Netflix’s The Town Cast And Character Guide

Netflix’s Turkish crime drama, “The Town,” is a high-voltage thriller featuring a close-knit group of people from a town who get pulled into an illegal movement of cash. While the series is spearheaded by the grief and greed of its central character, Efe, who fights his past demons and future commitments while stealing the money, his path is not a path of a lone wolf. In fact, his brothers, his friends, and his romantic interest—everyone becomes a stake in this venture. What begins as a mere act of displacing money becomes a lot more about individual reckoning and saving each other in the end. While Efe and the others often fail, let’s calculate their wins and losses in this article as we get familiar with their characters.

Spoilers Ahead

Efe, played by Yerman Gur

Efe is the most etched-out character in the story, with the plotline including his past and present to bring his dilemmas to life. He carries huge burdens of guilt regarding two deaths that he thinks that he is responsible for. One of them is the death of his brother Sinan, who disappeared into the woods after he told him one night in the forest that he is in love with his girlfriend Zeynep, and the other is his coworker Sait’s death, who died in a car accident while going to cover for a job that Efe was originally supposed to do. As a result, Efe never acted on his feelings for Zeynep and became the sole provider for Sait’s family, raising his children as his own. Efe’s life was somewhat controlled by his mother too, who thought Zeynep was to blame for her son’s disappearance and did not let Efe get together with her. It is after his mother’s death that Efe’s brother Salim comes to town and the events of the series start unfolding. Finding the twelve million dollars becomes important for Efe since, with his share of money, the first thing he does is to hand over a million to Sait’s wife to make amends for her husband’s death.While Efe’s morals behind stealing the money could have been questioned, later that becomes all too justified when more deaths pile up on his conscience. One by one, he loses his friend Mufit and then his remaining brother, Salim, which leaves his pregnant wife alone. Efe has to clear his conscience, and he takes up the mission to expose the corrupt police department in the town and avenge his brother by a one-on-one confrontation with Caner Sepekci. While Begum is the one to pull the trigger (and well deserving; it is her revenge to take), Efe is finally free of carrying the burden of guilt. 

Ahmat, played by Ozgurkan Cevik

Ahmat is Efe’s childhood friend who is a shareholder to the money. While Efe and the others plan to stick to the plan of burying the money to avoid trouble for a while, it is Ahmat who decides to use the money and attracts attention. Ahmat is then held captive by Yildirim, who tortures him for the money. Ahmat stays beside Efe at every turn, and Efe also goes back time and again to save his friend. Ahmat may be a slave to his menial pleasures, but at his heart, he is a loyalist to his friend. Ahmat is also Zeynep’s brother and becomes one of the people to escape with the money at the end of the show.

Salim, played by Ozan Dolunay

Salim is Efe’s brother, who moved to Istanbul to get away from the town, but their mother’s funeral brings him back. Salim is not really an escapist, but he does stress the fact that his brother Efe should come along with them to Istanbul to start a new life. While Efe is duty-bound to remain in town to look after Sait’s family, Salim thinks sending over money can resolve this sense of complex grief that Efe carries. Salim wanted to show his wife, Begum, their childhood home, and that is when they came across the car with the money. Later, while protecting the money, Salim is abducted by Sapekci’s men and ultimately shot. His body is returned to Efe and his wife, which becomes a brutal reminder for Efe to avenge the death trails left by the Sapekci brothers while trying to claim the money. 

Yildrim, played by Kerem Can

Yildrim, who was first seen at the accident spot looking for the money, turns out to be not the original owner of the money but a mole of a mole called Nihat, who is planning to betray the Sapekcis. Nihat sent Yildrim to look for the money, and he eventually tracked down Ahmat, holding him captive in his garage. While he began as an antagonist at first, soon Efe and his group overpower him, and he realizes that they are fighting a common enemy. They decide to merge forces. While Yildrim’s goal is to get the money back, his motivation to live is his daughter Kar. Time and again, he tries his best to save his daughter from the grasp of the Sapekcis, even arranging an escape for her, but ultimately, while Kar gets away, Yildrim has to die at the hand of a Sapekci. However, Yildrim’s love for his daughter becomes something tangible for the other group members, who give her his share of money for her future. 

Begum, played by Busra Develi

Begum is Salim’s wife, who starts off small but becomes a dynamic strategist ever since the group comes across the money. It is actually Begum who suggests that they should go back and hide a body to distract the investigation, but things soon go wrong. Begum is levelheaded, and while the group is chasing greed and bloodlust, she remains a strong anchor. She provides the necessary first aid to Yildrim and also becomes an emotional support for many of the characters. Begum’s role is vital in the end, as after the death of her husband, she kills Taner Sapekci when Efe’s bullets run out. Begum finds out she is pregnant, which leaves a ray of hope for the group who has seen and suffered many losses. 

Zeynep, played by an unknown actress

Zeynep is Efe’s romantic interest in this series, but also not quite. The dynamic between them is full of tension, complex, and unresolved, as Zeynep was the adolescent girlfriend of Efe’s brother Sinan. After Sinan’s disappearance, the weight of moral guilt (and a controlling mother) could not bring Efe back with Zeynep. Zeynep gets married to Faruk, whom she later leaves on account of his being abusive, and he comes back to claim her. Zeynep tries her best to resist his attempts, but when she is fed up, she decides to poison him. With Begum’s clever intervention, Faruk does not die, but Zeynep emotionally checks out of the relationship and escapes with the group. 

The Sapkeci Brothers

While Hussain and Caner Sapekci are the main antagonists of the show who are hunting for the money, they have been betrayed by their own blood, Nihat Sapekci. Nihat is the one who recruits Yildirim and tries to get his hand on the money to escape the Sapkecis. However, Hussain and Caner mercilessly kill their own blood and later become the killers of many major characters, including Salim. Caner Sapekci is killed by Begum in the end, after Efe lures him with a potential location for money and then ambushes him. 

In “The Town,” the hunt for twelve million dollars becomes much more than a crime story, compelling every character to face their guilt and their loyalties. Efe’s struggle sits at the center of it all, but everyone around him—Ahmat, Salim, Yildirim, Begum, and Zeynep—ends up paying a price for the choices they make. By the end, what matters the most is who survives, what they lose, and what they finally understand about themselves. The characters who walk away do so changed, carrying both the grief of what happened and the hope that they can build something better from the wreckage.

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