Series / Sadakatsiz

The wrath of a woman scorned is worse than the fires of hell.

Sadakatsiz is the Turkish Foreign Remake of the British drama Doctor Foster, directed by Neslihan Yeşilyurt. Its title translates as Unfaithful.

Like its source, it revolves around an apparently happy marriage being a farse — the husband has been cheating on his wife for two years and the wife now has to uncover the truth and fight to keep custody of her son.

The difference with the original drama, however, lies in its length. Sadakatsiz is an Adaptation Expansion consisting of 149 chapters (as listed in HBO Max) of about 40 minutes each. The key plot points are kept but padded with many subplots, some deriving from the protagonists' actions while some being the result of some characters becoming Ascended Extras with their own bones to pick.

Cansu Dere has the leading role of doctor Asya Yilmaz, the wronged wife. It also stars Caner Cindoruk as Volkan Arslan, the unfaithful husband, and Melis Sezen as Derin Güçlü, his extramarital affair.

It started airing on 7 October 2020 and released its final episode on 25 May 2022 on Kanal D. It's also available on HBO Max.

Warning: Due to the sheer length of this series, spoilers of the first season will be unmarked.

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This series provides examples of:

• Actor Allusion: Cansu Dere has the lead role in another production involving a mother figure who is willing to veer into illicit acts and manipulate people in order to ensure her child's happiness and safety. As well as making sure said child stays with her. Coincidentally, the Turkish Drama Anne is also a Foreign Remake. This is given a subtle nod with the naming. In Anne, Dere's character is called Zeynep. In Sadakatsiz, Zeynep is the name of Asya's (Dere's character) not-quite stepdaughter—also, Asya and baby Zeynep are Mirror Characters. Furthermore, Dere's mother in Anne is called Gönül Aslan. In Sadakatsiz, Gönül is also an elderly mother who interacts a lot with Dere's character, just with an antagonistic dynamic. Moreover, Aslan is an alternative spelling of the surname Arslan. At the beginning of the series, Dere's character is Asya Arslan because she married a man with that surname. In Anne, the situation is inverted—Gönül Güneş neé Aslan divorced her husband when he cheated on her, so she returned to her maiden surname.
• Adaptation Expansion: Like most foreign remakes, Doctor Foster has been turned from a miniseries to a 141-episode long (each one having a 1-hour duration) series. The key plot points are kept but due to Gemma's counterpart falling out of love with her ex-husband, there are many storylines about him wanting to win her back while the mistress fights for the opposite. Combined with the added backstories for several secondary characters, the story gets inflated a lot without falling prey to constant flashbacks and reused sequences.
• Affair Hair: Invoked. Derin plants clues for Asya to discover Volkan's infidelity so she can upgrade from Volkan's mistress to his wife. For example, she leaves her lipstick inside one of his pockets and her very distinguishable blond hair strands in the folds of his dark-colored jackets. For context, Asya's hair is brown and Volkan's is a graying black.
• Alliterative Family:
  • Ali's mother is doctor Asya, whose mother is, in turn, Ayla. All of their names start with "a" and some characters are shared, such as the "l" in Ali and Ayla and the "y" and "a" in Asya and Ayla. In a twist of this being Played for Drama, Asya's father's mistress is also named Asya. In fact, he invokes this trope by naming his daughter after the love of his life.
  • Teased but ultimately subverted with Asya and Aras. They are going to marry and Aras has a strong interest in getting along with Ali. However, shortly before they can start a new life, they break up.
  • Zigzagged with Haluk and Hicran, whose names start with "h". Haluk is deeply in love with Gönül and is going to marry her. However, he has an affair with Hicran (she's a sex worker) that results in a son whom Haluk rejects out of fear of losing Gönül. Haluk and Hicran don't love each other and are never really a family.
  • Selen and her mother Serap. Both of their names start with "s".
  • Aras and his mother Ayse have their names start with "a". Doubled down with Alliterative Name seeing that their surname is Ateşoğlu.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Several characters have both their first and last names starting with the phoneme "a": Ali Arslan, Aras Ateşoğlu, and Ayse Ateşoğlu, and Asya Arslan. However, Asya's case is special because she divorces her husband, so she returns to being named Asya Yilmaz during most of the show's run, making her a subversion.
  • After becoming Haluk's wife, Gönül adopts the surname Güçlü, thus both of her names start with a soft "g".
