You might be wondering how Idris Elba’s “Hijack” character Sam Nelson manages to find himself in another hostage situation while aboard another mode of transportation in Season 2. Well, as we learn in Wednesday’s premiere, it might not be a coincidence.
If you recall, Season 1 of the Apple TV thriller found Sam aboard an airplane that was hijacked, following the seven-hour flight in real time in seven one-hour episodes. Now in Season 2, Sam is at a underground train station in snowy Berlin, and he’s understandably edgy. When a shifty guy wearing a red backpack pushes past people to get on Sam’s train, Sam keeps a watchful eye on him. Meanwhile, a German SWAT team bursts into an apartment to find it empty, searching through some loose wires and bomb components — and a photo ID. And in the Berlin train tunnels, a crew of workers finishes their shift, but one stays behind by himself… and he’s wearing the same photo ID.
Sam is accosted on the train by a woman named Mei Tan who remembers working with him on a corporate negotiation. She saw the story about the hijacking, too, and acknowledges, “You’ve been through a lot.”(We’ll say.)Plus, a woman named Olivia is calling Sam and reminding him he’s supposed to be meeting a man from the Federal Office of Justice. Aboard the train, the riders groan when a guy walks through strumming a guitar —relatable!—and a group of teens on a school trip climb onboard on their way to a museum. And in a snowy cabin, Sam’s estranged wife Marsha receives a bouquet of flowers she says are for “an anniversary.”So this is one year to the day since the plane hijacking?
Sam spots the guy in the red backpack making an urgent phone call and follows him as he moves from car to car. He confronts the guy, warning him not to “try anything stupid.”The red backpack guy tells Sam to stick it and keeps walking, but Sam alerts a pair of policemen onboard, who question the red backpack guy. He insists he hasn’t done anything and thinks they’re just harassing him because his skin is brown, but they order him to get off at the next stop and throw him up against the train, holding guns on him. He’s off the train as it pulls away, but the man shows the cops there’s nothing dangerous inside his red backpack; he’s just an asylum seeker.
Is the conductor in on the conspiracy?
So the red backpack guy might be innocent, but the train’s conductor Otto is looking mighty guilty. He’s breathing hard and sweating when he radios into the control room that he needs a “Code 700″(i.e., to use the toilet). He heads to the bathroom and calls someone named Marko — the guy who’s working alone in the train tunnels: “It’s me. I can’t do this. Call me back.”He finally emerges from the bathroom, but a train attendant is surprised to see him:”I thought you’d been suspended.” He snaps at her and gets back on the train. Back at the British Embassy in Berlin, Olivia meets the man from the Federal Office of Justice, telling him that Sam thinks he’s found the man responsible for the plane hijacking. Hmmm…
The train attendant reports to the control room that Otto shouldn’t even be working, and they radio in to tell Otto he’ll be replaced at the next station. But when they arrive, he doesn’t open the train doors to let anyone off and then speeds away to the next station. In the tunnels, Marko uses a hand saw to cut some wires and manually redirects the train tracks. Otto speeds his train — the one holding Sam, Mei Tan, and the school teens —past red lights and ignores calls from the control room. Sam pounds on the conductor’s door and finally uses a key to get inside. But it’s too late:The train hits the spot where Marko redirected the tracks and heads down a new path.
“You don’t understand,”Otto tells Sam. “There’s something going on.”But Sam tells him, “I know.”Otto points out there are police on the train, but Sam says, “I took care of the police.”And how did he get a key to the conductor’s door, anyway? Sam knows his name is Otto — and informs him, “I’m hijacking this train.”Whaaaaaat?!
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