In Netflix‘s new Turkish thriller Not A Stranger, an overwhelmed new mom hires a nanny that she thinks is perfect, but it turns out that she has a past with other members of the mom’s family, and not the purest of motives.
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she → hire → motives
We see a rubber duckie in a pool, then a look at a mother’s face from her baby daughter’s perspective.
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We → see → perspective
Funda (Elçin Sangu) has been struggling emotionally since the birth of her now one-year-old daughter.
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Funda → struggle → daughter
A well-regarded artist, she hasn’t painted any new works since her pregnancy.
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she → regard → pregnancy
She and her husband İlker (Ozan Dolunay) haven’t had sex in months.
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She → have → months
And she’s so overprotective of her daughter that she fires nannies if her daughter cries a little bit in their presence.
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daughter → ’ → presence
But she wants to go back to her art, to the point where she’s set up a gallery showing in two months, where she’s promised the organizer that she’ll feature new work.
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she → want → work
It seems that the only person she’s encountered that is good with her daughter is Nazlı (Melis Sezen), the baby’s swim instructor.
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that → seem → daughter
So when Nazlı tells Funda she’s quitting her job and moving away due to a bad roommate situation, Funda almost on the spot hires Nazlı as the new nanny.
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Funda → tell → nanny
She’s seemingly perfect for the job, but things start going awry when İlker comes back from a business trip and meets Nazlı for the first time, recognizing her instantly as someone with whom he once had a one-night stand.
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he → ’ → stand
What Shows Will It Remind You Of?
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It → remind → You
Written by Tuğba Doğan, Not A Stranger reminds us of other “suspicious nanny” thrillers like Secrets We Keep and Servant.
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We → write → Secrets
Most of the story of Not A Stranger is told from a time period where Funda is talking to someone from either prison or a psychiatric hospital, which shows how much psychological torture she’s going to go through with Nazlı.
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she → tell → Nazlı
While it seems like the show is a pretty standard case of “be careful of whom you let into your life,” it’s still an interesting examination in how overwhelmed first-time mothers can get, even those who have the resources Funda has.
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Funda → seem → resources
Funda put her trust in Nazlı, and it’s pretty apparent that Nazlı, as perfect as she seems, schemed her way into Funda and İlker’s life.
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she → put → life
Funda is already weighing Nazlı’s skills with her daughter against her previous relationship with İlker, so we’re pretty sure she’ll be spending the entire series trying to figure out what Nazli’s deal is while appreciating that she somehow gets the baby to sleep.
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baby → weigh → sleep
There is certainly room for some twists and turns in this story, and the series will likely hinge on how things are resolved.
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things → be → story
But we were definitely intrigued by how determined Funda is to making the arrangement work so she can get back to her art and former self.
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she → make → art
While Melis Sezen has to do some creepy heavy lifting as Nazlı, we’re more fascinated with the range of emotions that Elçin Sangu has to go through as Funda.
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Sangu → have → Funda
There’s a few sex scenes as Funda tries to rev up her and İlker’s sex life, but not much nudity.
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Funda → ’ → life
“Whatever happened, happened because of me,” Funda says from the hospital and/or prison.
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Funda → happen → hospital
“You get hubristic, you lose.”
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you → get → ?
The first episode of Not A Stranger does a solid job establishing the story and just how desperate Funda is to get pieces of her pre-parenting life back, which will lead her to some interesting decisions.
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which → do → decisions
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie.
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he → write → himself
His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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writing → appear → Times
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