• Answer Cut: Gönül wonders where her brother Melih has spent the night. The scene then changes to a shot of him and Bahar sharing Bahar's bed, both naked.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Derin demands from her mother Gönül whether she will help her with her schemes to keep Volkan by her side. Subverted because while Gönül doesn't answer, it's not because she ought to reconsider and come to her daughter's aid but because she's at her wits' end. Derin has gone too far in trying to secure a man too fickle to love anyone, so Gönül can't, in good conscience, keep helping her with that. In fact, her silence is implied to be an Armor-Piercing Response to Derin—who, of course, ignores it.
• Back-to-Back Poster: Kanal D's promotional poster for the series has doctor Asya and her unfaithful husband behind her. She is facing the viewer and holding up her bloodied ring hand, while he is in a "Back to Camera" Pose, with his head turned to sneak a glance at the viewer.
• Bastard Bastard: Selçuk is the product of Haluk cheating on his then fiancé with a prostitute called Hicran. Selçuk is initially introduced as Nil's abusive boyfriend, who has stalker tendencies and hits her due to his anger issues. He even becomes one of Volkan's goons for a while, doing his dirty work—mostly, scaring Asya into leaving Tekirdağ— in exchange for money and as revenge for Asya helping Nil break up with him.
• Battered Bouquet: A Running Gag is Volkan trying to win Asya's heart by giving her a bouquet of white roses. Asya always throws them in the trash.
• Big Eater: Suna, the Güçlüs' nanny, is a chubby woman whose weakness is food. And whose it wouldn't be when you work for a rich family? While not an overplayed trait (her being good with kids being far more prominent), it can sometimes be seen in light-hearted moments. Especially when the Güçlüs' drama becomes too much. For example, when Derin is too unhappy to eat due to marriage problems, Suna silently eats the fruit pie slice Derin rejects (along with the rest of the pie, really). When Derin's mother Gönül goes to grab another slice, she finds none and teases Suna for it. On another occasion, Gönül's friend Cavidan brings spinach pies to cheer Gönül up (she is upset over her daughter slowly ruining her own life). Suna offers herself to take the cake to the kitchen, only for Cavidan to refuse and jokingly say that Suna will surely eat all the pies before anyone else has a chance.
• Breather Episode: Invoked by Gönül and doctor Derya. Bahar is respectively their sister-in-law and friend, and she is having a hard pregnancy due to her age (she's in her forties), being a new mother, and suffering from a lung illness. Furthermore, Bahar and her husband Melih have gotten caught in the middle of a nasty dispute between Bahar's friends and Melih's family, which also causes her a fair amount of stress. So, the day Bahar takes the test to find out the baby's gender, Derya (who is also her gynecologist), holds the information from Bahar and Melih, only telling Gönül. Together, they organize a baby gender reveal party to "celebrate and give Bahar a breather from all of the negativity". In a meta sense, the episode where this happens still has some plot-related stuff going on that keeps the viewer invested but doesn't affect either Bahar or Melih.
• Calling the Young Man Out: Because of all the drama stirred by his parent's divorce, Ali develops kleptomania as a coping mechanism. His mother doctor Asya eventually finds out and, after consulting with a psychiatrist friend, decides to retrieve the stolen items from Ali's bedroom and return them to the school on the condition that the thief's identity remains unknown. Unfortunately from her, the opposite happens. Ali's classmates start alienating him, so he lashes out at his mother and decides to go live with his father Volkan out of spite. Volkan scolds Ali for his disrespectful, dismissive attitude — telling him that his mother only wants to help him and that he's hurting her greatly by acting like this.
• Character Development: Due to her husband's infidelity, the stressful consequences of it, and especially Derin's homicide attempt, Asya sets out to live her life to the fullest. She's shown enjoying life more and being more passionate; which is a sharp contrast with her colder, more reserved (to love) attitude. This is signaled by her interior design being livelier after she moves from Istambul.
• The Corrupter:
  • Volkan is a Crazy Jealous Guy obsessed with his former wife Asya. He explodes whenever any men approach Asya, especially if they are courting her. Consequently, he shamelessly takes advantage of the fact that Ali, their son, is Asya's weakness — she will prioritize Ali's comfort and happiness over even her own. This is the most glaring with Aras, the first man Asya falls in love with after the fiasco of her marriage. At first, Ali and Aras get along pretty well over their shared love for video games. Volkan then poisons Ali's mind about how Aras cannot be trusted because he's violent and a stranger. Volkan is also preying on Ali's worry over his mother's well-being (she had a near-death experience last year). This results in Ali opposing Aras and Asya's blooming relationship. He yells and offends Aras at every turn, gets into increasingly disobedient acts (from ignoring his mother to getting into a bar brawl), and lies about Aras beating him.
