I found Dimova's novel well written when I read it years ago, but its message unsettled me - guilt stretched across generations, almost to the level of original sin, effectively absolving everyone of responsibility. Strangely, the series goes to the opposite extreme, which proves even more problematic.
The structure is tight, some of the performances are solid, but issues appear fast. The overly polished visuals - Instagram-ready interiors and sanitized Sofia streets - feel disconnected from reality and borderline insulting to viewers still living in it. It's part of a growing trend in local productions: sell a glossy illusion, even if it erases inconvenient truths.
More troubling is the heavy-handed moralizing though. None of the mothers are given real context or understanding - they're portrayed as guilty no matter their circumstances. Most disturbingly, the woman who had an affair and the "hypochondriac" are subjected to especially cruel judgment by the narrative, despite being the clearest victims in their respective stories. One is erased in her own home and accepts blame for trying to be a person again; the other's suffering is reduced to a personal flaw.
The teacher, meant to be a moral compass, immediately rings false - all slogans, no substance. Even high schoolers shouldn't buy it.
Add the blatant pharmaceutical product placement and the whole mental health campaign emerging around the series, and it's hard not to see the show's rigid morality as thinly veiled messaging. The narrative starts to seem tailored to pathologize and commercialize guilt - especially maternal guilt - in ways that align too neatly with certain industries. A monstrous mother, after all, is the ideal marketing tool for selling easy fixes like therapies and medication.
But art should question, not prescribe.
One can't help but wonder if the scene between the writer and the producers in the final episode is a quiet apology for selling out the opportunity to build real meaning - or just a clever way to feign distance while staying firmly inside the machine. Or is it possible that they are so profoundly dishonest that they try to paint themselves as the good guys, claiming they didn't make a compromise but instead chose to ignore their 'ego' in the name of the future generation - just as the teenager said the father should have done?
