A new Egyptian thriller on Netflix is all about revenge. Sure, we’ve seen this plot many times before, but who doesn’t like seeing someone get back at the people who wronged them? In the case of this show, the wronged party was accused of murdering his own sister, of all things.
Opening Shot: “Summer 2007.” A group of young people speed around on a boat.
The Gist: The group, except for one of the young women, stop to go scuba diving. For some reason, one of the women, Nadia (Huda El Mufti), apologizes to the other.
During the dive, a hole in Nadia’s air hose rips open. Before any of the other three people on the dive, including her brother Yahia and their friend Ali, can get to her, she loses consciousness. On the beach, Yahia cradles his sister’s lifeless body, telling her that she’s all he has. He also gets angry with Ali for not checking on things before the dive.
Fast forward 15 years. Yahia (Asser Yassin) is getting out of prison, having served time for murdering Nadia. In flashbacks, we see that Ali’s wealthy and influential father, Yasin (Mahmoud Hemida), convinces Yahia to take the heat for this incident, even though it was Ali’s responsibility. Yahia’s family works for Yasin’s family, and Yasin uses the “we’re family” rubric when it serves him the most.
As Yahia goes back to his family’s trashed flat, he finds a picture of him, Ali and Nadia; on the back of the picture frame is an ultrasound picture. It seems that Nadia was pregnant at the time of her death. Yahia then decides to plot his revenge, while starting to look for who actually tampered with Nadia’s air hose.
Yahia spends the first month of freedom biding his time while being an Uber driver; Yasin had people following him to see what he might do or who he might talk to. But the entire time, he’s putting together explosives and doing online research. After Yasin calls off the surveillance, the first person that Yahia seeks out is the lawyer Yasin hired to represent him. He convinced Yahia to take the plea deal, but suddenly new evidence came up that the Nadia’s hose was tampered with, and the lawyer left Yahia out to dry.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There are plenty of series about revenge, like, well, Revenge.
Our Take: The plot of Echoes Of The Past isn’t all that complicated; Yahia, with the help of Yasin’s daughter Layla (Rakeen Saad), is going to find out what happened to Nadia and who is responsible. He was completely railroaded into taking the blame for his sister’s death, and wants revenge for both her death and the fact that he ended up spending half his life in prison when everyone told him it would be a year at most.
The show is a little on the melodramatic side, but at the very least it’s slickly-produced, with a propulsive soundtrack and expert direction. That’s saying a lot compared to some of the Middle Eastern-region series we’ve seen from Netflix in the past (this show is shot and takes place in Egypt).
There’s nothing particularly special about the plot, but it’s a solid premise to build the first season on top of, especially as Layla gets involved in Yahia’s investigation and revenge plot. Yahia’s relationship to Yasin’s family is unclear, but perhaps that’s not necessary to know given the fact that Yahia is rightly pissed to the point of violence when he gets out.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: After an explosion, we see Yahia’s and Yasin’s faces, setting up the antagonist and protagonist in this story.
Sleeper Star: We’re not sure, but the soundtrack is… interesting, with some English-language rock songs we’ve never heard before.
Most Pilot-y Line: Sherif, perhaps Ali’s younger brother, tells young Yahia to not take the heat for the accident, and says, “If you insist on doing this, you’ll never see me again.” Way to practice emotional blackmail, Sherif.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Echoes Of The Past has a pretty basic, somewhat lunkheaded plot. But it’s slickly produced, and the performances are good enough to make it an easy watch.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.