# The Hook Up Plan
**The Hook Up Plan** (French: *Plan Cœur*) is a French romantic comedy television series created by Chris Lang, Noémie Saglio, and Julien Teisseire for Netflix, in which the friends of a perpetually single Parisian woman secretly hire a male escort to restore her confidence in love.[1](https://www.netflix.com/title/80190086) It ran for three seasons and 20 episodes from December 7, 2018 to January 1, 2022.[2](https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/80190086)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | *Plan Cœur*; international title The Hook Up Plan[3](https://www.crew-united.com/en/The-Hook-Up-Plan__262891.html) |
| Creators | Chris Lang, Noémie Saglio, Julien Teisseire[1](https://www.netflix.com/title/80190086) |
| Run | December 7, 2018 to January 1, 2022; 3 seasons, 20 episodes[2](https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/80190086) |
| Season sizes | Season 1: 8 episodes; Season 2: 6; Season 3: 6[4](https://fr.flixboss.com/serie/plan-cur-80190086) |
| Lead cast | Zita Hanrot (Elsa), Sabrina Ouazani, Joséphine Draï, Marc Ruchmann[1](https://www.netflix.com/title/80190086) |
| Place in Netflix France | Second French Netflix original series, after *Marseille*[5](https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2023.2275896) |
| Production | My Box Films; directed by Noémie Saglio and Renaud Bertrand[6](https://media.netflix.com/en/only-on-netflix/80190086) |
## Spoilers
### Premise
Elsa, a Parisian played by Zita Hanrot, has been unable to move on from her ex two years after their breakup. Her best friends secretly hire a male escort, Jules (Marc Ruchmann), whom Elsa believes to be a schoolteacher, to renew her faith in dating. The plan works a little too well, and the deception strains the friendships at the story's center.[1](https://www.netflix.com/title/80190086) • [7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_hook_up_plan) The friends are Charlotte (Sabrina Ouazani), an unattached seductress who orchestrates the scheme, and Émilie (Joséphine Draï), settled and pregnant during the first season.[8](https://www.telerama.fr/series-tv/plan-coeur%2C-sur-netflix-la-comedie-romantique-a-consommer-entre-deux-boites-de-chocolats%2Cn5910958.php)
### Format and episodes
The series comprises three seasons of eight, six, and six episodes, with individual episodes running between 22 and 32 minutes, plus a lockdown-era Covid special of 49 minutes.[5](https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2023.2275896) Season 1 episode titles each begin with "Plan": The Secret Plan, The Sloppy Plan, The Booty Plan, The Love Plan, The Party Plan, The Lame Plan, The Solo Plan, and The Exit Plan.[1](https://www.netflix.com/title/80190086) Season 3 follows the fallout after the revelation of the relationship between Charlotte and Maxime, which shatters the group of friends.[12](https://www.crew-united.com/fr/Plan-Coeur__287599.html)
## Title and origins
The French title is a reversal of the slang expression *plan cul*, which means a purely sexual hookup; substituting *cœur* (heart) signals a search for genuine love, wordplay that is entirely lost in the English title.[5](https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2023.2275896) The creators have said the series was first considered under the working title "Génération Q," and that earlier candidate names included "Can't buy me love" and *Plan Cul*.[9](https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18677851.html)
**From film script to series.** The premise originated with Chris Lang, the British screenwriter and creator of *Unforgotten* and *Innocent*, who had written a feature-film screenplay years earlier. Noémie Saglio, previously associated with *Connasse*, kept only the core idea, two friends paying an escort for a friend struggling to find love, and developed the series with Julien Teisseire, who had worked on *Profilage*. Lang did not collaborate on the writing afterward. Saglio said his script felt very "1990s," with career-obsessed, glamorous characters, and that she wanted instead to write about people in their thirties.[10](https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18684678.html) • [8](https://www.telerama.fr/series-tv/plan-coeur%2C-sur-netflix-la-comedie-romantique-a-consommer-entre-deux-boites-de-chocolats%2Cn5910958.php) She described the intended blend as a classical romantic comedy mixed with a generational friends comedy, and cited British and American rom-coms such as *Notting Hill*, *Love Actually*, and *Crazy Stupid Love* as influences.[9](https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18677851.html)
## Release and reception
Season 1 premiered on Netflix on December 7, 2018, eight days after Télérama's review appeared.