Echoes of the Past – Season 1 Episode 8 Recap, Review & Ending Explained

Episode 8

Episode 8 of Echoes of the Past begins with a flashback to when Sherif makes a move on Nadia. She runs off and has her beach fight. Someone breaks her necklace and she runs into Yehia. She promises to tell him everything once they return to Cairo. The next day, Sawsan confronts Nadia who threatens to go public about the affair. The scandal could ruin Yassin’s candidacy and Sawsan’s life.

At present, Yassin talks to Layla and explains that he isn’t the killer. Sawsan gave him the blade and whatever he did, did to protect their family.

What happens during the confrontation?

Layla tells Sawsan, Ali and Mona that they need to talk and they regroup at the family home. She shares Yassin’s POV and Sawsan tries to refute it. She claims that Yassin is trying to break them apart with false allegations.

Meanwhile, Yehia crashes into Yassin’s car and beats him up. Yassin declares that he wouldn’t have told Yehia the truth earlier but with Sawsan’s betrayal, he shares that she killed Nadia.

Shocked, Yehia drags Yassin to the house and finds Sawsan, Mona, Ali and Layla arguing. Sawsan insists that she is innocent and she only wants to protect her family. At this, she looks at Layla. Layla’s memories start coming back. She realises the beach fight she saw between Sawsan and Nadia was actually between her and Nadia. Sawsan figures that Yehia wants blood and to protect Layla, she declares that she is the killer.  

What happened during the trip?

A flashback shows what truly happened on the trip. Layla overhears the fight between Nadia and Sawsan in the kitchen. After Sawsan and Yassin fight with Nadia to get an abortion, Nadia sulks at the beach. Layla tries to play with her but Nadia lashes out at her. She swears at Sawsan and tells Layla about the affair. 

Layla pulls the pearls the family had gifted Nadia. She then tries to run away and falls and scrapes her knee. It isn’t Yehia who takes care of her but Sawsan. Layla cries to her about Nadia being mean. Sawsan turns her against Nadia, declaring her as evil and that she should go away.

The next day, Layla continues to see Nadia being rude to her family. Mona is adjusting her costume with her blade which she keeps aside after Sherif films her. Angry with Nadia, Layla takes Mona’s blade and tries to scrape off the butterflies she had drawn on Nadia’s oxygen tank hose. With the constant scraping, this leads to the hole in the hose.

When Nadia turns up dead, it isn’t Sawsan who is crying but Layla. She shows Sawsan the blade and confesses she killed Nadia even though she didn’t mean to. To protect her, Sawsan pretends she is the killer and makes Yassin hide the blade.

The trauma is too much and Layla forgets all about Nadia and her death. The doctor explains that it is PTSD but if she is triggered, in trying to cope, her brain may try to rewrite the memories.

What happens at the end of the show?

At the end of Episode 8, Yehia stabs Sawsan in the neck. Shocked, Yassin grabs a decorative blade and attacks. Yehia retaliates by stabbing Yassin in the neck as well. Amidst it all, Ali grabs a gun and shoots Yehia in the head. Layla watches as Yehia, Sawsan and Yassin fall. Little Layla holds her hand and smiles at her. Adult Layla looks relieved as Yehia dies. It can be interpreted as her prioritizing her life which she knew would be forfeit had Yehia known the truth.

The Episode Review

Well, we are speechless, and the good kind. Didn’t expect this Netflix show to do that. We were so sure that they would keep things black and white and portray Sawsan as the typical, nasty matriarch. Echoes of the Past Episode 8 also explains all the misdirections and random threads as the set-up for the big reveal.

We see why Layla’s knee scrape is important as her conversation with Sawsan is the catalyst to her wanting Nadia gone. Thanks to Mona messing around with her blade, Layla is able to get her hands on it. And had she not drawn the butterflies, she would have no reason to mess with the hose.

The foreshadowing is also pretty clever as the obvious ones like Yassin and Sawsan acting super evil were all red herrings. But on a rewatch, all clues point towards Layla such as the butterflies, the talk about fake memories and Sawsan constantly begging her children to stop digging into the matter.

The final slo-mo action between Yehia, Sawsan, Yassin and Ali right when Layla’s secret is revealed is also pretty cleverly executed. However, had the editors toned down the over-the-top stylization throughout the show, this final scene would have had a bigger impact. Nonetheless, the finale definitely redeems the show a little bit.