The Cave
Episode 5 of Atiye finally sees some answers come to the foreground as Atiye finds herself trapped in the cave, prompting a manhunt to get underway, fronted by Erhan. Ozan arrives at the dig site along with the rest of the family and accuse him of being responsible for Atiye’s disappearance. He goes on to tell them about the strange masked man but it’s no good, the accompanying soldiers arrest Erhan and take him away. As they do, Serap finds a dead Zuhre in the ambulance and hysterically curses her for bringing this craziness back into her daughter’s life. As it happens, Zuhre also has the star symbol on her – could she be an older version of the younger girl we’ve been seeing? Rescue dogs arrive and immediately find an entrance while Serdar takes control of the operation. Cansu approaches Serap and berates her for convincing Atiye she was crazy. As she walks away, Ozan frantically starts hitting the ground before being pulled aside by Serdar. He questions his son about what this all means but with no clues to go on, Serdar looks at his son in disdain and tells him to know his enemy. In the cave, Atiye follows a snake into connected passageway and once there, finds a strange girl in a robe. She continues to stumble forward, muttering she doesn’t want to die before hanging her head. When she lifts it, a woman with brilliant red hair looks at her, unblinking, and tells her to keep going deeper, seemingly communicating through her mind. In the depths of the cave, she finds a bumblebee and heads deeper, past a plethora of cobwebs into the depths below. As she does, she finds her Mum sitting next to a crib singing a tale about a farmer and cattle. Is this all connected? Atiye seems to think so but as she approaches the crib and bends down to examine the baby, it vanishes before her eyes. Cansu decides to tell Atiye everything that happened between her and Ozan, leading the latter to become flustered and beg her not to say anything. He threatens her but before things can escalate, he’s pulled away as it turns out Erhan has escaped custody. Erhan, as it happens, grabs Cansu from behind and they silently walk off together to find answers while at the dig-site, they prepare to arm explosives and break into the tunnels. Erhan and Cansu start to piece together the mystery while underground, Atiye sees more of her painful past, including a difficult moment involving Ozan sleeping with her, seemingly against her will. Eventually she finds a coffin with symbols all over it and as she does, the voice in her head tells her she’s done it. That voice reveals itself to be Zuhra who tells her her life is just becoming and places a necklace around her neck. The explosives don’t work but atop the mountain, the dust parts and Atiye inexplicably rises up from the ashes with the necklace around her. Breathing heavily, she makes it back to the dig site and thanks Erhan for believing in her where the episode ends. While there are more questions being raised here surrounding Atiye’s weird cave experience and quite who Zuhra is, slowly the pieces of the puzzle appear to be forming together. The star symbol looks like it’s going to be a pretty crucial clue going forward but how Atiye slots into this whole mystery remains to be seen. If I’m honest, I’m not a big fan of the familial drama and this, at times, threatens to overpower the mystery which manages to take centre focus here. Quite what the future holds for our characters however, remains to be seen.
