'Thank You, Next' Season 3 Full Recap (Episodes 1-8): Is Defne Pregnant?

A controversial character is always good for a show, and I think it has done wonders for Netflix’s Turkish series Thank You, Next. In the previous season, Cem turned out to be a manipulative, abusive partner, and Leyla not only walks out on the relationship, she also sues him for installing tracking software on the phones of his ex-partners (atta girl!) But well, the show never really wants the audience to ‘hate-hate’ Cem; just like Leyla, we are expected to hate him but also not completely give up on him. He has the typical ‘dark’ character traits, he has a troubling past, and that reflects on his present, and he desperately wants to be in control of his life, yet he watches situations slip out of his control due to his anger issues that he likely inherited from his father. You get the gist, he is a bad choice, a red flag, and although in the previous season it looked like Leyla might just be over him, season 3 establishes she still cares about him, and might secretly want to ‘fix’ him (ugh).

Spoiler Alert

What happened between Cem and Leyla?

When Leyla discovers that Cem had sneaked into her apartment when she’d stepped out with Ali, she is furious. She can’t believe that he can stoop this low to find out what she has been up to. Instead of discussing the issue with her friends, Leyla decides to take matters into her own hands. She already has the surveillance video from her home camera, and she takes the footage to the cops and comes up with a plan to get Cem arrested. She contacts Cem and asks him to meet her at the Ataturk airport, and they finally sit down face to face in his jet. Cem had seen the camera in her apartment, and a part of him hoped Leyla would notice him. Both Cem and Leyla still have feelings for each other, although Leyla wants to believe she is over him. Cem can predict why Leyla has decided to meet him, but he lets her take the conversation forward. 

When Leyla asks him if he has always been this manipulative, Cem explains that, in a way, his father has shaped his personality; he has spent so much of his life trying to clean up his father’s mess that, in the process, he has become like him, and he isn’t proud of it. Leyla thinks Cem’s explanation is rooted in his need to deny accountability. You see, it’s always easier to blame others than to admit that you’re messed up. Cem emphasizes that he has never done anything to put Leyla in danger, but when Leyla states that he is ‘the danger,’ and he always destroys everything around him, well, he can’t really argue with her analysis. Cem doesn’t give up, he tries to convince Leyla that he is still in love with her, and begs her to give him another chance. He still hopes that things can go back to the way they were before, but of course, it is almost impossible. He has tried to hurt Leyla by flaunting his relationship with Dafne publicly, and she has also recently discovered that he had used her to smuggle diamonds for his business; he has left her mentally and emotionally drained with all his tricks. He even admits that he had visited her apartment so that she would come see him, and yet again, he proved how manipulative he is. So obviously, Leyla can’t trust him again, and as their conversation comes to an end, the silence is shattered by police sirens and Cem is arrested for breaking and entering into Leyla’s apartment. Before leaving, Leyla promises Cem that she’ll expose all his dirty secrets, but he isn’t bothered, because he still believes no one can ever harm him. 

After his arrest, Leyla tells her team that Cem has been using diamonds to smuggle money overseas, and he has been evading taxes, but there’s a lack of evidence. She is confident that even his mother is involved in his business. Leyla manages to answer all the questions her team has, but when she is asked why she stayed with Cem from dawn to night and what they had been doing together for so long, she fails to come up with a response. As it turns out, Cem had confessed that his father had pulled the plug on his brother’s life support; technically, his father had killed him, but his brother had been suffering, and every time he looked at his family, it was almost as if he were begging them just to let him go. Leyla revisits their conversation over and over again, and we only get to see glimpses of it. Some of it seems to be real, some fabricated, because she desired to be close to him, and that is reflected in her dreams. We don’t really know if Leyla and Cem got physically intimate on the jet, maybe they didn’t, maybe it was just them discussing what went wrong with their relationship, and Cem desperately attempting to convince Leyla that he still loved her. Either way, that one conversation left a deep impact on Leyla, and throughout the season, she keeps on going back to it, for the sake of evidence, comfort, regret, and everything in between. 

Why was Leyla jealous of Omar’s relationship?

Omar has finally found love! While walking Buddy in a park, Omar stumbled upon Delik, one of his former girlfriends. She was walking her dog, Betty, and well their dogs instantly connected, and Omar and Delik started talking. Omar didn’t recognize Delik at first, and he was all the more surprised when he discovered that, for Delik, he was her first love. They met when they were in college, but their relationship didn’t work out at the time. We quickly find out that Delik had played a major role in Omar’s healing journey. As a therapist, she’d recognized that he had a tendency to blame others for his downfall, and she insisted that he self-reflect. Since she knew him personally, she recommended him to another therapist, but they continued to stay in touch and eventually fell in love. When Leyla stops by Omar’s place, he tells her that she is ‘the one,’ and Leyla doesn’t know how to react. She is glad that Omar is finally in a better place; he is working on his business as he’d always intended to, he is in love with someone who adores him, and life is finally working in his favor, but there’s this strange feeling of slight envy. Not that she loves Omar or wants to be with him, but just the fact that he has found someone he can imagine spending the rest of his life with, and she can’t really say the same for herself. She has dated men after Omar, but she has never really experienced that kind of permanency, and that perhaps makes her wonder if she is not doing things right, or if she is missing out on a wholesome romance. She is in love with Ali, but he has to leave for three years to film his next documentary. This is huge for his career, so he obviously has to grab on to the opportunity, which means Ali and Leyla have to part ways. Now, Leyla briefly even considers traveling the world with Ali, hoping she will find herself in the process, but she soon realizes that she has to stay put and deal with all the chaos around her instead of running away. So, with her relationship with Ali coming to an end, Leyla feels heartbroken; she knows they would’ve been a happy couple, but life clearly has other plans!