  • Downplayed with İpek seeing that she's not a villainous character (more like a misguided kid) but a bad influence nonetheless. Her family life is horrible: her parents are divorced, her stepfather hits her, and her father is a criminal. This causes her to try "adult stuff" (drinking, smoking, sneaking away, etc.) to make her parents pay attention to her. When she meets Ali and Demir, the former's parents are already divorced while the latter's family is having a crisis. She convinces them to attend a college party in a fishy part of the town to have fun and forget their stupid family problems. There, she tries to get them to drink alcohol and convinces Ali to drive (he doesn't have his license) to buy booze. This ends with them suffering a mild car accident together. Later, when Ali's hatred for his stepfather reaches a peak and he throws a massive tantrum (he destroys some of his house's furniture and his console), İpek suggests he blames his stepfather and teaches him how to bruise his own arm.
  • Ceren starts as a reasonable, confident girlfriend who doesn't feel threatened by her boyfriend Selçuk's ex working at the restaurant he owns. That is until Selçuk confesses to Ceren that he was never quite able to move on from Nil and ends their relationship. By contrast, Derin, Ceren's closest friend, has been in a similar situation since before her marriage started and is a very Clingy Jealous Girl. So, when a heartbroken Ceren goes to Derin for comfort, Derin starts teaching Ceren her ways — while Derin is mostly good-intentioned, her own lack of dignity and toxic ideal of love cause her advice to be awful. Derin convinces Ceren to keep seeing Selçuk by appealing to his compassionate nature. And, when their last encounter leaves Ceren pregnant of him, Derin relentlessly pushes Ceren to cause strife in Selçuk and Nil's restarted relationship. Them getting married only incenses Ceren further.
• Damsel Fight-and-Flight Response: Derin is wandering on the streets at night when she stumbles on İpek's father, whom she sued for fraud. She runs and even discards her high heels. He catches up to her and is about to assault her when she hits him with her purse. Whatever was inside that thing must have been hard because he's left momentarily disoriented. Even then, his thirst for revenge keeps him going after her. Fortunately, she convinces a random stranger to shield her from her pursuer.
• Damsel out of Distress: Volkan recruits Selçuk as a grunt in his crusade to scare Doctor Asya out of town. While at first is just vandalism —breaking her windows and sending death threats—, Asya's refusal to budge frustrates the pair and they escalate. Volkan then instructs Selçuk to break into her house and threaten her directly. Unfortunately for Volkan, Selçuk does have a bone to pick and dismisses Volkan's warnings about harming Asya. After he notices she's called for help, he starts choking her. She manages to grab a vase and smack him in the head. This alerts Asya's friends to come back, which stops Selçuk in his tracks and prompts him to flee.
• Dramatic Irony: Played for Drama. Because Doctor Asya hasn't started a new romantic relationship since her divorce, everyone wrongly assumes that she still loves her ex-husband Volkan. Opinions on Volkan are the exact opposite, seeing he's married his mistress Derin. The truth is another matter entirely — Asya is content with living with her son Ali and Volkan is unhealthily obsessed with his ex-wife, so he keeps hounding and harassing her. When Derin goes missing, the rumors cause everyone to suspect Asya and Volkan of having disposed of Derin so they can resume their relationship.
• Eagle-Eye Detection: Asya is extremely observant, so she quickly notices any sort of discrepancy such as misplaced objects or people acting weirdly. Before discovering her husband's unfaithfulness, she was perceptive but her trusting nature caused her to dismiss them or let be assuaged by her loved one's reassurances. Now, she's quick to suspect foul play.
