‘Finding Ola’ is a Netflix web series that revolves around Ola, a woman whose life is seemingly perfect until a life-altering event shatters everything. She then embarks on a journey of self-discovery while picking up the pieces of her life and managing all her responsibilities.
Summary
Ola Abdel Sabour seems to have it all, a happy family and a good life. She is going to her in-laws’ house to celebrate her son Salim’s birthday.
She breaks the fourth wall and talks about how stressed she gets every time she has to visit her in-laws, since she doesn’t get along well with her mother-in-law Nazly. During the party, Ola is blamed by Nazly for Hisham’s heart attack.
After going back home, Ola and Hisham have a fight. Ola confronts him about not standing up to his mother, even when she has left no stone unturned in caring for him. Hisham says he is tired of arguing every day and asks for a divorce.
Ola asks Hisham for the reason. Hisham tells her he is not happy anymore and Ola realizes that he also considers Ola as the cause of his heart attack and asks him to leave.
The next day, Ola calls Nazly and asks her to talk to Hisham but instead gets blocked by her. Ola is upset about the whole situation and starts taking antidepressants and stays in bed for days.
After Soheir, Ola’s mother, gets to know about the divorce, she breaks down and asks Ola to do anything, be it threatening Hisham or begging him in the name of kids or bills to make him stay. Soheir decides to stay with Ola till the situation is resolved.
Nadia, being the elder daughter, understands the situation and confronts Ola about it. Ola tells her the truth and comforts her.
While dropping the kids to school, Ola is approached by Salim’s teacher and she asks her to come for PTA next week to discuss Salim’s behaviour.
Hisham and Ola meet again during PTA and get to know that Salim is addicted to video games to the point that it is affecting his real life. The teacher tells them to get psychiatric help for him.
On their way back, Hisham gets to know that Nadia knows about the divorce. Hisham and Ola fight in front of the school and Hisham calls Ola toxic. She realizes that there is no hope left anymore.
Ola notices that Hisham has changed his social media status to divorced and is being congratulated by many women. She also considers changing hers but is unable to do so. She reconnects with her old best friend Nesrine, with whom she had cut all ties after Hisham objected to her friendship with her.
They meet up and Nesrine tells Ola that she has missed her, the old Ola and not Hisham’s wife. She tells her she is happy about Ola’s divorce since she never liked the controlling nature of Hisham. They both then go to a club and Ola finally changes her social media status to divorced.
Ola and Hisham meet with each other and discuss child support. Ola tells him that she is going to get a job and does not need Hisham to pay any extra money to her.
They, along with the kids, have a family get-together to break the news to kids and decide to stay friends and set some ground rules. They also take Salim to a psychiatrist where he gets diagnosed with ADHD.
Ola then goes to dinner at Hisham and her friend’s house where she is asked what plans she has about getting a job. She panics and says she is going to start selling her handmade creams. Soha tries to make fun of Ola but is stopped by Tarek, a famous business coach. Tarek offers to help Ola for free.
For the next few days, Tarek helps Ola in doing market research, finding suppliers, and setting up her business. Nesrine decides to become a partner in her business along with Montasseur, her supplier.
Ola’s business, Second chance, gets an opportunity to be promoted by Omnia, an influencer, who agrees to host an interview. She later turns out to be Hisham’s girlfriend. Ola confronts him. Hisham asks her to meet Omnia once to solve any misunderstandings. Omnia meets up with her and asks her to do the interview.
After this, Ola decides to start dating too. Hisham is agitated at the thought of Ola dating someone. She meets Youssef, but he turns out to be a money launderer.
Ola decides to go ahead with the interview and is attacked by Omnia with harsh questions, but she manages to tackle them easily.
She also meets Adam, owner of a creative agency, who helps her in sorting out some problems of her business. Adam helps Ola in completing her bucket list and she starts feeling like herself again.
Ola’s mother tries to set her up with an old man, but Ola tells her to stop making decisions for her life, making her leave.
Adam then takes her to a party on her birthday, where they run into Hisham and Omnia. Ola tells the kids to take a cab to go home on their own.
Ola receives a call about the kids being in the police station and Hisham gets angry at Ola and tells her he will take custody. They later resolve this and Ola takes the kids home. OShe ends things with Adam to focus on her family.
Soha convinces Ola to find investors to expand her business. She arranges a meeting with investors for the same. Hisham cancels his plans of taking the kids to a camp due to a bad flu and Ola takes his place.
At the father-children camp, Ola faces multiple problems and grows closer to Marwan, the widowed father of Nadia’s best friend Zeina. Zeina sees them together and gets angry. The situation gets even worse when Ola receives a phone call about Hisham suffering another heart attack.
Ola and Marwan rush to the hospital to see Hisham. Marwan, being a cardiologist, checks Hisham’s condition and lets Ola know that everything is fine. Hisham and Ola’s family pressure Ola to get back together with Hisham. It’s now up to Ola to make a decision.
Finding Ola ending explained in detail:
Ola and Hisham
After Ola takes care of Hisham in the hospital, he realizes he made a big mistake and just wants to be with his family. He asks Ola to take him home so that he can spend more time with the kids. Ola tries to send Hisham to live with Nazly and tells him that she doesn’t have any problem if he wants to invite Omnia.
Hisham meets up with Omnia and breaks up with her. He tells her that this divorce was a big mistake and he was just trying to make up for the lost time by acting younger.
Hisham asks Ola if they can talk, and she agrees somewhat unwillingly. Hisham tells Ola that he made a big mistake by letting her go. He owns up to his mistakes and tells her he won’t leave now. He says it was boredom and routine that changed them, but now Ola has found her way back to her old self, so they can make it work.
Ola tells Hisham that she doesn’t want to get back together. She is not a hotel for him to return and leave as he pleases. She tells him how difficult it was for her to manage everything alone after he left and she can’t bear to go through it.
After Hisham tries to argue that since her business is named Second Chance, shouldn’t she give him one too? She tells him that he missed his chance when he walked out and he should respect her decision. They finally make peace and decide to stay good friends.
Second Chance
Soha manages to get another meeting with the investors after the first one didn’t go well in Ola’s absence. Ola works hard on her presentation.
She meets up with the investors and manages to give a great presentation. She tells them about her plan of expanding her products’ range to a larger target group by focusing on men’s products too. Her business plan convinces the investors and they decide to give it a chance. A happy Ola, Nesrine and Montasseur enjoy this win.
What happens to Ola and Marwan?
With the awkwardness from the camp and Hisham’s condition, Ola and Marwan find themselves unable to clear things out with each other. Ola realizes her feelings for Marwan but is confused about leaving Hisham because she feels guilty about her children. She finally decides to meet up with him. She texts Marwan but doesn’t receive any reply from him.
She accidentally ends up meeting with him while dropping Nadia and Salim at school and asks him if they could have a coffee together. On meeting with her, Marwan tells Ola that he likes being with her.
However, he feels that she is very confused currently as a lot is going on in her life. He tells her she is not ready yet and says that he will wait for her.
In the ending scene, when the boatman asks Ola if she wants to keep going or get off, Ola tells him she wants to keep going, indicating that she finally made it and nothing can now stop her from living her life the way she wants to.
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