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Peasants' Rebellion cast
Back row, left to right, all nobility, Rahaf, Alba, the old man, Rameh, Lamis, Fayez, Narjis, Gawain, Maysoun
Front row, left to right, mostly peasants, Nawras, Fotoun, Mantoura, Ayoub, Salim |
This series, near as I can tell, is set during the
19th Century civil war in Lebanon. It has a bunch of characters and some of the most screwed up families this side of Jerry Springer.
It starts off with the death of the Grand Master Fayez Nisr. He is succeeded by his son. The new Grand Master Nisr has a sister, Narjis, a wife Kalma and four kids, two boys: Fayez & Salim and two girls: Maysoun & Lamis.
Grand Master Fayez Nisr leaves behind a widow. She is ancient and a bit doddering but occasionally she shows a bit of wit. She spends her time mucking about with solid gold candelabras, rearranging them, lighting candles and then extinguishing them.
Twenty odd years ago Narjis secretly married Ayoub, a peasant, which is basically a hanging offense in this mid-19th Century feudal society, so she has kept quiet about it. She and Ayoub converted a cave into a love nest. The cave is accessible from the palace via a secret door in a stone wall in the garden and from the outside via a skeletal door artfully covered with growing plants. Narjis and Ayoub have set up a system of signals to coordinate their meetings. Ayoub's part has him blowing his horn. Narjis has a bay window in her bedroom. Whenever she opens that window to gaze out, you can be pretty sure that Ayoub will be blowing his horn.
Grand Master Nisr has pledged Fayez, his eldest son, to marry his cousin Alba. However, Fayez has fallen in love with Mantoura, a peasant woman, who has had a baby girl by him. Mantoura has an older boy, around ten years old. From some brief comments that were made, we learn that Mantoura was married to his father who was a rotten bastard and was killed by Fayez, but that all happened long ago. The circumstances surrounding his death make no difference to the lords of this empire, Mantoura is fallen woman, she has a son but no husband, so she is lower than dirt, which is where the peasants reside on the social scale.
Salim, the Grand Master's younger son, is wheel-chair bound due to injuries he suffered some years ago at the hands of the peasants. He had been out riding with some guards and they had ridden into a field and were trampling the crop. This outraged the peasants who came out and attacked this group and Salim was seriously injured.
Lamis, the older daughter, was raped by some noble villains 18 years ago. She got pregnant and when she delivered the baby, it was given to Abu Anwar, the head of the local guard with orders to get rid of it. The report is a bit garbled, but the gist of it was that he didn't kill the baby but possibly abandoned it, or maybe handed it over to a peasant woman named Salma. In any case, Salma took the baby home and raised him as her own. His name is Nizar.
Lamis was understandably devastated. It probably didn't help that her rapists escaped punishment. Now Lamis has basically the same fallen woman status as Mantoura, though she lives in luxury inside the palace instead of outside in a hovel. Lamis has been nursing a grudge against her family ever since.
Maysoun, the younger daughter has been pledged by her father to marry her cousin Rameh, who is brother to Alba, who is pledged to marry Fayez. Maysoun is not happy about this because she is in love with Anwar, son of the military man. Anwar Jr. is supposed to be in London studying at a university, but he has secretly come back to Lebanon and become the leader of the local gang of rebels.
That is just the Grand Master's family. Moving on we have:
Rameh, pompous little peacock who delights in throwing his weight around. He too is nursing a grudge against the royal family. His father committed suicide roughly ten years ago. Before he killed himself, he told Rameh that Grand Master Nisr was responsible for his bankruptcy. Rahaf, Rameh's mother, reinforced this belief for a while, but eventually changed her tune and started telling her son that his father had gone bankrupt because he has lost all his money gambling. However, it's too late. Rameh has a story that makes the Grand Master the villain and he's sticking with it. It's really all he's got because he and his mother and sister are just guests in the palace. Blood related guests, but still just guests.
Alba, Rameh's sister, has been in love with Fayez for years. She is the only one that is happy about the upcoming marriage. Of course she will be devastated when Fayez rejects her. He marries her anyway out of duty and obedience to his father.
