Franklin’s ending was all about Adam holding an entire hospital hostage in order to facilitate the heart surgery that his daughter, Yara, needed in order to survive. Well, how did things come down to that? The answer is confusing, because the entire show is convoluted in a “Did the writers not even bother to put together a coherent script?” kind of way. So, please, bear with me as I try to make sense of what the hell was going on in Adam’s life, why both Al-Hashem and Edward were after Adam, and who survived and who died after the whole ordeal came to a close.
Spoiler Alert
A Bit of Backstory
So, when Mounir was a young man in his 20s and 30s, he used to print counterfeit notes for a crime lord called Al-Hashem. He ended up marrying Yara and had two kids with her, Adam and Zein. Mounir was too deep into Al-Hashem’s operation to get out, and Yara was not okay with that. Hence, Yara decided to cut ties with Mounir, taking the kids away from him. She delivered Zein to Nasmeh and went back to get Adam, but her car exploded (the explosive was probably set by Al-Hashem), and she died. Zein grew up to be a police officer, with an expertise in financial fraud, while Adam became a counterfeiter under Mounir’s guidance. Now, in 2014, while testing out his latest version of the $100 note, Adam came across Yulia. Their relationship was romantic and professional in nature because, much like Adam, Yulia was somewhat of a connoisseur of counterfeit notes. That’s because, also like Adam’s father, Yulia’s father, Edward, was in the business of dealing with fake currency. Apparently, Yulia introduced Adam to Edward, and they struck an agreement where Adam would hand over the blueprint for the aforementioned counterfeit $100 note. But Edward double-crossed Adam and hung him out to dry.
All of them went their separate ways until Adam was faced with a predicament: his daughter, Yara (named after his mother), was suffering from a heart disease and required immediate surgery. Mounir had some stage of lung cancer, but since the old-timer had lived his life, he wasn’t that big of a priority. Yara had her whole life ahead of her, and saving her was paramount. Since the one thing Adam was best at was printing counterfeit notes, he restarted that job. When Al-Hashem got a whiff of that fact, he essentially tasked him with printing $35 million. Simultaneously, Edward re-recruited Yulia to print counterfeit notes as well. He wanted Yulia to bring Adam into this operation, but Yulia knew that that was impossible because of what had happened between them in the past. Hence, she joined Adam’s counterfeit money printing operation under the guise of rekindling their relationship and helping Adam out with the mammoth task that Al-Hashem had given him. After several unsuccessful attempts, Adam finally broke the code and made fake $100 bills that weren’t flagged by those cash-counting machines. He went to the rendezvous location to deliver the goods, but a couple of twists hit the plot from multiple angles. Allow me to untangle it as best I can.
Al-Hashem Is Dead
I have to mention that all that I am going to say from here onwards will be speculative, because Franklin has done a real garbage job of explaining anything about its plot, subplots, and backstories. So, here goes nothing. Apparently, Al-Hashem wasn’t the top boss of Lebanon; he was actually working for someone more powerful than him and making counterfeit money for them. When Mounir stopped working for Al-Hashem, I guess he suffered a huge loss. Hence, Al-Hashem sent off his son, Amir, who had some expertise in making counterfeit notes, to this organization. Amir probably failed to make good fake currency. Therefore, this organization held Amir hostage, or maybe he was kept as collateral, and ordered Al-Hashem to deliver $35 million. Al-Hashem, in turn, held Adam’s family hostage and forced him to make that $35 million package. Once Adam had dropped the payload, Amir would’ve been freed, and Adam would’ve gotten his fees, which he would’ve used to fasttrack Yara’s surgery.
However, as soon as Yulia revealed the location where this whole exchange was going to happen to Edward, he swooped in with the intention of nabbing that $35 million. In addition to that, Yulia informed Al-Hashem about what Edward intended to do so that Al-Hashem could stop Edward from jeopardizing the transaction. That’s why Al-Hashem also arrived at the rendezvous point. Amir was dropped off by the organization that Al-Hashem was bowing down to, and they escaped the scene as well after witnessing all the chaos. Guns were pointed by all sides, but Amir pulled off a bit of a surprise by killing Al-Hashem and then killing himself. Evidently, Amir was angry at his father for selling him out, and he wanted to get back at him for putting him through all kinds of misery. Why did Amir kill himself, though? Maybe he was too traumatized to think about life beyond criminal endeavors and counterfeit money; hence, he chose to end it all.
