Review ~ Netflix's Another Self Season 2

by Michele Calderon

With acclaimed screenwriter Nuran Evren Şit once again at the writer’s helm, the highly anticipated second season of Another Self (Turkish title Zeytin Ağacı – The Olive Tree) was released on Netflix on July 11, 2024. Through the course of eight episodes lasting on average 45 minutes each, we continue following the lives and loves of the three original protagonists – Ada, Leyla, and Sevgi – as they deal with multiple life challenges.

As is Season 1, Season 2 is unapologetically focused on human emotions and relationships. It’s a modern-day comedy-drama, interestingly set against the backdrop of historical perspectives, with a storyline that explores essential themes of love, friendship, childbirth, marriage, parenthood, and unresolved traumas inherited from ancestors. Once again, each episode begins with a short, period segment depicting events that affected ancestors of one of the show’s main characters.

The series clearly holds a special place in its creator’s heart. In a recent social media post the writer said that Another Self had “grown so much inside me over the years”.

In an earlier interview with North America TEN, Ms. Şit mentioned how many of her real-life anecdotes have blended into the screenplay. Some of the narrative is autobiographical, particularly through the lead character of Ada (Tuba Büyüküstün). On a walk to the beach in episode 1, Ada finds a lotus flower floating in a pond of murky water, and takes a picture of it that she starts using as her cellphone screen. The lotus theme is then repeated several times during the show – in a tattoo worn by a new character, on a painting by another. It becomes a symbol for how beauty may come out of a swamp. The fragile, lovely flower is an allegory for the treasures you can unearth if you have the courage to explore your long-buried memories and painful family history.

Season 2 continues with the writer’s passionate and adept advocacy of Family Constellation Therapy, a therapy technique by which former physician turned psychotherapist Zaman (superbly played by Fırat Taniş) helps various characters come to terms with past family traumas impacting their current emotions and relationships.

The rest of this write-up contains possible spoilers but also explores deeper into themes that resonated with me.

Main Characters

In the interest of not entirely spoiling the viewing experience for those who haven’t yet seen Season 2, I will give only a few hints of what happens in these eight new episodes:

Ada has stayed in Ayvalık (Cunda Island) after her divorce from Selim (Serkan Altonurak) and is living with her old flame Toprak (Murat Boz), who is torn between Ada and his parental responsibility to his daughter, Flor. Still working as a surgeon at the local hospital, Ada faces intense skepticism from the medical establishment about her research into Family Constellation Therapy. These concurrent tensions weigh on Ada throughout season 2. For a short time, she escapes her troubles by engaging in a new relationship with a younger man.

Sevgi (Boncuk Yilmaz) continues struggling with her health issues and now her marriage to Fiko (Riza Kocaoğlu), as well as her relationship with Muko, the mother she blames for concealing the identity of her father. Secrets are the hallmark of Season 2 for Sevgi.

Leyla (Seda Bakan) gives birth to her second child, and has to decide whether to take back her estranged husband Erdem upon his release from prison. Meanwhile, she prepares to open a new restaurant named Eleni’s Tavern in honor of her Greek great-grandmother, with Fiko as her partner.

Highlights of Season 2

Strong women rule!

Another Self is a pointedly feminist show. One of my favorite aspects of Season 1 (which I reviewed on this blog in November, 2022) is its focus on three strong women (two professional and one stay-at-home mother) and their deep friendship spanning almost 25 years. Glimpses from the early meeting of Ada, Sevgi and Leyla as teenagers are shown, with a focus on the strong bond developed by the three women over the course of two decades.

Friendship itself is a character in this series. The women’s frequent meetings to drink tea, coffee or wine; chat, discuss life issues, joke and taunt each other are realistic, set to lively dialogue. No matter what happens in each of their lives, Ada, Leyla and Sevgi always gravitate back to each other for solace and support. They, and their immediate relatives and significant others, are each other’s chosen family.

