RECAP: ‘HIJACK’ Season 2 Episode 1 — “Signal”

Well, Idris Elba’s mode of transportation has been commandeered again in HIJACK Season 2 Episode 1, “Signal.” Only now does the hijacking take place on a train, expanding the ensemble and the stakes simultaneously. From showrunners and creators Jim Field Smith  and George Kay, the sophomore season of the show opens up with set-up, not thrills. 

In the last season, we watched in real time as Idris Elba‘s plane found itself at the center of an exhaustively deep conspiracy. But the action and the pinpointed narrative development carried the season, while the gimmick of taking course over the real time of the flight added just enough flavor to make it all endearing. 

Now, Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) is in the subway in Berlin, heading to what we can assume is a meeting, given the voice messages left for him. Only, true to the series, the Berlin underground train and its commuters are taken hostage, while, above ground, authorities scramble to save hundreds of lives. 

HIJACK Season 2 Episode 1 is just the beginning of this, and while we don’t see everyone in the ensemble just yet, this second season reunites its ensemble cast of stars, Idris Elba, Christine Adams, Max Beesley, and Archie Panjabi. But with a whole train of characetrs to fill, Christian Näthe, Clare-Hope Ashitey, Lisa Vicari, Toby Jones, Karima McAdams, and Christiane Paul join the series.

Idris Elba’s mode of transportation is hijacked again, but the stage isn’t set up the same way. 

The core function of Hijack Season 2 Episode 1 is to lay the groundwork for the season. We see inside the control center for the Berlin subway system, we see the people on the train, and we get familiarized with what has happened in Sam’s life since the hijacking last season. More importantly, we see how nonchalantly the people monitoring the subway dismiss the need to overlook lines that pose no problems. 

Still though, as the camera navigates through the subway cars, we start ot understand the players on this train. We hear small conversations, we see a homeless man performing, we see a cop, and we see a talkative young woman asking Sam for career help. Then, a group of students gets on the train, one nervous teen waiting until the last minute. 

At around 45-minutes of runtime, 25 of those are spent on setting up Hijack Season 2. But the atmosphere starts to change once Sam Nelson spots a hooded man in the train car moving suspiciously. 

Hijack Season 2 Episode 1 plays with the audience’s bigoted assumptions the same way that Hijack Season 1 did. While the suspicious man talks on the phone, he does so in Urdu. Sam serves this purpose as well, as he gets off the subway only to reenter the same car. 

Hijack Season 2 Episode 1 takes advantage of the audience’s assumptions, and it does so well. 

As established last season, Sam Nelson isn’t just a passenger. When the subway takes off, Sam immediately begins talking to the young man, asking him what’s in his bag. He reports the young man to the police, only for the young man to leave the train car with the cops behind him. 

The way that this unfolds is all about building suspicion. From the looks on the subway to the score of the moment. However, now the young man makes it clear how it begins to look like racial profiling, others start recording him, and then, the police assault him as he tries to get off the train. 

Hijack Season 2 Episode 1 uses all of the audience’s suspicion, and as the police draw their guns, you can see Sam’s concern. But he thinks he is right. Only for the young man to show that Sam is not. The racial element is what Hijack leans into, and it uses it beautifully. Particularly as they show that the guy is an asylum seeker. 

If you’re familiar with the current anti-immigration sentiment in Germany and the rise of the far-right nationalists, this moment rings even more important. When the train conductor, Otto (Christian Näthe), leaves the train to make a call in the bathroom at the next stop, well, it all comes together. 

The Apple TV Original series hasn’t yet hit the “thrilling” elements. 

Hijack Season 2 Episode 1 isn’t thrilling per se, but it is living in an uncomfortable space. As the train conductor comes back on, and we now have the knowledge that there are people masquerading as construction workers (an assumption based on how they’re dressed), and in true narrative fashion, the passengers are given a chance to get off the train. 

Once the train begins running again, the music intensifies, and the conductor’s face gets even more panicked. It’s all one big move to deliver impact for something we all know is coming, given the series’ premise and expectations from the first season of Hijack. Wagon 2600 is in trouble, and only the audience and the conductor seem to know it.  

With only ten minutes left in the episode, the chaos begins. The train doors don’t open at the next stop, and instead, it begins moving again. While some got off the train, it’s still packed, and the personalities in the car don’t mesh from the start, as the panic sets in. 

The most compelling element of Hijack Season 2 is that it’s taking place on a subway. It goes through one city, in one system. It’s not the international flight that we saw last season, but somehow the stakes don’t seem smaller. 

Hijack Season 2 Episode 1 features Sam Nelson, if only slightly. Having gotten a key to the cockpit (which I assume is the same name as planes), he tries to wrestle the control of the train away from Otto. But it’s moving too fast, and the rail is being switched by the man from earlier in the episode that we saw hiding in the subway tunnel in a safety vest. 

“Signal” is about the set up, which means it can come off empty to some. 

With everyone confused, Hijack Season 2 Episode 1 ends with more questions than answers. Still, the stage has been set. The train has been hijacked, and Sam Nelson has more in store for Otto than was initially thought. The way the series is shot keeps it entirely engaging. The tight focus on characters is driven by the circumstances and limited space of a train; however, the payoff of exploring each character’s emotional expressions is difficult to overstate. 

That’s when the premiere episode of Hijack Season 2 goes off the rails. Sam isn’t here to save the train; he’s here to hijack it. The teen he profiled was a distraction to get the police off the train, and now, we understand how he had the keys to the front. But that’s it. All that’s left is a giant “why?” at the end of Hijack Season 2 Episode 1. And it works. 

Hijack hit audiences with an absurd premise and took them on a thrill ride. Now, it’s shaking up its formula but doing so slowly. While the premiere episode may feel like a whole lot of nothing at the outset, setting up the situation and stakes is vital to ensuring the season heads down the right path, and it does. Now, it just needs to start paying off. 

Hijack Season 2 Episode 1 is streaming now on Apple TV with new episodes every Wednesday.

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