Hey, everyone! How’s it going? Today I’m here to review the drama Mrs. Fazilet and Her Daughters, which delivers a compelling family saga about a determined mother whose desperate pursuit of wealth and status for her daughters leads to moral dilemmas and unexpected consequences that challenge everything she believes about love and success.
This Turkish family drama series originally titled Fazilet Hanım ve Kızları premiered on Star TV on September 12, 2017, and concluded on June 4, 2018, spanning two seasons with approximately 80 episodes total, each with roughly 120-minute runtime. Mrs. Fazilet and Her Daughters is available on various streaming platforms internationally, making this emotionally rich series accessible to global audiences who appreciate complex family dramas with moral depth.
The series masterfully combines family melodrama with social commentary, creating a narrative that explores themes of maternal ambition, class mobility, sacrifice, and the price of chasing dreams at any cost. The show examines how economic desperation can push people to compromise their values while questioning whether parental love sometimes becomes indistinguishable from control and manipulation.
A Mother’s Dream Becomes Her Daughters’ Burden
Mrs. Fazilet and Her Daughters centers around Fazilet, a widowed mother living modestly in Istanbul with her two daughters after her husband’s death left them in financial difficulties. Determined to escape poverty and provide her daughters with the luxurious life she never had, Fazilet becomes obsessed with pushing her younger daughter Ece into modeling and fashion competitions while expecting her older daughter Hazan to support the family’s ambitious plans.
The central plot takes a dramatic turn when the family encounters the wealthy Egemen family, who live in one of Istanbul’s prestigious waterfront mansions. Fazilet sees this meeting as her golden opportunity to infiltrate high society and secure her daughters’ futures, setting in motion a series of events that will change all their lives in ways she never anticipated.
Fazilet: The Determined Mother’s Complex Journey
Nazan Kesal delivers a powerhouse performance as Fazilet, showcasing her character’s evolution from grieving widow to determined social climber whose love for her daughters becomes tangled with her own unfulfilled dreams of wealth and status. Fazilet’s character embodies the complexity of parental sacrifice, showing how protective instincts can become destructive when combined with desperation and ambition.
Fazilet’s development throughout the series demonstrates how poverty and social inequality can corrupt even well-intentioned people, forcing them to make choices that compromise their integrity. Her journey explores the fine line between sacrificing for your children and sacrificing your children for your dreams, creating moral ambiguity that makes viewers question their own judgments about her actions.
Hazan and Ece: Two Daughters, Different Paths
Deniz Baysal portrays Hazan, the older daughter who works as a fitness trainer and maintains a strained relationship with her mother due to her opposition to Fazilet’s social-climbing schemes. Hazan’s character represents integrity and independence, though her own romantic involvement with wealthy Sinan Egemen complicates her moral high ground and forces her to confront her own desires for a better life.
Afra Saraçoğlu plays Ece, the younger daughter who becomes the unwilling centerpiece of her mother’s ambitions. Ece’s character development focuses on her struggle between pleasing her mother and maintaining her authentic self, showing how parental pressure can damage young people’s ability to develop their own identity and make independent choices about their futures.
When Dreams Meet Reality: The Egemen Family Complications
The series reaches its most dramatic moments when the family’s integration into the Egemen household creates romantic entanglements and moral dilemmas that force everyone to confront their true motivations and values. The wealthy family’s own secrets and problems reveal that money doesn’t guarantee happiness, while their interaction with Fazilet’s family exposes the corruption that wealth and desperation can create.
The climactic episodes explore how different social classes view love, marriage, and family obligations, showing how economic inequality affects every aspect of human relationships. The resolution examines whether genuine happiness can be built on deception and whether love can survive the revelation of long-hidden truths.
Supporting Characters and Social Commentary
The ensemble cast includes members of the Egemen family and various characters from different social backgrounds, creating a comprehensive portrait of Turkish society’s class divisions and the challenges faced by people trying to improve their circumstances. Supporting characters represent different approaches to wealth, poverty, and moral choices.
The supporting characters help illustrate how social mobility affects entire communities, showing how one family’s rise or fall impacts relationships with neighbors, friends, and extended family members. Their stories add depth to the central narrative while providing commentary on contemporary Turkish social issues and economic pressures.
Success on Star TV and Cultural Impact
Mrs. Fazilet and Her Daughters achieved significant success on Turkish television, resonating with audiences who recognized the universal themes of parental ambition and family loyalty despite economic hardship. The series sparked discussions about parenting, social mobility, and the psychological impact of poverty on family relationships.
The show’s success demonstrated the continued appeal of family dramas that tackle serious social issues while maintaining entertaining storylines. Its portrayal of mother-daughter relationships and class dynamics helped establish it as a significant contribution to Turkish television’s tradition of socially conscious melodrama.
Perfect Binge for Family Drama Enthusiasts
If you love complex family sagas with moral ambiguity, Mrs. Fazilet and Her Daughters is the perfect series to binge on streaming platforms. The combination of maternal determination, class conflict, and romantic complications creates a viewing experience that satisfies viewers who appreciate emotionally rich storytelling with social relevance.
Why This Family Saga Resonates Across Cultures
Mrs. Fazilet and Her Daughters succeeds because it presents morally complex characters whose flaws make them human rather than villainous, showing how economic desperation can lead good people to make questionable choices. The series proves that the most compelling family dramas emerge when creators are willing to explore the uncomfortable truths about love, sacrifice, and the price of pursuing dreams that might be beyond reach.
Series Details
Number of Episodes: Approximately 80 episodes across 2 seasons
Platform: Star TV, various international streaming platforms
Release Years: 2017-2018
Current IMDb Rating: 6.9/10
Genre: Family Drama, Romance, Social Commentary
Production Type: Turkish Drama (Dizi)
Status: Completed series
Main Cast: Nazan Kesal (Fazilet), Deniz Baysal (Hazan), Afra Saraçoğlu (Ece), Çağlar Ertuğrul (Yağız), Alp Navruz (Sinan)
Primary Antagonist: Economic inequality and social expectations rather than individual villains