• Easily Forgiven: Ali almost always gets scot-free despite his worsening behavior thanks to his parent being divorced and neither wanting to alienate their son. Ali's mother Asya was always the one to discipline Ali but that caused the kid to rather his father have his full custody. Since then, Asya's method of educating him is to scold him but never really ground him. She tries to reach out to him but Ali's tendency to just leave or tell her he doesn't want to talk tends to render this tactic moot. On his part, Ali's father Volkan only scolds Ali when he's being blatantly disrespectful and, even then, tends to leave it at that. Worse even, whenever Volkan stands something to gain from Ali's rebellious behavior, he actually encourages/manipulates the kid to keep doing so. The only time Ali gets grounded is when he lies about his stepfather-to-be Aras hitting him. Even then, he only gets his electronics rights revoked for like two weeks. So, it's justified but Played for Drama because this failure to teach the kid limits backfires as he grows more alienated from his parents and puts himself in more dangerous situations every time. It also doesn't help that his family is very well-off, so the school and the law cannot touch him either.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Discussed In-Universe by Volkan in regards to Asya's happiness. He realizes way too late (they are long divorced because he cheated on her) that Asya's happiness lies in a peaceful life with her loved ones. She loves the comfort of having a routine where she can enjoy her son, husband, and friends' company. A life where she can help others in her job. In Volkan's words, she created her own cocoon of happiness in her small house. Volkan, by contrast, felt bored and inconsequential to her, as if he was merely part of the decorations. Something that Asya tells him isn't true at all, he was important to her to the point of him preferring another woman hurts immensely.
• Foil:
  • Doctor Asya is a calm and collected woman who has a successful career and is genuinely compassionate toward others. She's respected in her community on her own merits and wants nothing more than to ensure the Private Hospital Asrin runs smoothly and her family's happiness. By contrast, Derin is initially only known for being the ex-mayor's daughter — she has no job and, when she gets one and respect from her community is mostly due to her privilege and money. Derin is also very prone to lose her composure when she doesn't get what she wants. The nail in the coffin is that Asya knows the infidelity is only Volkan's fault (he doesn't tell Derin he's married at first). Meanwhile, Derin remains deluded that Volkan is innocent and that Asya is the viper trying to seduce him back.
  • Selen is a studious girl who is constantly the Only Sane Woman in her friends' antics and ordeals — she tries to stop them from being reckless even if she fully understands why they are so upset and calls their parents when they dismiss her concerns or the situation escalates. Meanwhile, İpek is a rebellious teen who cares little about studying and is the first to do reckless, "adult" things such as drinking alcohol and flirting with an older boy. Both girls are cousins and have divorced parents. However, İpek's home life is a lot more chaotic than Selen's, as the former's stepfather is physically abusive and her own father is a criminal. In turn, Selen's mother has a respectable job and instills all of the aforementioned traits in her daughter, while always comforting her because Selen's father left.
  • Despite both of them being good, loving mothers with unfaithful husbands, Asya and her mother Ayla couldn't be more different. Although initially presented as very similar characters, it's revealed that Ayla forces Asya's father Nazmi to marry her because she's pregnant. Meanwhile, Asya marries Volkan out of love. As it also turns out, Asya's father Nazmi was going to marry Asya Günalan until he had an affair with Ayla. Nazmi keeps loving Günalan, so the situation inevitably becomes unbearable, and, instead of divorcing him, Ayla decides to kill them both. By contrast, Asya is very decisive in wanting to divorce Volkan when she discovers his infidelity and eventually stops loving him.
  • Ali and Demir experience an Hourglass Plot with respect to their Character Development. Ali starts out as a sweet kid if sometimes a tad spoiled and struggling to stand up for himself; he's that way because his parents are attentive and balance each other in terms of discipline. Meanwhile, Demir is initially an arrogant bully; while he too has a loving family, they are prone to spoil him rotten and discipline him not because what he's done is wrong but because he's publicly embarrassed the family. As Ali's parents' divorce becomes too much for him and his father starts manipulating him, Ali becomes very short-tempered, self-centered, and occasionally aggressive to the point of struggling to acknowledge that he's hurt his friends. By contrast, and thanks to Ali and Selen's friendship (as well as Asya teaming up with his mother), Demir mellows out a huge deal and becomes more considerate of other people's feelings. Additionally, Demir used to mock Ali for whatever scandal his parents had gotten themselves into, strongly associating "bad parents, bad child". Now, he defends Ali from such accusations and doesn't hold it against Ali when everyone believes that Ali's mother let Demir's father die. Meanwhile, Ali constantly lashes out at his friends when he suspects they've betrayed him (by talking about a man he hates) without bothering to ask for context.
