If Only (Season 1) Recap & Ending Explained: The Spanish drama series – If Only (Original title: Si lo hubiera Sabido) works more like a telenovela than anything else. The romance by style and by design is too daily soap-like, making it harder to gulp down in a binge-watch if you are not of it as me. Its storytelling uses conventional dramatic bits to illustrate the same point being shown in several time travel fantasies until then – the reality you are currently living is too precious to waste upon an illusory fantasy of a better life. The win-some, lose-some scenario becomes evident not long after you step into the series and so does its enormous predictability.
If Only (Season 1) Recap:
‘If Only’, the 8-episode series, created by Irma Correa and Ece Yörenç, is streaming on Netflix. It follows the journey of Emma (Megan Montaner), a 30-year-old married woman with two children. While her life with her partner – Nando (Miguel Fernandez) seems all hunky dory on the surface, she is not happy living it. The root cause of this dissatisfaction is not having any identity besides being a wife and a caring mother. She mentions this to her friend – Deme (Eduardo Llovares) who has achieved success as an actor in Hollywood.
While she loves her children, she is sick of her mundane life, and as a result, asks Nando for a divorce. He agrees stating he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. We get a glimpse into an incident from 10 years before, where he had proposed to her as a surprise after a break in their relationship. She agreed to marry him at the time. The following night after Emma broaches the subject of divorce to him, she sees a blood moon. She remembers what her kids said about it helping their wishes come true and asks to relive her life so that she can revert her mistake.
Her wish comes true when she enters the restaurant in her blue cocktail dress and when she meets Nando, her nose starts bleeding. She remembers living this particular incident on the night of his proposal and asks someone for the date and the year they are in. It is not 2018 but 2008, the exact night he proposed to her. When Nando approaches her, she gets surprised to see the night play out in front of her eyes, all over again. She can predict everything he is going to say and rejects his proposal.
Later, back home, she finds her father alive who had died in her reality. She meets him and gets emotional. She learns from her friend – Isa (Jael Pascual), that he proposed out of pity for her. She gets angry at Isa for insinuating that she was depressed but feels relieved that she does not need to live the same old life. She wants to discover herself and since we get only one chance to live our life, she doesn’t want to waste it. Meanwhile, she goes on the Paris trip where she had planned to go with all her friends. Over there, a romance between Isa and Nando blooms and she starts getting jealous. While she tries using Deme as her partner to make Nando jealous, her plan fails with Deme comes out to her as gay and mentions being in a relationship with Andrés (Bore Buika).
Not long after Emma learns that she was not the only one who traveled through time on that night. The restaurant valet – Alfredo, also traveled back and so did a man named Rubén (Michel Noher), who was considered silly for claiming his blood moon time travel just like Emma. They learn that at the time of their time jump, they happened to be at the same stop, which enabled the time travel. Since everyone around her finds them being together odd, they come up with a plan to tell them that they work in a company together that works in innovation. The innovation they think of is social media and they build an entire company around it and in no time, become successful!
Throughout Emma’s time in this new reality, she was happy for herself for living her dream – not being confined to a marriage or a husband and finding success on her own. However, she realizes that it would mean sacrificing her twins who won’t be alive since she and Nando did not get married. While Rubén keeps trying to explain it to her, she relapses in the sweet memories of her children. Nando meanwhile enjoys the company of Isa and vice versa to the point that they get married together. While Emma and Nando seemed like soulmates since they were little, this version of reality makes Emma sad. She goes through most of her days with mixed emotions about the happenings.
Her parents are always proud of her, even of her tiniest accomplishments. They are also surprisingly present in pretty much every little happening in her life in some way. While trying to work on her feelings towards Nando being closer to Isa, she also starts getting attracted to Rubén. On the work front, Alfredo is one of the partners, who doesn’t know to react or how to behave properly. But Rubén as Emma’s working partner was reliable, and he soon turns into her romantic interest. Over the period, more details are revealed about Rubén, about his probable Russian sister, and about him being a spy. Meanwhile, Alfredo gets caught by the same people to whom he owed a big amount before the time travel. In their pursuit of catching him, he ends up losing his one eye again. And around the same time, when Rubén leaves Emma’s place heartbroken, he gets shot by some people.
In the espionage narrative, later, Emma is questioned about her relationship with Rubén. Their company’s computers also get hacked around that time, which leaves her worried. In between all of this, she also celebrates her 30th birthday. The complications between her and Nando stay the same. The love triangle suffers its share of minor struggles. However, by now, she becomes more aware of how he was unhelpful and untrustworthy in their relationship. She also sees the same reflected in his relationship with Isa and feels bad for her. Yet, the complicated romance with Nando keeps her wanting to poke fun at his marriage. She also clicks a selfie of herself with Nando lying on her bed. While she gets worried that this photo is shared and distributed around the office, she realises it is of their baby. That’s when she learns that Nando and Isa are having babies of their own.
If Only (Season 1) Ending Explained:
Does Emma manage to see her kids again?
Emma gets delighted by this news and assumes these would be the twins that she lost back in her timeline. Yet in a pregnancy-related complication, these babies remain at risk of dying. She reaches the hospital with her parents, but her father gets out of breath while running. She gets worried for him and starts getting dizzy herself. She sees people fading around her and gets more and more confused. As it turns out, the entire time-travel aspect was just a chance that she receives of reliving her past while being hospitalized.
Everyone is worried sick for her well-being and hopes for her recovery. While she is in a coma and sees all these things in retrospect, she becomes conscious soon afterward and meets her children, whom she wanted to meet since the moment she got caught up in the whirlwind of dreams. The ‘happily-ever-after’ story begins with this part of rejoicing. The season of ‘If Only’ concludes with the same feel-good, age-old trope of time travel while taking a detour through a series of loopholes.
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