Fired from Deadline, Nikki tries to reemerge on the Hollywood scene with a new business venture but encounters professional and personal challenges. As her health nosedives, she starts making goodbye calls. Her final days are highlighted by a surprise visitor.

Bourgeoning media titan Jay Penske buys Deadline, giving Nikki the financial stability and recognition she craves. But the relationship is irrevocably damaged after Penske’s acquisitive nature leads him to his next prize.

Never one to play by the rules, Nikki chooses a side during the battle that ensued during the 2007 Hollywood writers’ strike, surging Deadline’s readership. And she forms some strategic alliances, including one with a powerful studio head. At one point the tables turn as Nikki becomes the informant, and the executive discovers how a game changing deal has been stolen right out from under him. 

A look back at Nikki’s privileged yet conflicted upbringing on Long Island, which included a Jewish heritage that her parents did not always embrace. After being presented at a waspy New York City debutante ball, Nikki marries “the perfect guy” but exits after less than a year, choosing to live the life of a nomad journalist.

Nikki gets the inside scoop on the biggest showbiz story of the year: the mega merger between the town's two top talent agencies William Morris and Endeavor. Was the scoop the result of her clandestine relationship with the Endeavor super agent who ultimately emerges from the merger as king?

Nikki goes after Hollywood’s top titans for bad behavior and job performance, generating irresistibly juicy copy and a flood of website hits. Nikki’s reclusivity continues to fuel her mystique, and a Deadline writer gets the shock of a lifetime when she invites him to her apartment for dinner. Meantime critics take aim, accusing Nikki of unethical and shoddy journalistic practices.   

After agreeing to be the subject of an in-depth profile by The New Yorker, Nikki changes her mind at the last minute. When intimidation tactics directed at the magazine's staff fail to stop the presses, she begins making some disturbing threats. Are they merely more manipulation tactics or the result of something deeper?

Having scared off prospective employers with her turbulent and litigious nature, and on the brink of insolvency, Nikki Finke launches the brazen online venture Deadline Hollywood Daily in 2006—taking the towns' two storied showbiz newspapers by surprise.