Continuing its emphasis on the feminine, homage is paid by the series to the essential role of mothers. Their presence in, or absence from our lives are acutely felt by most of the characters. Ada, whose mother died toward the end of Season 1, is experiencing physical and psychological symptoms that make her fear she is suffering early-onset menopause. But her doctor disabuses her saying, “what you are suffering from is…sorrow”. Sevgi resents her mother for staying silent about the identity of her father, only to realize that she cannot face her health challenges without the support of her mother. Leyla lashes out at the judgmental attitude of her mother Leman (played by Nilüfer Açıkalın) towards her marriage and her decisions in life. Deep down, as we all do, Leyla craves her mother’s and father’s approval. A touching scene towards the end of S2 shows Leman expressing her unconditional love for her daughter, setting Leyla free from her insecurities.

Scenery, set design, and cinematography

Filmed exclusively this time in Ayvalık, Season 2 offers viewers a gorgeous cinematic experience. The visual feel of the series is more akin to a movie on the silver screen than a made-for- TV production. The cinematography is expertly done, from the use of overhead photography over characters in a rocky beach landscape, to scanning the turquoise waters and white sands of the Aegean, to views of the islands of the Ayvalık archipelago in a distant purple haze; or following characters deep into the Mediterranean dry brushes of the olive grove. Viewers are treated to stunning sunsets, scenes in colorful cafés in the village center, and a very well filmed love scene in an outdoor pool.

Similarly, set design is beautifully done, fully utilizing the quaint cobblestone streets and whitewashed houses in Ayvalık town with their multicolored doors, and bustling outdoor cafes reminiscent of a Greek village. Indeed, prior to 1923 Ayvalik was called Kydonies and was predominantly Greek.

More impressive are the interior set designs, from the bohemian house full of trinkets where Muko, Sevgi, and Leyla live to Ada’s gorgeous apartment inside a stone house, with the bedroom on a mezzanine above the main open style living space. The details in the aesthetics certainly enhance the appreciation of the story.

How do people heal?

“How do people heal” is the title of an article Ada writes to summarize her research into issues surrounding generational trauma and Family Constellation Therapy. This is the key question the show poses, and seeks to demonstrate, with each episode featuring one of the main characters seeking help understanding their family dynamics.

Family Constellation Therapy has been called a pseudo-science and its creator, German psychotherapist Bert Hellinger has been criticized for holding outdated patriarchal views regarding the roles of men and women, the belief that homosexuality was a disease to be treated, and even suspected of antisemitic beliefs.

However, in recent years the method has grown past Hellinger (who died in 2019), popularized not only by the works of Mark Wollyn, Ursula Franke and others in the US, but widely practiced in other countries too. Thousands of licensed facilitators now practice it world-wide.

The series makes no apology for its strong belief in the method. Zaman, seen toward the end of Season 2 revealing his life story to Ada, recalls meeting Bert Hellinger in Europe during his world travels after suffering a major trauma. Ada is shown researching the use of the practice in other countries, particularly Spanish-speaking ones, and calling on Diyar’s Spanish-language skills to translate key passages in various books for her research; she also tries to convince the hospital board of the method’s usefulness.

While I strongly believe in the mind-body connection, and also on the impact of generational trauma in people’s lives and decisions, I am still puzzled about this style of therapy and how a participant randomly selected by the key subject (also called “seeker”) to represent him or her, can actually feel the subject’s emotions in their body and mind. Proponents of the method cite the work of English biochemist Rupert Sheldrake, who developed the concept of “morphic resonance”. Participants perceive and articulate feelings and sensations that mirror those of the real family members they represent. However, morphic resonance or representative perception has been criticized as a concept with no real scientific basis. The representatives picked by the seeker have little or no factual knowledge about those they represent. Yet, they usually experience feelings or physical sensations thought to inform the therapy process.

That being said, the therapy sessions led by Zaman in Season 2 are fascinating to watch, and their resolutions emotionally charged. Characters become aware of how events that occurred in the close or distant past have caused them unconscious pain, and driven them to repeat dysfunctional patterns.

As Ada says in her voice-over narration “we start to heal when the past not only brings pain but also gifts; when we decide to love, and be loved; when we commit ourselves to others.” These are concepts I find hard to disagree with.

