Anthony Shafton

This is the Iliad, a telenovela, a cinemascope hack-em-up, a le Carre novel, a Bildungsroman, a classic Western and I don't know what else rolled into one. Amazing storytelling, with characters who change and grow. Maybe the proliferation of villains is over the top, but it's so much fun to watch Ertugrul foil their games and traps. The series is also an education in Islamic culture. To go by "Ertugrul," compassion and violence, gentleness and conquest are two side of the same Islamic coin. Jihad and Jihad. I wonder if anyone has counted how many lives Ertugrul takes in the course of the series, vanquishing "the cruel." There's no doubt in my mind that "Ertugrul" is a chauvinistic machination of the Erdogan regime to burnish its legitimacy. So be it. It doesn't work on me. Just a gloriously good story. And I forgot to mention the horses!