From left to right: Eylul, Meral, Cemre, Kader and Songul.
Kirgin Cicekler (English: Orphan Flowers) is a Turkish drama/psychological thriller television series that premiered in 29 June 2015. It stars İpek Karapınar, Özgür Çevik, Biran Damla Yılmaz, Gökçe Akyıldız, Hazar Motan, Çağla Irmak and Aleyna Solaker.
The series revolves around 5 girls living in the same orphanage: Eylul, Songul, Cemre, Kader and Meral who form a sisterly bond that helps them face the hardships and judgement they get for being orphans and their longing for their parents. The orphanage that the girls live in is in an elite area of Istanbul and thus, all five orphans attend a private school alongside elite teenagers of Istanbul. Strong tensions are present between the orphans and elite students at the school but love, crime, and drama force an interconnectedness among the teens.
The plot is kicked off when Eylul's mother, Mesude, doesn't buy her daughter's word that her stepfather Kemal is trying to sexually assault her so she sends her to the orphanage. From there, the girls start facing their problems together...
Tropes found in this series:
- Abhorrent Admirer: The word "abhorrent" doesn't even begin to cover Eylul's disgust with Kemal's actions towards her.
- Same with Yavuz towards Kader.
- Abusive Parents: AND HOW. Seriously, you'd be hard-pressed to find any actual good parents here. But it's not completely hopeless, thankfully.
- Alpha Bitch: Defne. At first, anyways.
- All of the Other Reindeer: The girls are often on the receiving end of this.
- Amicable Exes:
- Eylul and Serkan break up. It takes some time but they become friends again, even after he hooks up with Cemre.
- Cenk and Kader become this in Episode 70 after he volunteers to help the girls and his mother in the court case concerning Meral. This act redeems some of his previous jerkassery too.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Defne to Serkan.
- Asshole Victim: Plenty of those. Most notable one is Kemal, who gets electrocuted to death as all the kids watch him.
- Also Yavuz. He might've been accidentally killed by Kader but taking into account that he was forcing himself on the girl, you wouldn't feel sorry when she throws him off the balcony to his death.
- Beware the Nice Ones: There are quite a few nice people here that you do not want to piss off, namely the girls, Feride, Toprak and Serkan.
- Big Brother Instinct / Big Sister Instinct: Serkan, despite arguing and berating her often, has this for Defne. The five girls also have this for each other.
- Bittersweet Ending: The girls serve their sentence for the accidental murder of Yavuz, and go out managing to get back on her feet, as well as becoming aunts to Songul's daughter, but Songul unfortunately dies and leaves her daughter in their care.
- Blackmail: This is often used by the richer characters to get an edge over others.
- Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: This is especially true for the girls who vow to do this for their future kids.
- Cain and Abel: Serkan and Defne, respectively.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Many of the teens did this to their parents throughout the series.
- Cool Big Sis: Eylul and all her friends are this to her sister Busra and her brother Metin.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Oh boy, Serkan and Guney. At least Ali is more sensible about it.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Kader is as soft as cotton and she has her moments of accidental tripping.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Count how many times this happens at reunions. Saddullah is a notable example.
- Deadpan Snarker:
- Guney, Meral and Songul have had funny lines, though they often lack the deadpan delivery.
- Toprak, surprisingly.
- Kader is surprisingly good at this when she develops it in the final season. She uses it mainly towards Meral.
- Ejder constantly speaks this way to almost everyone.
- Dead Guy Junior: Guney names his daughter after Songul when she dies in the finale.
- Dirty Old Man: Kemal and Yavuz have this in common, notably.
- Driven to Suicide: Eylul attempted this at one point. She survived.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Finally after all the crap they go through, the girls settle for running an orphanage of their own. It's still a Bittersweet Ending because they lost Songul, Meral and Mert split up and Kader is not in a relationship but Eylul finally marries Ali and overall, every character seems satisfied and content.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite butting heads with her on several occasions, the girls do not want to see Defne hurt. This is evident by the time they help her admit the hard truth that she's been tricked into making a film in the nude by older men.
- The Fashionista: Both Meral and Cemre have an interest in modelling and clothes.
- Faux Affably Evil: Kemal presents himself as charming and smooth, but he flies off the hand quite easily.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Defne and Serkan, respectively.
- Freudian Excuse: When Mesude asks Banu why she is so mean to Kader, Banu explains that Kader's father raped her. The two of them were college lovers and Banu forced himself on her even though she said she wasn't ready. As if this were not enough, when Banu becomes pregnant with Kader, she does not take the slightest responsibility for her child. She was only 19 years old when all this happened. She cannot show compassion to Kader because she reminds of his father. This incident is addressed more deeply when it is revealed that Kader's father is Ayhan Lokumcuzade (both Banu and Ayhan are already dead). Meral finds the letter in which Banu regrets breaking up with Kader and begs Ayhan to take responsibility for Kader. Even though it does not justify anything she did to Kader, it is quite normal that Banu does not want to remember such a man.