Not a typical Rom-Com

What I find attractive in Another Self is its relentless emphasis on the complexity of human emotions, weaving strong elements of drama and even tragedy into the romantic comedy formula. I am not usually a fan of the rom-com genre for its own sake. With exceptions made for brilliant scripts (movies like “Harry Met Sally”, “Crazy Stupid Love”, “Something’s Gotta Give”, “The Proposal”, “Pretty Woman”), I find the storytelling usually too predictable and formulaic. Boy meets girl, falls in love at first sight, girl rejects him at first but finally relents once she finds out how thoroughly charming, helpful, fun to-be-with he is. They may go through a time of relationship crisis, but the final blissful images show us the lovers having reunited, with the underlying message that they will live happily ever after.

This kind of meet-cute is basically what happens to Ada and Diyar when they meet in Season 2, which makes for several exciting, fun scenes to watch, further helped along by well-crafted dialogue and by the natural chemistry between Aytaç Saçmaz and Tuba Büyüküstün. But the story then deepens, when we find out Diyar’s true identity and how early traumas in his life have turned him into a broken man. The final state of his relationship with Ada is unexpected but seems right for the two characters, told in a tender scene on the streets of Ayvalık.

Similarly, a classic rom-com will usually feature one character as the “sidekick”, generally the best friend of the female lead. The job of the sidekick is usually to be wholly devoted to being the voice of reason for her friend, making the obligatory humorous quips to balance out the romance, as the story goes along. Think Marie (Carrie Fisher) in “Harry Met Sally”. Or the irrepressible, wisecracking Kit De Luca, best friend to Vivian (Julia Roberts) in “Pretty Woman”. Or Cyn, best friend to the lead character Tess (Melanie Griffith) in “Working Girl”, with her 1980s exaggerated bouffant hair and green eyeshadow, brilliantly played by Joan Cusak. Interestingly, “Notting Hill” featured a sidekick to a lead male character: the uninhibited Spike, William’s roommate (hilariously portrayed by Rhys Ifans).

In Another Self Ada has not one but two sidekicks who play that role, not only to Ada but to each other as well. Yet, neither one of them is secondary. All three have equally important parts in the story, and entire episodes are devoted to telling each character’s story, delving deeply into their relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners.

The story breaks the mold of a clicheed rom-com through the backstories of the female lead and her ‘sidekicks’. Through the initial scenes in each episode recounting conflicts or difficulties in the family histories of several characters, we get to understand how becoming aware of early traumas suffered by their ancestors help both Toprak and Fiko face their feelings of not being enough; Leyla understand that her alienation from her father was deeply impacted by the post-traumatic stress he suffered as a result of his actions during the war; and Sevgi finally able to understand her mother when Muko – helped by a therapy session with Zaman – faces the roots of her ambivalence in being a mother to her only child.

Indeed we begin to heal, when we start seeing our parents not as parents but as human beings, who themselves may have faced significant traumas in their lives. And we begin to understand how their journey shaped them, and us.

Marvelous Ensemble Cast

The superb cast of Season 1 all reprise their roles with a few newcomers in the mix. Overall, their performances make this new chapter of Another Self as addictive and fun as the first, with a great deal of emotional resonance. Due to the high level of acting talent, I found myself crying and cheering along with the characters through their crises and successes. The ease and spontaneity of their dialogue provides abundant evidence that the actors have thoroughly enjoyed working together once again. While all cast members are to be commended for their work, a few performances stood out for me this season:

Tuba Büyüküstün as Ada: If Tuba is uniformly admired for her darked-haired, amber-eyed beauty, some have criticized her acting as being stiff and deprived of emotion. This is not the case in Another Self. It looks to me like the role of Ada touched Tuba very deeply and I feel she successfully portrayed the character’s mixed emotions, as she grapples with essential decisions regarding her professional future, her romantic relationships, and her secret wish to have a child. Through therapy, she courageously comes to terms with the fact that for 20 years of her life she has been in relationships with men who were not faithful (Selim, Toprak in Season 1) repeating a pattern that occurred in her nuclear family.

Murat Boz as Toprak: while Murat is enormously popular in Türkiye and beyond as a musician and pop artist, his involvement with acting is more recent. Yet he is a natural at it, flawlessly portraying Toprak’s ambivalence and lack of decisiveness in his relationships with Ada, his daughter Flor, Flor’s mother Eva, and his musical career ambitions. He tries to do justice to each one of them, unsuccessfully. With the help of Zaman, he realizes that his feelings of unwantedness and alienation stem from the fact that an ancestral pattern of abandonment has profoundly, though unconsciously, affected his life.

