This article contains major spoilers for Shahmaran Season 1 Episode 8, “The Snake Inside Me”, and an open discussion of the Shahmaran Season 1 ending.
The Turkish Netflix drama Shahmaran has a lot going on, splicing together multiple genres with complicated mythology across eight long episodes, the last of which, “The Snake Inside Me”, has a lot to answer for in terms of paying off longstanding questions and mysteries. So, let’s do our best to unpack it, deduce the meaning of everything, and figure out what exactly was going on.
Shahmaran Season 1 Episode 8 Recap
Broadly, the plot revolves around what is essentially a love story between Sahsu, a Ph.D. candidate from Istanbul who takes a temporary job as a guest lecturer in Adana, and Maran, the neighbor of her estranged grandfather Davut whose family believes that Sahsu is an integral part of a doom-and-gloom prophecy. It’s worth mentioning at this point, out of the gate, that Maran and his family, including his father Ural and his sisters, are all basilisks, part human and part snake.
Soon after Sahsu’s arrive, the omens begin since you can’t have a good prophecy without them. There are visions, mysterious fires at cultural festivals, eerie group suicides in the ruins of a castle, a whispering, staring dude in a hoodie, and venomous snakes all over the place – so, you know, the usual. Sahsu is the “chosen one”, and Maran has to weigh up his attraction to/love for her versus his obligations as part of the prophecy.
Oh, there’s also a woman confined to the well in the aforementioned Anavarza Castle, which is never a good sign.
So, most of the show’s drama revolves around these things: Sahsu and Maran’s perhaps ill-advised relationship and growing connection, the weird things that occur because of it, and the persistent question of whether their love can circumvent the preordained path of destiny or the bad actors with a vested interest in seeing the prophecy not come to pass. Sahsu and Maran are destined to be together, but that’s rarely a good starting point for a relationship, especially if one half of the pairing has no idea about the details. This is how Maran’s revelation about his Basilisk nature works in the context of a romance; Sahsu assumes he has been pretending to love her because he feels he has to and has to decipher whether or not their connection is truly genuine.
Maran also isn’t keen on his role in any of this. He doesn’t like the idea of prophecy in the first place and has never much taken to the importance of preserving an uneasy peace between humans and Basilisks. So, his own arc mirrors Sahsu’s – in realizing the authenticity of their connection, he fulfills and understands his own important responsibilities.
Shahmaran Season 1 Ending Explained
The prophecy, by the way, is about the rebirth of the titular Shahmaran, a process that requires a Basilisk and a chosen-one human to “love each other to death”, which is hardly a tantalizing proposition. It also – prophecies, man – requires a sacrifice of the human which involves a trip to the underworld. Shahmaran is a pure interpretation of the woman scorned, led to her death by her lover, Camsap, in an act of betrayal. The woman in the well in Anavarza Castle is Shahmaran’s sister, Lilith, who is obsessed with vengeance on humankind for her sister’s fate. She was confined there by Shahmaran, who doesn’t hold much truck with grudges, even when she was the aggrieved party, and the same union that is prophesied to bring about her rebirth is the very same that will prevent Lilith from enacting her vengeance.
A white snake after Sahsu and Maran get together indicates that in fulfilling the prophecy Lilith has been defeated. Either she has become this snake, or the snake is going to eradicate her since it wasn’t among the serpents she used to live with in the well.
It is also revealed that Davut is Camsap, Shahmaran’s guilt-ridden former partner/betrayer, rendered immortal by consuming the tail part of Shahmaran and forced to live eternally despite desiring his own death. He has lived a solitary life as Davut to stew in his guilt. Fulfilling the prophecy may finally free him from his torment and allow him to embrace death after a lifetime of suffering for his mistakes.
You can stream Shahmaran Season 1 Episode 8 exclusively on Netflix. What did you think of the Shahmaran Season 1 ending? Let us know in the comments.
