A tomography of New Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 18-year-old reign or a populist drama of one cliche after the other? A Turkish series on Netflix with the self-declared aim of healing the fault lines of Turkey has created still another division, this time between those who herald it as a masterpiece of hope and those who trash it as liberal intelligentsia’s self-flagellation.

Ever since its release in mid-November, “Ethos,” a drama written and directed by Berkun Oya, has caused heated debate in the Turkish media, in the columns of popular culture writers and the Twittersphere. There are not yet quizzes on “Which Ethos Character Are You — Islamophobic Peri, Seductive Sinan or Lesbian Hayrunnisa?” but they may well be on their way, judging from widely used memes of the main characters. Even Netflix circles indicate that they are surprised by the never-ending debate on the series that has been a hit in 18 countries, including Turkey.

The eight-episode drama tells the interwoven stories of half a dozen characters, each reflecting an all-too-familiar stereotype in Turkey. 

An uptight therapist who feels more at home with Peruvian shamanist rituals than with Islamic rites becomes agitated over her hijabi patient, exposing her dismay that “those conservatives now everywhere, including in power.” The lesbian daughter of an imam wonders how to tell her soft-spoken father that she no longer wants to wear a headscarf. A soldier-turned-bouncer alternates between consoling and inflicting psychological violence on his rape-victim wife. A clueless philanderer who thinks his cheesy lines are the ultimate tool of seduction overhers himself mocked by one of his conquests. Another therapist exposes her turbulent childhood in the Kurdish southeast when she attacks her now-headscarved sister for “kissing the very feet that kicked our mother’s belly while she was pregnant.”