Helmed by Kyrre Holm Johannessen and Ronit Weiss-Berkowitz, the Hebrew-Norwegian bilingual political thriller series ‘The Girl from Oslo’ (originally ‘Bortfort’) unveils a chilling and cathartic vision of a world under constant terror. While its charge on terrorism resonates deep within a region looking for the miracle of peace, the series also asks pertinent questions about the war on terrorism.

Alex Bakke (Anneke von der Lippe) and Karl (Anders T. Andersen) are there to surprise their daughter Pia (Andrea Berntzen) for her birthday. They knock on her apartment door, but find that Pia isn’t there; the friend housesitting for her says she’s away in Israel. The fact that she went there and didn’t say anything makes Alex feel like the fight they had a few weeks before really ruined their relationship.

In Sinai, Pia is on the beach with her friends Nadav (Daniel Litman) and Noa Solomon (Shira Yosef). She’s having a good time; Nadav and his sister serenade her for her birthday. But we also see her being spied through binoculars. On their way back to where they were staying, the trio get kidnapped by ISIS operatives.

Alex, after not hearing from Pia for days, decides to travel to Israel to find out what happened. The first place she visits is the Ministry Of Intelligence, where her old friend Arik (Amos Tamam), the Israeli intelligence minister. Alex was a diplomat who worked with Arik during the Oslo Accords in 1992. She asks him to do her a favor and find out where Pia might have went. She goes to Pia’s hotel to look into things, but Arik soon gets the bad news about the kidnapping.

ISIS is looking for a prisoner exchange, including 12 Palestinians being held by Israel and Abu Salim (Abhin Galeya), who is being held in Norway. Both Alex and Karl are shown the video where Pia is forced to make the demands for her captors. Alex tells her husband, a judge, to stay in Oslo and put pressure on the government to let Salim free, though it’s the government’s official stance to not negotiate with terrorists. Arik, on the other hand, needs to mull whether to do the exchange — which leads to some of the prisoners going back to their previous terroristic activities — or go in and get them, hoping to avoid casualties.

When Alex is told by a member of the Norwegian Embassy that they basically are waiting to see what the Israeli government can do, Alex pulls out the information that led to the rift with Pia. She goes to Arik, married with two kids, and tells him that Pia is actually his daughter.