[2](https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/80190086) • [8](https://www.telerama.fr/series-tv/plan-coeur%2C-sur-netflix-la-comedie-romantique-a-consommer-entre-deux-boites-de-chocolats%2Cn5910958.php) The announcement of the series, as Netflix's second French original after the critically poorly received *Marseille*, was initially met with widespread skepticism by critics, whose subsequent highly positive reviews of the first season inevitably referenced the low bar *Marseille* had set. With its rom-com conventions and multicultural cast of Parisian millennials, the series differed from *Marseille* in almost every respect and became a local and international hit.[11](https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2026.2631280) Season 2 arrived in October 2019, less than a year after the first season; Saglio said she and Teisseire had three to four months to write it and reported having considerable creative freedom with Netflix.[10](https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18684678.html) Season 3, the final season, was released on January 1, 2022.[2](https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/80190086)
## Cast
Zita Hanrot, who won the César for most promising female actress in 2016 for *Fatima*, plays Elsa; Marc Ruchmann plays Jules.[8](https://www.telerama.fr/series-tv/plan-coeur%2C-sur-netflix-la-comedie-romantique-a-consommer-entre-deux-boites-de-chocolats%2Cn5910958.php) The supporting cast includes Sabrina Ouazani, Joséphine Draï, Syrus Shahidi, Yvan Naubron, Guillaume Labbé, and Tom Dingler.[1](https://www.netflix.com/title/80190086)
## Context in French streaming
The series was received as a test case for Netflix in France. Reviewer Charles Martin called it "much more authentic" than *Marseille*, while noting Amazon Prime Video's failed French entry, the Franco-German comedy *Deutsch-les-Landes* (2018). The two visible misfires had fed an impression that global streamers could not achieve a quality innate to local creators; *Plan Cœur*'s success, and Netflix's opening of a Paris office in 2020, worked against that notion.[11](https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2026.2631280) The show has also been used in French-language teaching, with studies selecting its roughly 25-minute episodes for adolescent second-language learners.[13](https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/334765/files/suter_etal_2025_thesequencingofpre-andpost-viewingactivitiesinavocabularylearningstudywithadolescentfrenchl2learners.pdf)
## References
1. [The Hook Up Plan, Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/title/80190086)
2. [The Hook Up Plan (aka Plan Coeur) on Netflix, New On Netflix USA](https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/80190086)
3. [The Hook Up Plan, Crew United](https://www.crew-united.com/en/The-Hook-Up-Plan__262891.html)
4. [Où regarder Plan Cœur (2018) sur Netflix, Flixboss](https://fr.flixboss.com/serie/plan-cur-80190086)
5. [Out of time: fantasising the French romantic hero in the Netflix era, French Screen Studies](https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2023.2275896)
6. [The Hook Up Plan, Netflix Media Center](https://media.netflix.com/en/only-on-netflix/80190086)
7. [The Hook Up Plan, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_hook_up_plan)
8. [« Plan cœur », sur Netflix, Télérama (Pierre Langlais, 5 December 2018)](https://www.telerama.fr/series-tv/plan-coeur%2C-sur-netflix-la-comedie-romantique-a-consommer-entre-deux-boites-de-chocolats%2Cn5910958.php)
9. [Plan Cœur : une saison 2 ?, AlloCiné (21 December 2018)](https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18677851.html)
10. [Plan Cœur saison 2 par sa créatrice, AlloCiné (13 October 2019)](https://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18684678.html)
11. [Global francophone streaming, French Screen Studies](https://doi.org/10.1080/26438941.2026.2631280)
12. [Plan Cœur, Crew United (French page)](https://www.crew-united.com/fr/Plan-Coeur__287599.html)
13. [The sequencing of pre- and post-viewing activities in a vocabulary learning study with adolescent French L2 learners, University of Fribourg](https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/334765/files/suter_etal_2025_thesequencingofpre-andpost-viewingactivitiesinavocabularylearningstudywithadolescentfrenchl2learners.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Sitcom and comedy series › Comedy series outside the US and UK › Premiered 1964 to 2021*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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