love her but she convinces herself that all his attention towards her are part of his game to win back Selin, and she cannot allow herself to sink further. She believes he will abandon her when his objective has been met. To her, the lines are blurry between which of his gestures are authentic.
A divergent path to love
And her confusion coincides with when Serkan begins to take mindful steps towards wanting more time with Eda. He waits to pick her up with the car top already down, he tries to protect his birthday evening for possible plans with Eda, he saves a box of chocolates for her, he chooses to eventually have dinner with her and several more subtle gestures that are his tenuous efforts to show her that he wants to be with her and it is not only a part of the game.
And yet, due to their individual misconceptions, they find themselves on a divergent path that questions their faith in each other and in the possibility of a relationship.
TRUST STARTS WITH TRUTH AND ENDS WITH TRUTH
The difficulty of their relationship lies in the fact that it is built on a web of lies and a facade of a relationship. Within that web, they have shared many moments that were not for anyone but themselves, which have laid the foundation for their uncontrollable feelings. While Serkan sees the authenticity of Eda’s personality and discerns that in her spontaneity she expresses her genuine pleasure at being with him, Serkan is harder to read. Eda cannot trust Serkan’s feelings, which is further fueled by her selective eavesdropping of the Serkan/ Engin conversation about Selin needing to choose between Ferit and Serkan. This sets in motion Eda’s stand-offish behavior for the rest of the day, where she is struggling to keep herself away from Serkan and allow him the space to choose Selin without remorse.
It becomes obvious at Serkan’s dinner with Selin that Serkan has no illusions about where his feelings belong. He always intended to offer to buy out Selin’s shares if she’s unwilling to part ways with Ferit. This is why he always said it would not take more than a few minutes to have his conversation with her. He trusts Selin implicitly, but he doesn’t trust Ferit and his connection to Kaan, and the ways Selin can be inadvertently manipulated by Kaan to hurt the interests of the holding company. He also tells Selin when asked if Eda is appropriate for him, “No, I am not the right one for her and she’s probably already tired of me.”
Without insight into his thoughts around this topic, there is no way for Eda to surmise that Serkan’s interests in Selin is platonic and it is Eda who suffocates his waking thoughts.
When words remain unspoken and interpretations of the silence are left to the other person, it is near impossible to trust in the truth.
2 + 2 = 5
In the way Ayse unfolds the narrative, both Eda and Serkan’s erroneous assumptions are rooted in credible circumstances. Even though she spends the whole day staying aloof from Serkan on his birthday, we get insight that 1) she genuinely believes that Serkan wants time with Selin and this is further confirmed for her when he doesn’t fight for an outcome otherwise 2) Eda feels insecure about what she can do for Serkan in face of the opulence he is used to and that makes her shy away from pushing for time with her ‘fiancé’.
Within this backdrop, her look of pure joy when he comes to her later that evening is my favorite sequence in this episode. They both wanted to be together, and they express this through extraneous actions such as Serkan deigning to have rich and unhealthy food to be with her, Eda keeping his birthday present with her and having a cupcake ready to share, and the deep thought she puts into the gift she gets for him. She lets him kiss her cheeks and they both know that the moment they share is authentic. Serkan chose her over Selin.
VC: @sencalkapimi.englishxx | IG
In the morning, Eda is back to forcing herself to remember that this relationship has no future and begins to act aloof again. Serkan expressing plans B and C of how the Birol project will get handled when Eda leaves at the end of the contract period reinforces her beliefs. Despite the tension, Serkan cannot help but express his affection for Eda, asking her to join him for coffee and alluding to her as the fairy who doesn't need any inspiration. She still holds back.
VC: @mineleesi_ | twitter
It is this aloofness that Serkan misinterprets as Eda having something important to hide from him, and when Kaan’s duplicity comes to light, coupled with the fact that from Serkan’s vantage point no one other than Eda had access to the designs, his outburst is a function of 1) his growing sense of discomfort at how much Eda affects him and 2) his fear of being abandoned which he brings to fruition by pushing the boundaries of his interactions with Eda. It is almost as if he needs to know that she would not leave him no matter what. The sad part is that Eda also has the same insecurities.
Sometimes we interpret clues to validate inarticulate notions we have in our heads, believing what we want to believe, and both Eda and Serkan are shown to do the same. She interprets clues to confirm her fear that Serkan wants Selin, and he uses clues to confirm that Eda will leave him.
