Netflix’s The Club is a Turkish soap opera wrapped in a mid-century period drama. Taking place in 1950s Istanbul, the series follows the goings on at a nightclub where there’s romance, professional tension between performers, and this season, the threat of the club’s closure after a financial disaster strikes. Set against the backdrop of the post-war Istanbul pogrom and the rising tension between Muslims and non-Muslims in Turkey, the show’s melodrama is rooted in historical facts and beautiful period scenery.

Opening Shot: A young girl, Rana, collects stones off the ground and places them on a grave. She asks her mother, Raşel, why they do this, and her mother responds, “So he doesn’t get lonely.”

The Gist: In part two of Netflix’s Turkish series The Club, Raşel (Asude Kalebek), is raising her young daughter Rana alone now that Rana’s father Ismet has run off. Raşel has taken to petty crime, like purse snatching, and is generally forlorn (a trait Rana points out when she tells her mother at one point how beautiful she is when she actually smiles). Raşel is raising Rana alone, but Rana is really growing up in The Club, where her grandmother Matilda (Gökçe Bahadir) works, and where she’s embraced by all the characters who work there, from the performers like Selim (Salih Bademci) and his competition, a seductive showgirl, with whom he feels a fierce rivalry, and the management who seem to adore the little girl.

The Club, meanwhile, faces the threat of a shutdown due to unpaid taxes. While this would be problem enough for the manager, Çelebi (Firat Tanis), what’s worse is that the man he entrusted with the club’s savings, Mr. Faruk, was murdered by a wealthy but crooked developer named Fikret (Halil Babur), who then ran off with the club’s money.

Fikret has become a nightly patron at the club, and Çelebi is wary of him, and when Fikret calls a meeting with him to explain that he’s like to help with the club’s finances, Çelebi knows the game Fikret is playing. Çelebi doesn’t want to lose control of the club or allow it to be taken over by this thug of a guy, and he tells Fikret off. But Fikret, whose father is also a powerful man, is not someone to be trifled with, and Çelebi may not have a choice but to go into business with him to save the club.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? With it’s many revolving plots and soapy, historical period drama, The Club feels like a Turkish version of the Israeli drama The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem.

Our Take: What makes the club successful this season is that the drama has successfully been heightened without becoming implausible or overly ridiculous. The generational family dynamics between Matilda, Raşel, and Rana are complicated but loving, especially the way that Matilda is portrayed as a loving grandmother, but she’s much harder on her own daughter. Life right now for

Our Take: What makes the club successful this season is that the drama has successfully been heightened without becoming implausible or overly ridiculous. The generational family dynamics between Matilda, Raşel, and Rana are complicated but loving, especially the way that Matilda is portrayed as a loving grandmother, but she’s much harder on her own daughter. Life right now for Raşel is difficult given not just her situation with her mother, but her constant attempts to find Rana’s father, Ismet.

The show ups the ante with the club as well, by putting Çelebi in an impossible situation, as he realizes that he might have to make a deal with the devil (in this case, the devil is a building developer, Fikret) to save the club and the jobs of everyone who works there. As a new character this season, Fikret’s motives and character are established immediately, and if there’s tension and conflict to be had this season, it will most certainly revolve around him.

Sex and Skin: The Club is rated TV-MA for some showgirl-related nudity and sex.

Parting Shot: Fikret, having ended his meeting with Çelebi, is approached by a butler, who tells him, “Your father summoned you, sir.” The camera pans up to a room in Fikret’s enormous house where his father is, and the the camera scans across a scale model of Istanbul, which the family appears to want to develop every inch of.

Performance Worth Watching: As Rana, Ada Erma is a great performer whose emotional range is impressive for her young age.

Our Call: The Club is a solid drama series set amid a period of Turkish history that many viewers may not be that familiar with. As such, it’s a binge-worthy series that’s smart and addictive. STREAM IT.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.