By shedding light on the behaviour of the Islamic Republicâs elite, the popular series has the potential to influence votersâ attitudes ahead of next yearâs presidential election. Systemic corruption has long plagued the Islamic Republic and even played a factor in driving people on to the streets â most recently the November 2019 protests, in which security forces are believed to have killed more than 200 protesters and arrested thousands.
The show follows antagonist Nima Bahri, an
aghazadeh who shops at Christieâs auction house, flies to Dubai on a private jet and aspires to be Gordon Gekko from Oliver Stoneâs film Wall Street. Bahri has so much money that he has to launder it. One of the ways he does so is through the auctioning of counterfeit paintings, such as a work by the late Iranian painter and poet Sohrab Sepehri â one of the many nods to real-life events (a Sepehri painting sold for more than $637,000 at the Tehran Auction in 2018, onl