Is Defne Pregnant?

A pregnancy strip repeatedly appears this season, creating a sense of mystery, and we’ve waited till the very end of season 3 to find out who it is. Although it first appears as if Defne is the one who is pregnant, it is eventually revealed that Delik and Omar are about to become parents. They chose to keep it a secret from their friends at first, but when Delik and Leyla have a heart-to-heart conversation at the lake house, she confides in Leyla that she is pregnant. Leyla is over the moon and she ends up announcing the good news to everyone in the house. She is genuinely happy for them, and that pinch of jealousy has completely subsided. Delik and Omar are obviously excited for what the future has in store for them. This is a huge step, and while Omar seemed a little lost in the last two seasons, he has evolved and become a responsible adult, surely capable of raising a child. You can already imagine Delik and Omar’s little one being a part of the group discussions that are crucial to the show. I honestly don’t see any red flags in their relationship, and I hope that things work out for them. Maybe next season we might even witness a wedding ceremony? No pressure! 

Are Feyyaz and Defne in love?

I think Feyyaz and Defne’s relationship is the one to watch next season. They seem to be genuinely happy, but we all know they have a pretty intense past, from Defne’s miscarriage to their messy breakup. But then again, Defne found herself gravitating towards Feyyaz when she realized that Cem never really had any feelings for her, and he was mostly doing everything out of guilt and for duty’s sake. She had taken to alcohol, and Feyyaz helped her come out of the horrible mental state she was in. Although Leyla had enough reasons to hate Defne, she rather sympathized with her. She knew how manipulative Cem was, so she wasn’t surprised when she discovered that Defne was completely broken after her marriage to Cem. 

Leyla lets Defne stay at her lake house to help her heal, and Feyyaz stays by her side for constant support. They seem to have grown fond of each other again, but Defne has a very complex relationship with Cem, and unless she is completely over him, their relationship will go through a rough patch again. Defne seems to now completely detest Cem, but given the history they share, she might again feel sorry for him. Hopefully, Defne will find a sense of balance in her life, with very clear boundaries, so that even if she forgives Cem, she will likely have the clarity to choose Feyyaz as her romantic partner. 

What does the future have in store for Leyla?

Throughout the third season, Defne and her team of lawyers go through every possible angle to take down Cem. They thought they could take him down for installing the tracking software, but Cem managed to wriggle his way out of the situation (I’ve discussed this in detail in my ending explained article). Leyla even manages to get him arrested for breaking and entering into her apartment, but he uses his contacts with higher-ups and manages to get bail. From the conversation with Cem, Leyla concludes that there might be more to Selim and Cem’s father’s death. She remembers Cem mentioning that Defne is the only one he feels guilty about (out of all his ex-partners), and Leyla wonders if that is because he was responsible for the accident that left Selim in a state of coma. Leyla struggles to accept that Cem’s father died by suicide; if he is the one who had turned off the life support as Cem has told her, then why did he kill himself after Selim’s death? So, Leyla’s team starts working on her hunches, and they soon come to the conclusion that Cem might be responsible for the deaths of both his brother and father. 

The phone records indicate that Cem was following Defne and Selim in his car on the night of the accident, which means that he has been lying about being in the same car as Defne and Selim, which surely makes him look suspicious. Moreover, according to the original autopsy report, Cem’s father was shot twice, and therefore the suicide narrative is completely false. Again, Cem looks very guilty in this case, because he is the one who came up with a false autopsy report and tried to cover-up his father’s murder. Leyla’s team is certain that he’s the one who pulled the trigger, and that is why he came up with the elaborate cover-up plan. Now, we already know from the previous season that Cem’s mother killed his father, and I think Cem desperately tries to have a word with Leyla, hoping she will understand his situation and back off. Cem isn’t in a good spot, and a murder investigation could completely ruin his reputation. He is arrested again after he and Sarp get into a pretty intense physical fight. The question is, will Leyla give Cem another chance, or will she simply trust the evidence and let the legal procedure take its course? I don’t think we can completely discount the possibility of Leyla and Cem ending up together, he is the only person Leyla can’t completely shrug off even though she has tried her best to. I hope it is only after Cem becomes a better person, because right now he is not the best candidate! 

The final scene of Thank You, Next season 3 also indicates the possibility of a new love story! Leyla is reunited with her childhood crush, John, at the airport, soon after Ali leaves for his long adventure. Who knows, maybe John is the one for Leyla, and he is just what she needs to move on from Cem! Or, what if, somehow, Leyla and Ali’s relationship magically works out? In three years, she can be in a better place, and they might decide to give each other another chance. Well, everything is possible in Thank You, Next and for now we can only wait for season 4 to find out who will be Leyla’s true love.

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