Seda Bakan as Leyla: in as much as Ada is the narrator of the show, Leyla is its bubbly, irrepressible center. A natural comedy actor who is equally good at dramatic scenes, Seda Bakan once again gives her all in her portrayal of Leyla’s courage in facing life as a single mother of two young children, her conflicts with her parents concerning her lifestyle choices, and her desire to stand on her own two feet.

Aytaç Şaşmaz as Diyar: a newcomer in season 2, tall, curly-haired Aytaç (previously seen in series such as “Söz” (The Oath) and “Baht Oyunu” (Twist of Fate)) is wonderful to watch as Diyar, the 26- year old (same age as the actor) new love interest of Ada in season 2. Equally good in emotional and romantic scenes, the actor has real screen presence and is a highlight of this season, as much for his deft ability to portray Diyar’s inner conflicts as for his handsome looks and convincing acting in romantic scenes.

Füsun Demirel reprises the role of Mukadder (known to all as Muko), the mother of Sevgi. A veteran actress in Türkiye who has appeared in over 60 films or series, Füsun gives a strong performance as the courageous mother who raised a daughter on her own after a devastating loss, finally finding peace in her relationship with Sevgi by facing her fears and revealing long buried secrets.

In Conclusion

This new installment of Another Self clearly seems to have strongly resonated with viewers. As of a week after its release, the series had garnered over 3 million views on Netflix, landing in number 3 of most watched non- English language series. As reported by Variety, the show as a whole has consistently been in the Global Top Ten of all streaming platforms, the first Turkish show to ever do so, landing in 6^th position during the week of July 12-18, with 439 million minutes watched.

Scanning comments about the series on social media reveals overwhelmingly positive comments primarily from international viewers, some writing that “the second season is even better than the first”, that the series has “opened its path to thousands of hearts”, and praising series directors Burcu Alptekin & Erdem Tepegöz for the artistic flair of their directing.

The ending leaves the viewers anticipating the third season, rumored to drop on Netflix in summer 2025. A discovery made by Fiko and Leyla in the stone wall of the tavern, along with Ada’s decision to accept a new job offer in the final episode, leaves some questions unanswered. While not a typically Turkish dizi, it allows viewers not familiar with the country and its culture to discover Türkiye through its incredible artistes. It provides a glimpse into the wealth of talent in writing, acting and directing, coupled with amazing landscapes and colorful towns. It lets the viewers see the country through both lenses of its traditional customs and its modern society, and the ethnic multiplicity of its citizens. It fights patriarchal attitudes by having a trio of strong, intelligent, independent women at its core. Even with a healthy dose of skepticism regarding aspects of the therapy method, one can’t help but hope for happy and healthy resolutions of their internal and family conflicts for Ada, Leyla, Sevgi, and their loved ones and friends.

I would be remiss not to mention the wonderful music that enriches the feel of Season 2, featuring an original song by Murat Boz along with melodious, emotional songs by some of Türkiye’s best musical artists. I have compiled a list of those songs in the postscript for amateurs of modern Turkish music, and to encourage those readers not familiar with it, to give it a try.

I found Season 2 a great deal of fun. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Article copyright (c) North America TEN & Michele Calderon

All video clips and photos belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended. Please ask for permission before reprints. Please provide proper citations if referencing information in this article. Sources are linked in the article.

—————

POSTCRIPT

THE MUSIC OF ANOTHER SELF SEASON 2

Sertab Erener – Kendime Yeni Bir Ben Lazım

Mazhar Alanson – Ah Bu Ben

Demir Demirkan – Zaferlerim

Ceyl’an Ertem ft. Cihan Mürtezaoğlu – Uçurtma

Suzan Kardeş – Sendeki Kaşlar

İlkay Akkaya – Kaynayan Kazan

Nil Karaibrahimgil – Ben Aptal mıyım

Nilüfer Sarıtaş – Bugün Pirimi Gördüm

Ali Erel – Ben Bir Hayaletim Artık