Summary
Red Eye Season 2 has a more complicated ending than its predecessor, but luckily it isn’t quite as silly, as rounds out an average season relatively well.
The good news is that Red Eye Season 2, despite being a step down from the first outing overall, has a better, slightly less ridiculous ending. But it also has a much more complicated ending, one that Episode 6 struggles to wrap up completely, and that’s coming on the back of a much more complicated season overall. The ultimate answers are pretty simple to grasp – another greedy government stooge trying to line his own pockets – but the questions mount until they threaten to topple the entire enterprise.
Luckily, I’m on hand to break it all down with as much clarity as I can muster. Doing that means unpacking a lot of events from earlier in the season, connecting a few dots, and making an assumption or two, so come along with me as I do my best to answer all the burning questions raised by the finale of a show that absolutely didn’t need to exist in the first place. Enjoy.
The Crashing of the Samson D-300
Fun fact: It took me two episodes to realise that it wasn’t called the Samsung D-300, like the phone. Oops.
Anyway, the incident at the centre of Red Eye Season 2 is the crashing of a prototype military plane called the Samson D-300, an event which killed two RAF pilots and for which, following an inquiry and a hearing in the United States, the Russians were blamed. Following that, the U.K. government, though chiefly Security Service Director General Madeline Delaney, expelled a bunch of Russian diplomats from the country.
There are two major plot strands in this season. In one, a Russian-accented man kills a diplomatic courier and uses his stolen package to sneak into the American embassy, working his way through a kill list of government and private enterprise movers and shakers, while Delaney finds herself aboard a plane with the British defence secretary, Peterson, which supposedly has a bomb on board. If the plane diverts from its course or falls below 20,000 feet, or if anyone leaves the party at the embassy, the Russkie gunman would hit the detonator.
Despite the Russian government being the obvious suspect, it quickly becomes apparent that both of these events are connected to the downing of the Samson D-300, with each victim at the embassy having had something to do with the aircraft’s construction or the subsequent inquiry.
Clay Brody’s Real Identity
This season’s new co-lead also turns out to be connected to the plane crash. Clay Brody’s real name is Charles Johnson, the brother of Patrick Johnson, one of the RAF pilots who died in the accident. He had hidden his real identity from Hana since he knew he would have been taken off the case if it was exposed, and he was trying to figure out who was setting him and his father, John Johnson, up to take the fall.
Brody and his father both had motive, and both had conveniently received large payments from Russian bank accounts that morning. Together, they made perfect fall guys for the killing spree at the embassy, since John had been very public in his desire to get Patrick a full military burial for his service.
How Did the Plane Really Crash?
For a while, Red Eye Season 2 tees up the idea that there was a mechanical fault in the Samson D-300, but because there was so much money bundled up in it, this was ignored. However, the ending exposes this as a red herring. There were no mechanical issues, and there certainly wasn’t a “pilot error”, as the official reports claim. Instead, the whole thing stemmed from an attempted cover-up.
British Defence Secretary Alex Peterson had embezzled millions of U.S. dollars during the construction of the plane, and it had come to his attention that Patrick Johnson had smuggled the plane’s project manager, Nicholas Martin, aboard to present evidence against him. To prevent this, Peterson ordered the plane’s co-pilot to turn it around, which led to a struggle in the cockpit. A firearm went off, killing Patrick and damaging the plane’s flight control systems. That’s what caused the crash.
This makes the plane’s cockpit recorder the Holy Grail. This is the device that Peterson’s assassin is trying to recover in the embassy, since the U.S. Ambassador had kept it in order to blackmail Peterson and further his own political career. Peterson also instructed the assassin to kill everyone who had heard the recording – which is how the victims were selected; it had nothing to do with their presence at the inquiry – and he conspired to plant a fake bomb aboard the plane he and Delaney were on. He needed to make it look like he had also been targeted.
Peterson Is Brought Down
Once Brody, Hana, and Delaney all learn the truth, they conspire to entrap Peterson by not letting him know they have the voice recorder. Instead, they allow him to meet with his pet assassin, Fox, whom he believes has the device, but they stake out the meeting point, ready to ambush him.
However, Fox spots the police presence. He can’t tip Peterson off, since Delaney has had his phone hacked, so he instead settles into a position to try to kill him. Hana goes after Fox, while Brody poses as the assassin to get close to Peterson and gain access to his vehicle. Once he does, he records him admitting to his crime.
The plan almost goes wrong twice, once when Hana has to fight Fox one-on-one, and then again when Brody loses control and contemplates killing Peterson for his role in his brother’s death. Hana is able to talk him down, though, and Peterson is arrested, with enough incriminating evidence to put him away for a long time.
There’s a Richard Armitage Cameo
Even though his presence was kept a pretty closely-guarded secret, Richard Armitage is in Red Eye Season 2, showing up in Episode 5 and remaining present throughout the ending. He doesn’t have any bearing on the main plot, aside from a brief moment when he helps Delaney access some secret footage, but he does get to interact with Hana’s sister, Jess, who takes an injured Ruth to him after she’s shot by MPs.
These scenes with Nolan are the only really direct links to the first season, with Jess sharing a little of how those events continue to haunt her. She must have maintained a relationship with Nolan, but there’s no indication that Hana did. I guess he never managed to ask her out after all.