Rameh and Alba's mother Rahaf is the sister of Kamla, wife of the Grand Master.
Gwaiah is a neice to the Grand Master and Kamla, so cousin to their children. She returns from London with Najib, sorry, 'James', to pay a visit. They are a couple of grifters hoping to make a big score off the Nisr family. Gwaiah is a blood relative but that and five dollars will get you a cup of coffee. Besides, all these people here are crazy.
James pals up with Rameh as they are both interested in latching onto a portion of the the Nisr family fortune. He comes across a drunk Lamis wrapped in a towel, sitting in the women's bathhouse and attempts, rather forcefully, to ply her with affection. Lamis takes exception to this and defends herself with a broken wine bottle. Goodbye James, we hardly knew ya. This the second person Lamis has killed. The first was her brother Salim’s attendant, though that was a bit of an accident. Nowadays we might call it negligent homicide. In any case, Lamis' anger is starting to boil over and isn’t going to take any more crap from any of these entitled fools.
That's pretty much it for the palace, now we can move on to the peasants.
Salma, Nizar's foster mother, has a natural daughter named Fotoun. Fotoun and Mantoura are best buds. Fotoun helps Mantoura deliver her baby daughter out in the woods somewhere. Evidently Mantoura was keeping her pregnancy secret. Salma's husband is tortured and executed by the master's on suspicion of aiding the rebels. Since then Ayoub has been helping her out. He has become Fotoun and Nizar's foster father.
Nawras is a new arrival to the area. He is a potter by trade, and possibly also a wood carver. We see him throwing pots on his wheel in the shop he shares with a wood carver, who also has a name that escapes me. At one point Narwas charms his way into meeting Lamis on the pretext of showing her some wood carvings. Since we never see him carving any wood, we might surmise that he is using carvings made by his partner, or maybe he is multi-talented and made the carvings himself, or maybe it was just a problem with the translation. It doesn't really matter because nothing comes of it other than Lamis becomes infatuated with Nawras. We never even see the wood carvings. They are a minor
McGuffin, if you will.
Nawras and Fotoun meet and are immediately taken with each other. So now we've got half a dozen love stories going on. This may be the only one that has a chance being as they are both peasants, though Nawras might be a free man as opposed to being peasant tied to the master. Not sure if it makes any difference.
Nawras has a pregnant sister named Lillia. She is married to Farid. Farid got tired of Nawras' political involvement and took off for parts unknown.
Amareya is a young woman who lives with Shem'a, a mentally deficient woman. The two of them herd cows and sheep and provide milk and cheese to the palace. There doesn't appear to be anything sexual about their relationship, though they are very attached to each other. Amareya discovered Shem'a lost in the woods when she was a child. She took her in and raised her, though Shem'a appears to be the older one. For this story to work, Amareya must be at least ten years older than Shem'a.
Abdo is the tax collector. He is a peasant, but he enjoys some perks because of his job. He has been dutifully married to Shaida for years. Shaida has delivered four children, all of whom were still-born, which makes this couple very unhappy. I cannot imagine the unhappiness. It might be enough to drive someone crazy.
When Fotoun and Mantoura get called to go serve in the palace, Mantoura entrusts her baby girl to Assaf and his wife, Najwa, an older couple with no kids of their own. Kidnapping and restoration ensue.
Taqla is a little old lady with a big old house on some kind of estate. Her family has all died or run off and she has been left alone with a big old house that is gradually crumbling into ruin. She enjoys having company, so when the situation becomes fraught, her house becomes a meeting place and hideout for the rebels and whoever is on the palace's shit-list for today.
We are up past episode 50 (out of 61) and the political situation is escalating. The rebels are gaining strength. There are reports of massacres coming in from other nearby locales. We are starting to get more discussion about how societies work, or not. If you are paying attention it gets a little heavy. If not, we still have all the craziness on display, though sometimes it gets preempted by gunfire.
On
Netflix in some furrin gibberish with subtitles in English.
Update 12 hours later, corrected some of the more obscure names.