• Foreshadowing: Asya's white rose garden gets destroyed by Derin at Volkan's welcome-back party. If we couple this with Asya's mother's advice about how plants need to be repotted to healthier environments, it's a clear warning about how Tekirdağ will become a very toxic environment for Asya and her son Ali as a result of her self-centered, immature ex-husband's return.
• Generation Xerox:
  • Asya's mother killed her husband and then herself by driving their car off a cliff because he was cheating on her. As it turns out, Asya's mother Ayla got crazy from jealousy over Asya's father still loving his mistress with whom he was engaged until he cheated on her with Asya's mom. Because Ayla was pregnant, Asya's father married her. They died when Asya was ten years old.
    The situation is repeated with Asya, Volkan, and Derin. At first, it seems that Asya won't go her mother's route upon discovering Volkan's unfaithfulness as she only pulls an unhinged plot to keep custody of her son. The parallel comes with Derin whose jealousy over Volkan still loving Asya leads her to try and kill herself and Asya by driving the car off a cliff. While she doesn't succeed, this happens when she and Volkan's daughter Zeynep is a toddler.
  • Gönül is approximately two decades older than her brother Melih; therefore, their relationship is more akin to a mother and her son than that of an older sister and her younger brother. It goes to the point that Gönül wants to policy whom Melih dates (he's a 40-year-old man). Similarly, Derin is twelve years older than her teenage brother Demir; since both siblings are very immature, the gap causes a disconnect in their relationship—Derin thinks she always knows better and dismisses Demir's opinions because of his age. Despite all of this, both sets of siblings love each other and come through to support the other in rough times.
• Girlish Pigtails: Derin comments that pigtails are childish, as she jokes that her parents are wearing clothes too formal and freaking out as if she's going to her first school gala. She'll have to change from her ponytail to Zeynep's (her baby daughter) pigtails.
• Gossipy Hens: Most of the women running Tekirdağ's Charity Foundation are elderly, wealthy housewives with lots of time on their hands. Therefore, in between planning projects, they entertain themselves by sharing the small city's latest gossip and fanning the flames of the rumor mill. Particularly noteworthy are Gönül, who has connections with Tekirdağ's news media, and Cavidan, who doesn't have an ounce of remorse about divulging even secrets other people confide in her. When Doctor Asya joins the Foundation, she initially refuses to engage in gossip. However, she later learns to use it to her advantage whenever Derin or Gönül is being too obnoxious — Asya knows both women care a lot about their public image.
• It's All About Me: Volkan is an egotistical prick who makes every situation about him even if the most affected is another person. He starts a romance with Derin because he wants to feel "young and vital" again, withholding from her the fact he's married and then telling her that he's unhappy in his marriage. He never cares one bit about Derin's feelings and, in fact, doesn't intend to divorce Doctor Asya. After he gets rightful comeuppance from his unfaithfulness (and hitting Asya), he can only lament how his life got ruined, nevermind the fact that his misdeeds cause Asya, the woman he purportedly loves so much, a lot of emotional pain. When he returns from America, he is quick to use his son Ali as an excuse to see Asya and enter her house without her permission. As if that wasn't enough, he just can't shut up about how much he still loves Asya and yearns to become a family with her and Ali again. He keeps asking forgiveness but only harasses Asya and acts like a Crazy Jealous Guy, never once caring that she doesn't share his wishes and loathes having to interact with him because of Ali. He demands that his friends inform him of every little detail of Asya's life, getting mad when they refuse. The way he gaslights and shames her is always because she's hurting him and their son Ali. When he's conversing with his friends about their lives, he more often than not makes it all about his problems or, if he's "patiently" listened to them, only does so to ask them a favor afterward. When he's caught up with his schemes, he doesn't care who he destroys or hurts — for example, he ruins the reconciliation dinner 14-year-old Demir set up for his parents just because he's mad at Demir's older sister.
• Mirror Character: Doctor Asya and Mrs. Gönül are both mothers who will do anything to protect and support their children, even if it's underhanded and sometimes not quite legal. They are also very cunning, resourceful, and observant, picking up small clues and enacting efficient plans to meet their goals. It's extremely hard to rile them up in a verbal confrontation and both are prone to roast their opponent with witty, deadpan remarks. Finally, their husbands cheated on them at some point — Asya's after years of marriage and Gönül's just before they married.