- Friend to All Children: Any adult character nice to the girls and kids, namely Toprak, Feride, Rustem and Hediye.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Like you wouldn't believe. Just take a look at anyone anytime someone tries to hit on someone they like. Especially apparent with Guney and Serkan.
- Gold Digger: Apparently, Cemre was accused of being this by Nazan when she thinks she wants to get married to her son Serkan.
- Happily Married: You'd be surprised, but it is there:
- Feride and Toprak are shining examples of this. Even most their arguments are Played for Laughs.
- Songul and Guney finally get to make this happen. Unfortunately, it doesn't last the whole series...
- Eylul and Ali in the finale.
- Hate Sink: Kemal, without a doubt. He has zero sympathetic moments and traits. Even Yavuz, who shares a lot with him, seems to at least care about his son Serkan.
- Hot-Blooded: Songul is very, very temperamental and easily the fiercest of the girls.
- I Didn't Mean to Kill Him: Obviously, Kader never intended for her altercation with Yavuz to end with his death. She was just defending herself from being sexually assaulted and then it happened. She even drops the name of this trope word-for-word.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: Kemal pulls this on Eylul. Thankfully, she is rescued before any actual harm befalls her.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: In the final chapters, Songul is kidnapped along with Kader when the latter tries to save a boy she knows went missing when she sees him being dragged to a van.
- Intergenerational Friendship: The girls with Toprak, Feride, Hediye, Rustem and eventually Nazan and Neriman.
- Jerkass: Oh, too many to count.
- Karmic Death: Plenty, considering the amount of horrible characters here. Notable ones are Kemal and Yavuz.
- Laughably Evil: He might've been the most despicable character in the series, but Kemal admittedly provides a lot of humor throughout.
- Love Hurts: A frequent occurrence.
- Mama Bear: By god, do not hurt anyone she cares about, or Feride will flip out.
- Motor Mouth: Kader demonstrates this when nervous.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Songul and Guney have to deal with Selin being against their marriage and trying to control everything about it. She does mellow out eventually, though.
- Papa Wolf: Toprak.
- Parental Abandonment: Expect anything less from a series about orphan girls?
- Not only that but there are a lot of parents just not shown throughout.
- Pet the Dog: Surprisingly, Defne has had her share of these, particularly when she's in a dark place and the girls help her out, she becomes more cordial with them.
- The Reveal: In a series this dramatic and long, this is bound to happen:
- Kader finds out that her mother Banu is actually Neriman's niece. She was very angry with this revelation.
- Cemre discovers that Defne was actually adopted by Nazan. Hers and Serkan's actual fathers shows up in the end, and it's also revealed that he's a pedophile and a pervert.
- Remarrying for Your Kids: After Songul dies, Guney finds a video message on his computer left by Songul and one of her requests was that Guney remarries for the sake of their daughter, because she doesn't want her to grow up without a mother like she did. It's left ambiguous as to whether Guney followed through with it or not, although it's safe to say he probably did.
- Sleep Cute: There are a lot of shots of the girls just sleeping peacefully...until something sinister interrupts it, most of the time.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Although Yavuz has one of the least appearances in the whole series, his accidental death leads to the darkest moment in the show: the loss of Songul.
- Smug Snake: Kemal often acts like this when things are going his way, or when he has Eylul at his mercy.
- Teens Are Monsters: It's a bit of a stretch to say this about Defne and everyone else who's mean-spirited in the school but let's be honest, they were pretty petty and vindictive. Only their nice moments save them from being this trope entirely.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Cenk becomes very bitter after his breakup with Kader. He spends the next few episodes being a huge jerk. Until he gets better in Episode 70.
- Serkan used to be a lot sweeter earlier, but he becomes somewhat unlikable due to jealousy and selfishness. He gets better eventually too.
- Troubled Child: Again, it comes with being abandoned by your parents.
- Undying Loyalty: The girls live by this as their code.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had Kader not kill Yavuz when he forced himself on her, they wouldn't have had to drive to the police station and Songul wouldn't have tried to help them escape, which led to the accident that killed her.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: The girls like to bicker among themselves often and tease each other but never mistake that for an opportunity to tear them apart.
- Wicked Stepfather / Wicked Stepmother: Kemal to Eylul. Zehra to Songul, but she is a downplayed example because in spite of her manipulations throughout, she's not nearly as bad as Kemal.
- "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Kader is. Despite all the crap her mother pulls her into, she really wants her to be proud.
- Would Hurt a Child: Kemal, since he antagonizes teenagers often.