Edward Is Dead
Then who exactly got the counterfeit money? Edward. His men killed Al-Hashem’s men, even though it seemed like there were more of Al-Hashem’s men than Edward’s, and then took off with the fake cash and Yulia. Edward even shot Adam in the leg and left him to die. Now, all this while, Zein had been keeping track of Adam’s activities; that’s how he reached the rendezvous point, captured the injured Adam, and took him to a safe house. Adam escaped from there and told one of his henchmen to take Zein’s pregnant wife and son captive in case Zein decided to come after him. Coincidentally, Zein’s wife and son went to the same hospital that Yara was in. Therefore, when Adam learned that Yara’s operation wasn’t going to happen because the heart donor had mysteriously vanished (which I’ll come to in a bit), he ordered his assistants to hold Zein’s wife and child hostage, while he himself locked down the hospital to ensure that nobody could escape until his demands were met. Zein needed a bargaining chip. So, he went to Edward’s place to get ahold of Yulia, assuming that, after Yara, she was the one person that Adam cared about. Edward tried to pull off an idiotic stunt and got killed by Zein.
The police officer then proceeded to go to the hospital, along with Yulia, in order to save his wife and child, while trying to deescalate the tense situation that had been created by Adam. The district attorney, who was in Edward’s pocket, arrived at the hospital and tried to throw a wrench in Zein’s mission, but when Zein reminded him that the DA could go to jail for colluding with a criminal, he backed off. Nasmeh also joined this mess after reading about the hostage situation on the news. Here are the key takeaways from the whole standoff: Firstly, Edward was the one who had sabotaged the heart donation that would’ve saved Yara, and secondly, Nasmeh informed them that Zein was actually his long-lost brother, which meant that he was terrorizing his own family to facilitate the operation of his daughter. All this got Adam to lower his guard, which allowed one of Zein’s colleagues, who was already in the hospital to look over Yara, to shoot at Adam and incapacitate him. As if the show wasn’t really vague on details already, it got even more vague after this. So, brace yourself.
Adam Is Alive
In Franklin’s ending, we saw Yulia stashing some counterfeit cash and maybe some real cash in Adam’s house and then hailing a taxi with Yara to go somewhere. Right after that, we got a scene where Zein visited the holding cell where Adam was supposed to be. However, Adam was nowhere to be found, and only a half-drawn image of a $100 note was there on the walls of the cell. What the hell did that mean? Allow me to guess. After Zein threatened to expose the district attorney for his ties with Edward, I suppose he talked to the person or organization who had captured Yara’s heart donor. Once the donor was set free, the operation was pulled off successfully, and Yara survived. I don’t know how Yulia got to walk away without facing any repercussions for her actions, but she did. She got her hands on the money that Edward had stolen from Adam and used it to not only pay Yara’s medical bills but also take her to Italy.
Yeah, Italy. That’s where Adam and Yulia had supposedly met, and maybe Yulia had a better idea of how to navigate life over there than in Lebanon. Hence, she saw that as the better option instead of, you know, letting Yara’s actual family, Zein and Nasmeh, take care of her. I might be wrong here, and it’s possible that Yulia dropped off Yara at Zein or Nasmeh’s place and then jetted off to Italy. As for whether or not Adam is alive, based on what the prison warden said, of course, he survived all those gunshots and was apparently atoning for his sins in his cell. But then somebody sprung him from there, or he himself got out? Maybe the organization that was holding Amir captive has abducted Adam in order to use his counterfeit money-making skills for their own benefit. If that’s not the case, I guess Adam scripted his own escape to meet Yara. If a second season of Franklin gets greenlit, I think we’ll see Zein chasing Adam while the former works for the abovementioned dealers of fake currency. Anyway, those are my thoughts on the ending of the show. If you have any opinions on the same, please let me know in the comments section below.