• Monkey Morality Pose: After she learns Volkan kissed Asya, Derin runs to Onur's house seeking solace. She goes to the backyard to take a breath and the camera lingers on a trio of monkey statues that are in this pose. As with most of the show's symbolism, this has two non-mutually exclusive meanings. Up to this point, Derin has deluded herself into thinking Volkan loves her and Asya is trying to seduce him — the kiss is when she starts to realize that the reality is quite the opposite. If Derin wants to grow as a person and achieve happiness, she needs to pull the proverbial rug off her eyes and face the truth, something that she has difficulty with but finally manages to do. The secondary meaning is that her heartbroken state leads her to have comfort sex with Onur, something that she's deeply ashamed about later. The feeling of guilt makes her insist on keeping it under wraps because it was a mistake and no, she didn't do this. Basically, Head-in-the-Sand Management.
• Non-Action Protagonist: Asya Yilmaz is an average mother with no combat capability or even training in some sort of sport. When faced with a thug hired by her aggressive ex-husband or kidnapped by one of her patients, she doesn't defeat them by besting them in combat but by being a Guile Hero. Being an emergency medic helps her remain calm under stressful situations and come up with a plan. She relies more on manipulating or negotiating with people. For example, while she does smash a vase on the thug's head, her winning card is stealthily calling for help. When kidnapped, she stalls (giving the police time to figure out the culprit) by making them think she's going to do what they want, she just needs time to set it up. This also prevents the kidnappers from murdering another woman.
• One-Steve Limit: Asya's father's mistress is called Asya as well. Asya's father named her exactly that because he never let go of his love for that woman.
• One-Word Title: Unlike the original work, which has a rather wordy title, this Turkish adaptation merely goes by Sadakatsiz (Unfaithful in English and Traicionada^TranslationBetrayed in Spanish).
• The Paragon Always Rebels: When Asya, an outstanding doctor loved by all her patients who also does medical research, decides to not resume working at the Asrin Hospital, her assistant Pelin quits as well. When she leaves Tekirdag altogether, two of the hospital's most iconic physicians, Turgay included, do too. Topped with the fact the previous director died, Asrin is nearly led to ruin. Played With as Asya hasn't turned evil but is merely standing up for herself and seeking healthier environments to live/work in.
• Paranoia Gambit: During the divorce, doctor Asya is already devastated by her husband Volkan's betrayal, but Volkan wanting full custody of their son Ali (as well as Ali's own agreement) pushes her to pull one of these. She exploits Volkan's aggressive tendencies and his love for their son. She picks up Ali from school early for a trip outside the city. When he doesn't find Ali in the school, Volkan thinks Asya has kidnapped him and confronts her. She shows Volkan a pair of scissors and a tuft of Ali's hair and says nothing. Volkan quickly jumps to the conclusion that Asya has killed Ali (Asya's mother killed her cheating husband) and physically assaults her. As planned, Ali witnesses it all and changes his mind about staying with his father. Asya also uses this to obtain a six-month restraining order against Volkan.
• Parental Abandonment: A major theme in the story, either by death (read suicide), neglect, or refusing to take care of one's children. Parents who avert this are often portrayed in a more sympathetic light, if only by a bit.
  • Asya's mother killed herself and Asya's father in a car accident, which caused Asya to fear abandonment and the attachment that comes with love of any kind. When pushed to the edge, Asya ponders whether to just let Volkan have full custody of their son but her own familial experience gives her the strength to defy this trope and fight to stay in her son's life.
  • Volkan's father is long disappeared from his family's lives by the time the series starts. Though never explicit, he was abusive toward his wife Saliha and son. Because of that, it's treated as a good thing that he left.
  • Haluk Güçlü is portrayed as being overprotective to Derin and Demir. However, midway through the first season, it's revealed that he fathered a son with another woman and that he refused to recognize him. This illegitimate son is a deeply unstable individual who then comes back to stir trouble for Haluk's family.
  • Nil Tetik never mentions nor visits her parents. During one conversation with her Love Interest, she tells him that they are both alone in this world, implying that her parents are out of the picture, possibly due to abandonment as well.
  • Hicran Dağcı abandons her son Selçuk to another woman's care when he's a young kid. In flashbacks, she's implied to be a sex worker, and her reasoning for leaving her son is that she didn't feel ready to be a mother. She also wanted to spare him the ugly details of her work. Unfortunately, Selçuk is abused in his new home, prompting him to run away. He becomes an aggressive, resentful young man who wants nothing to do with his mother. And neither with the father who rejected him.
