If you thought Idris Elba was brilliant in the first season of 'Hijack', binge 'Hijack 2' now. Quick change plots, action. Pure binge pleasure.
Just over a year and some months ago, give or take, Idris Elba blasted onto our screens as Sam Nelson. He was a business negotiator who landed up on a hijacked flight. The Apple TV show Hijack was one of the most binge-worthy series last year. Simply brilliant.
That is, until now. Because Sam Nelson is back in the sequel series, Hijack, and it’s easily the most watchable, or let’s say one of the most watchable programmes streaming right now. Presently, Hijack is being drip-released with a fresh episode every week. The wait is painful, but the reward is well worth it.
This time, Sam is on a commuter train on the Berlin underground, the U-Bahn. He’s on his way to a meeting at the British embassy. There are suspicious characters everywhere and, as you’d kind of expect, based on the previous instalment, someone’s going to hijack the train. It seems so from the get-go: Sam spots suspects, and the director shows us more of them.
Suspicious from the get-go
The train is full of characters we get to know really quickly. There’s a bunch of annoying English students, a claustrophobic passenger, a cop, a mom with a crying baby and then some.
But alas, the twist comes quickly at the end of the first episode. Sam hijacks the train. This, after a commotion and a short confrontation with a passenger and his red rucksack. Then, the train driver, Otto, behaves suspiciously. And then, well, just as we think Sam’s heroics are about to kick off, when someone else pulls a gun, it changes. Quickly. Surprisingly. And then, you’re hooked.
As it turns out, Otto’s involvement is revealed by the second episode. Say no more.
Watch: Hijack 2 trailer
Meanwhile, as Sam hijacks the train, the blip on the train monitoring command centre radar disappears. The controller, Clara, flags it, and reinforcements are called in. Then the cops. After that, the German special forces (like a SWAT Team) called GSG9. Then British Intelligence. Over at the embassy, Sam’s contact is still waiting for him, and so is the German government minister they were supposed to engage with.
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But Sam outwits them. Even when the authorities try to block the track with a stationary train. It’s a tense thriller from the first moment the opening credits fade. But… because there is always a but.
And that but is, that Hijack 2 is not as straightforward an adrenaline ride à la Die Hard without a white vest and grease as the first series was. It’s more complex; the plot and subplots demand more attention from viewers than just a simple A-to-B storyline. Other critics have noted how uncomfortable Elba looks as Sam in this show, and how it may be the direction that was a mis-fit. Yet, the opposite is more likely true.
Critics get it wrong
Sam Nelson is acting against his own grain. He’s a straight-up-and-down kind of man who, in series one, did the right thing from, well, A to B to Zee. In Hijack 2, Elba plays a man whose character is out of character. So, of course, looking uncomfortable lies at the very essence of what Sam is supposed to be doing, feeling and behaving. Go-figure that anyone could miss that?
Beyond the action, Sam’s wife also features. She’s in the Scottish highlands, hiding in some forgotten hillside cottage. But more about that when you binge the show. In the meantime, Sam’s demands are for Germany to give him the whereabouts of a criminal hiding out in the country.
Hijack 2 is a seriously good, rug-pulled-out-from-under-expectations kind of series. And even though you may need to re-digest the plot twist, it’s worth watching every second of the show.
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