Rania Youssef

By Habiba elsadany

Ka’eno Embareh, starring Rania Youssef, Ahmed Wafik and Mohamed El-Sharnouby, has been aired exclusively on OSN Yahala and will air again on another channel before Ramadan. The series is written under Mariam Naoom’s supervision and was directed by Hatem Ali and later on, Akram Farid. Ka’eno Embareh is produced by Eagle Films (Gamal Sanan), Beelink (Mohamed Mashish), and Safaa Abu-Rizk, and it’s an ‘Egyptianized’ version of the TV drama-thriller, The Return of Lucas.

Elham Diab (Rania Youssef) and Ragy (Ahmed Wafik) are a happily-married couple with three children; Ali (Mohamed El-Sharnouby), Lina (Hoda El-Mufti), and Marwan (Khaled Anwar). While celebrating Ali and Lina’s fourth birthday on a beach vacation, Ali goes missing right after receiving his birthday present from his mom: A silver necklace with an ‘A’ carved on it.

For the following twenty years, Elham’s mental illness deteriorates and she stops taking good care of her family. Elham’s millionaire-father, Mahmoud (Ahmed Khalil) and cousin, Kamal (Gamal Abdul-Nasir), look for Ali with the help of Kamal’s cop friend, as Elham never loses hope to find her son who’s been missing for two decades.

When Kamal shows up at the Diabs’ doorstep with the long-missing silver necklace in his hand, and a shy young man by his side who claims to be Ali (Mohamed El-Sharnouby), it shocks every family member in a different way. Their surprise is taken to a whole new level when the DNA test proves that guy is Ali. The parents welcome him wholeheartedly to the family, his twin-sister, Lina, has her doubts but tries to overcome them, as the younger brother, Marwan, insists Ali isn’t his brother and he even moves out of the house for a few days.

However, are the silver necklace and the positive DNA test enough to confirm Ali is their son? And if he’s not, would that be the end of the story? Was that the plot-twist, or is it only the beginning of everything?

In fact, there’s more to the series than Ali’s storyline.

Marwan, the younger brother, is in an on-again, off-again with Arwa (Diana Hesham), his neighbour and colleague whose mother is Nancy (Wafaa Sadik), Elham’s best friend, and father is Hesham (Mohamed Sulaiman), a lawyer who works with Ragy at Mahmoud’s (Elham’s father) company.

While Nancy’s planning how to get Marwan to like her daughter since Arwa’s head over heels for him, Marwan finds himself slowly falling in love with Laila, the family’s housekeeper’s niece. She’s also Tamim’s (Arwa’s younger brother) babysitter.

Malik (Eslam Gamal), a young man who works at the company, has a crush on Lina and tries to get her to like him back with the help of her best friend and their co-worker, Dalia (Aya Samaha).

Meanwhile at Elham’s garden centre, a client named Osama (Faris Saeed) visits her frequently, and often tries to charm her.

Additionally, a family we also get to know well is Ramiz’s. Ramiz (Hazem Ehab) is the Diabs’ personal driver and he’s in love with Sarah (Asmaa Galal), a girl who works at the garden centre and loves him as much, but Ramiz’s cancer-stricken father and his medical bills are holding him back from taking a step forward in their relationship.

While watching this series, you’ll be asking yourself too many questions. Is this really it; is the twist really that simple? Are there no secrets anymore? And most of all, is that one character I think of as the villain really the most antagonistic one on the show?

To sum it up, the series will leave you drowning in an ocean of trust issues, as all the secrets that have bottled up for 45 episodes gush out at the end, teaching the viewers to expect the unexpected. Not once did the acting seem less than fascinating, even when it came to the child actors. I’ve never been this amazed by an Egyptian series in a long time!