• Parents as People:
  • Despite her obsessive behavior and lack of scruples, Drin is genuinely a good mother. Even when she's executing one of her hare-brained schemes, her first priority is to make sure someone she trusts is taking care of Zeynep. She's loving and always thinks of her and her well-being. Her demeanor brightens up whenever Zeynep is involved. She's not above using Zeynep to manipulate Volkan but it's not done in a way that damages Zeynep. For instance, lying about their daughter being sick or throwing a tantrum out of discomfort to get his attention. By contrast, Volkan selfishly makes Ali's life more difficult so he can interfere with Asya's relationships. When Asya convinces Derin to seek therapy, Asya's argument is that Zeynep needs her mother; which leads to Derin's redemption.
  • Asya is a sensible mother who sets boundaries, enforces discipline in non-abusive ways, and is always emotionally available for her son. Most of her decisions throughout the series are motivated by Ali's well-being. Questionable as it might be, Asya doesn't interfere with Ali having a positive relationship with his father; she doesn't poison Ali's mind against Volkan and even encourages him to patch things up with his father if needed. Unfortunately, this leaves her powerless when Volkan's manipulations tear Ali so much, that both his parents start hesitating at dealing proper punishment for his increasingly reckless actions out of fear of alienating him.
  • Volkan starts out as a loving father for both his son Ali and his daughter Zeynep. But, just as Asya and Derin are definitely Good Parents in |a difficult situation, Volkan slowly evolves into an Abusive Parent. Due to his own Fatal Flaws of entitlement and cowardice, he slowly destroys his relationship with Ali and his actions prevent him from even being present in Zeynep's life. He loves Ali but is not above causing him emotional turmoil, enabling his aggressiveness, and actively misguiding him to get what he wants. He only prompts Ali to have a good relationship with his mother when it suits him.
• Pastimes Prove Personality: Asya's gardening proves that she's a nurturing, patient, and hard-working woman. It also shows that she understands change is good because otherwise people/plants wilt.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Mrs. Cavidan is a total gossip who always digs for and reacts to juicy details in the most melodramatic manner possible. She gasps loudly, speculates wild scenarios, and exaggerates stuff shamelessly while remaining reasonably close to the truth. Her behavior is either hilarious, lightens up the mood, or causes some minor Mood Whiplash both out and In-Universe. Characters laugh at her antics, get annoyed at her in a way that's funny, or, like Doctor Asya and Gönül, roast her à la Deadpan Snarker. Cavidan takes it all in good spirits.
• Promotion to Parent: After their parents die, Gönül takes charge of her baby brother Melih. That's why he regards her and her husband Haluk as his parental figures.
• Prophetic Names: Bahar's name means spring, which initially is trivial. Then, when she meets her Love Interest, Melih, he says that flowers remind him of her.
• Put on a Bus: Bahar and Melih move to Ankara after they realize their relationship with their friends is All Take and No Give and the least Bahar needs is stress as her pregnancy is already difficult. They do this after Melih gets stabbed by Nader and are not seen again, not even in the series' epilogue.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • The show's poster has Doctor Asya and her adulterous husband Volkan in a back-to-back pose. This is meant to represent that he went behind Asya's back when he cheated and that they are no longer on the same side. The fact he's turning his head to glance smugly at her also conveys that he's not really remorseful of his feat and that he keeps chasing her. By contrast, Asya is looking forward, meaning that she's done with him and absolutely livid. Furthermore, her ring hand is held up and there's blood coming from her ring. The blood is evidently the broken marriage vows.
  • White roses are prominent motifs throughout the series, acting as a shorthand for Asya and Volkan's decaying relationship. A complimentary meaning for them, especially in a Muslim country such as Turkey, is that they are the flowers of Heaven.
    • Asya and Volkan share their first kiss in a white rose garden, so she plants a couple of bushes in her garden to remind her of her love story. Both in the opening sequence and pre-divorce shots (and flashbacks), Asya is seen lovingly tending to them. Volkan's absence in those shots represents how he's no longer partaking in that sincere love and happy life. Asya is the only one in Heaven because she doesn't know her husband is having an extramarital affair.
