Summary
Hijack Season 2 continues to improve in “Switch”, fleshing out the story by lending welcome focus to other key players on and off the train.
The hook of Hijack has always been a claustrophobic setting. In Season 1, it was a plane, while in Season 2, it’s a train, but ironically, this season has started to improve by expanding its viewpoint. Sure, I appreciate that some thought has been put into inverting the core premise so that it doesn’t just feel like a retread of the first outing, but I still persist that what’s happening on the train isn’t that interesting. Still, Episode 4, “Switch”, does help with that as well by introducing a murder-mystery angle after Freddie’s death and lending a bit more focus to Mei, the only person on board who knows that Sam isn’t the nutcase he’s cosplaying as.
But the bulk of “Switch” broadens its off-train horizons, taking in multiple characters and factions that are related but not directly involved, including giving Marsha a bit more screen time and her predicament a bit more clarity. It helps the bigger picture to cohere into something more legible, making the world feel livelier and more connected.
I also think this episode has the best version of Sam Nelson. Initially, his predicament meant that he was having to play too aloof to root for, but since the reveal that he’s being pressured with threats to Marsha’s life, he has a bit more to play. Now he’s the good guy having to spin multiple plates, making himself a believable hijacker to the passengers and the control room, but also doing whatever he can to be compassionate and prevent any more sudden murders. It gives Idris Elba more nuance to work with, and that, in turn, makes the drama work better.
And the drama is becoming pleasingly complicated on the train itself. I still believe that the major problem there is that the show hasn’t done a fantastic job of introducing compelling characters on there, so the ultimate reveal about Freddie’s killer doesn’t really land because it doesn’t turn out to be anyone that we’re familiar with. Outside of Mei, nobody has a real personality. We fret for the kids because they’re kids, but I’m not especially interested or invested in anyone on the train.
What’s compelling in Hijack Season 2, Episode 4 is how these various elements interlock and inform the core drama, though. Sam’s familiarity with Mei gives him the opportunity to consider one of the passengers a potential ally, but he also has to weigh up whether putting her at risk is the right thing to do. There’s a sick baby that tests how far Sam is willing to take his bad guy routine, but he also has to figure out how to spin the altruistic gesture of allowing the baby off the locomotive into an advantageous move for him. He’s also trying to balance keeping the passengers intimidated enough to prevent any heroics and calm enough that they don’t cause chaos, all while privately nursing the anxiety of there being a bomb under the train that might kill them all.
These concurrent threads all coalesce into a string of key reveals and developments towards the end of “Switch”. Freddie’s murderer turns out not to be the too-obvious long-haired suspect, whose bloody hand was really just from a cut earned while trying to hide a bag of drugs; it was actually the medic who offered to tend to him, who remains on the train not knowing that Sam has rumbled her. The train has to switch tracks in order to stop off at an abandoned station so that the baby can be reunited with its mother, but Sam wants to use offloading the infant as a pretext to bring John Bailey-Brown aboard. And we also find out who’s really threatening Marsha.
This latter development is appreciated, since it brings back Daniel O’Farrel and Zahra Gahfoor. The man whose car Marsha attacked in the previous episode is actually working for the former in an effort to protect Marsha, rather than being the danger himself. The real threat turns out to be her seemingly kindly neighbours, who kill her would-be bodyguard – we think; it happens off-screen – with a shotgun at the end of the episode.
I’ve been critical of Hijack Season 2, granted, but I believe it’s coming together rather nicely now. And still with enough episodes to go to turn things around a bit.
