# Ezel (2009)

> A wrongly imprisoned man fakes his death, escapes, and returns as a suave high-stakes gambler determined to take revenge on those who betrayed him.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/29930

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 71
- Episode runtime: 120 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama
- Created by: Pınar Bulut, Kerem Deren
- Network: atv, Show TV
- Cast: Kenan İmirzalıoğlu, Cansu Dere, Yiğit Özşener, Barış Falay, Kemal Uçar, Sarp Akkaya, Tuncel Kurtiz, Güray Kip
- TMDB rating: 8.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1534360/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: brooding, melodramatic, tense, wistful

## What critics say

Viewers broadly acclaim Ezel as a gripping revenge drama, with its lead performance and intricate betrayal plot drawing the most praise, though its second season is rated noticeably lower than the first.

## Synopsis

Ezel (2009-2011) is a Turkish crime drama series created by Pınar Bulut and Kerem Deren for atv and Show TV, produced by Ay Yapım. Kenan İmirzalıoğlu plays Ömer, a young man returning from military service who is framed by friends and his fiancée, then sent to prison for ten years. He fakes his own death, escapes, and reinvents himself as Ezel, an elegant high-end gambler whose outward success hides a single obsession: discovering why the people he loved turned on him and taking his revenge. Cansu Dere plays Eyşan Tezcan Atay, a woman whose path becomes tangled with his, while Yiğit Özşener plays Cengiz Atay and Barış Falay plays Ali Kırgız among the principal players in the web of rivals and allies. The engine of the series is a slow accumulation of schemes, card-table confrontations, and hidden loyalties, with each episode peeling back another layer of the betrayal. Spanning two seasons and seventy-one episodes, it moves as one continuing story rather than a case-of-the-week format. The setting is contemporary Turkey, with its glamorous casinos and the shadowy circles of the wealthy. The tone is melodramatic and brooding, full of longing, wounded pride, and cold calculation. Fans of The Count of Monte Cristo and Turkish melodrama will find resonance here.

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