    • After the divorce, Asya's rose garden gets uprooted by an angry, jealous Derin (her husband's mistress and new wife) at Volkan's welcome-back party. Although the last nail in the coffin in Asya and Volkan's relationship was put two years ago, the fact that it's Derin doing so has two meanings. First, that she and Volkan have come back only to stir trouble for Asya, and second, that it's not Volkan doing it because he's still in "love" with Asya.
    • Whenever Volkan is trying to win Asya back, he gifts her a bouquet of white roses. Most of the time, Asya is quick to throw the bouquet in the trash can. If she, for some reason decides to put it in a jar, Volkan's actions anger or disappoint her soon enough that she still ends up disposing of the thing.
    • During the time Volkan is courting Derin, he also gifts her white rose bouquets as a show of romanticism. Until Derin finds Volkan gave the same flowers to Asya, that is. That he is this cheap reflects his personality very well — he has no problem being double-faced and blatantly lying to people's faces. It's also a hint that he doesn't really see Derin as her own person, he only went to her to feel young, not because he stopped loving his ex-wife. Not that he truly values either woman.
• Save the Villain:
  • In the first season's final, this occurs on two levels —psychologically and literally— after Derin's Batman Gambit backfires on her by, among other things, revealing that Volkan would rather side with and protect Asya, his ex-wife, than worry about Derin's wellbeing. In both cases, it's justified because Doctor Asya takes her Hippocratic Oath very seriously and, therefore has a natural inclination (and the training) to try to save people's lives. Moreover, Asya is an Emergency physician.
    • Asya takes her to the cliff her parents suffered Death by Woman Scorned to tell her how that happened. Asya's mother couldn't stand her husband still loving his ex-fiancé, and so killed them both in a car accident when Asya was ten years old. She does this to try and make her see reason, that no matter who her husband loves, her priority must be her baby daughter Zeynep. Sadly, Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, so Derin not only rebukes Asya's advice but thinks Asya is manipulating her with her daughter in order to get Volkan back.
    • Desperate, Derin then decides to Murder the Hypotenuse (and herself) by driving the car off another cliff. Asya manages to pull the handbrake at the last moment, but the car still plunges into the sea. Fortunately, Asya has little trouble swimming out of the car but Derin has broken her legs, so after taking a lungful of air, Asya returns to free Derin and swims her to the surface. Unfortunately, she runs out of breath. Asya would have drowned if not for the rescue team fishing her out and reviving her. Afterward, Derin refuses to believe that Asya saved her.
  • This situation is mirrored by the second season's climax. Asya's revenge on Volkan and Derin has finally become too much for Derin's fragile sanity — not helped that Volkan, thanks to Asya's manipulations, puts a definitive end to their relationship. Left without schemes or options to force him to stay with her, Derin attempts to commit suicide by throwing herself off the same cliff. She calls Asya to inform her that "you'll finally get rid of me", as well as unintentionally revealing where she plans to do the deed. Asya rushes to the cliff and slowly approaches Derin. Asya plays along with Derin's delusion (she'll have Volkan in her next life) and weakness (Zeynep) to convince her to not jump. Asya also tells Derin that she deserves to be loved and even slaps her when, upon finally managing to embrace Derin, Derin threatens to kill them both. They spend a long time near the cliff's edge, but Asya doesn't leave Derin until Onur and an ambulance arrive. Once Derin recovers, she is very grateful to Asya and remembers that Asya did save saved her butt from drowning before. Again, justified thanks to Asya being a doctor, though also because she never intended to drive Derin to suicide, only to make her feel as miserable as Derin has made her (Asya) feel in the past.
• Tagline: "The wrath of a woman scorned is worse than the fires of hell." The phrase embodies the show's Central Theme (the revenge that comes after betrayal) and also serves as its Arc Words, being presented in Asya's narration at key Plot Points.
• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings: Corrupt Politician Haluk Güçlü is a fat, elderly man who has built his great wealth with lots of cunning, networking, and a heaping of not-so-legal business deals. Whenever he needs some physically-strenuous task to be done, he sends grunts to do it for him — be it scouring Tekirdağ to search for his missing daughter or threatening someone into submission. The dynamic is zigzagged with Volkan, his son-in-law, who works for him and is generally obliged to do Haluk's bidding; either through manipulation, force, or those rare instances where they actually agree. The thing is, Volkan is not loyal to Haluk and, most of the time, neither he is to Derin, his wife. Volkan is, however, a middle-aged man still very capable of beating the shit out of people and has plenty of aggressiveness in need of release.

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