FAMILY BONDS
We get more insight into the broken relationship Serkan has with Alptekin. A father son bond is so important in helping the son to establish healthy relationship goals in life, and it is obvious that this bond is greatly amiss for these two. Part of it may lie in the process of grief for a bereaved parent. After losing a son, Alptekin may have consumed himself in work as a coping mechanism and maintains a distance with Serkan so that he cannot be hurt that deeply ever again.
For Serkan’s birthday, Alptekin gives his present through Selin even though he picks thoughtful gifts. For this birthday, he gives Serkan a rare edition of The Little Prince by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a story that talks about human personality archetypes through a fantastical story told through a Little Prince who travels across planets.
Indirectly, Alptekin tries to connect with Serkan by providing guidelines to live a life of meaning, but those of us who have gone through the process of life-consuming grief understand that when we come out on the other side (if we ever really do), we often lack the expression to build any more bridges. As his lone surviving child, Serkan has absorbed the brunt of the grieving process of his parents, which may also lead to his own repressed feelings and lacking abilities in emotional expressions.
{I have to mention as a side note that Kerem Bursin has portrayed this particular dimension of a bereaved sibling exceptionally well, both in Gunesi Beklerken as teenager Kerem Sayer, and now in Sen Cal Kapimi as a more mature Serkan.}
Within the empire he has built, Alptekin is focused on Serkan stepping in to the protect the labor of his life’s work, even if it means cutting off from what Serkan loves. This is Alptekin’s love language. Building the empire was his act of service for his family, and he wants for Serkan to show a similar language of love by stepping into his father’s desires as his act of service. What Alptekin probably under-appreciates is that in his own meticulous way, Serkan does have the holding’s best interests at heart and has every intention of honoring his father’s desires – in his own time.
SUFFER IN SILENCE
Sometimes our experiences scar us so deeply, we lose the ability to genuinely connect with others. All of Alptekin, Aydan, Serkan and Eda deal with repressed feelings and have become experts at presuming and internalizing. As a result, they end up creating their own hell on Earth.
They are all seeking love and validation, in different ways, and retreat into their shells when their first forays into asking for such love is rebuffed. We see this when Aydan finally reaches out to Alptekin for his time but it may be too little too late. They both have walls up from years of silence and as such he doesn’t hear her desperate tone when she calls him and she doesn’t understand that Alptekin is coping in the only ways he knows how, in his solitude.
Similarly, Serkan is unfamiliar with really opening up with anyone. He finally does so with Eda on the night he plays the guitar for her and the very next day, on his birthday, she starts to act strange. It may be that he feels burnt after reaching out just like his mother does. Eda has already experienced this with Serkan when he became rude and unapproachable the night after their engagement. If reaching for love continually leads to pain, at some point one stops doing so.
Each of them harbors so much insecurity about love and stability that they would rather suffer in their silence rather than open their hearts with full abandon and take the risk to be hurt. Maybe it is too late for the older couple to claw back the time they lost and rebuild something that is memorable, but it is not for Eda and Serkan.
I believe it is this journey of their individual healing that we will witness in ensuing episodes, as they learn to rise above their insecurities and be open to love. Just like the princess who was willing to transform herself and remain bare to the scorching powers of Apollo, the Sun God. Except that such a mythical, painful experience of eternal separation need not be endured for our beloved pair.
PRODUCTION
I remain enchanted with Ayse’s script. She has the soul of a poet and it reflects in how the plots are designed and paced. In addition to her stellar script, the entire production team is excellent. The set design, costumes, make-up, performances, behind the scenes rapport and so much more tell the story of a tightly knit, hard-working team and every accolade the show receives is well-deserved.
There are no dull moments in each episode, and every interaction is steeped in layers. I cannot address all of them in these weekly posts but none of the characters are wasted, a frequent gripe I have with many other dizi productions. In this episode, we see Melo’s naivete in spades and the deep effects it leaves on her friends, but it is also the same naivete and zeal for life that brought Serkan to Eda on the night of his birthday. Melo’s lack of maturity in the relationship with Kaan seems a little far-fetched but I make room for that in the anticipation that she will come roaring back to claim her crown as a queen who shouldn’t have been taken for a ride to begin with.
As the fandom awaits the next episode, I know I speak for many who would not want the anguish to extend for too long. We live in difficult times as it is and being able to witness hope, dreams and love is far more uplifting than the grinding process of working through life’s many debilitating issues.
Kerem and Hande’s pairing is perfect for the characters they play, the intensity in their performances a testament to their immense talent and hard work. Their expressions captured in this last scene beautifully portrays the balance of their inner most desires, fears and what their perceived reality is.
Till we meet again.
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@ Article Copyright by mh./ [@entrespire, twitter]. Follow me on Instagram: @soul_phoems
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