After a relatively sluggish start, the second season of Hijack finally finds some rhythm this week as it reaches its halfway point by not placing so much weight on the handsome shoulders of star Idris Elba. Sure, there were some Toby Jones gems in the first three episodes, and Christian Näthe is quietly doing strong work as the morally conflicted inside man on this hijacked subway train. But this installment is the best of the season because it understands that a show like this can’t work without a cadre of allies, enemies, and even collateral damage. By giving more character and plot to people like Sam’s former colleague Mei and filling in what’s happening with Marsha on the other side of the planet in a more defined way, the world of Hijack feels richer here, which means we’re more likely to care about what happens next. It’s about time.

“Switch” is about pieces on the chessboard other than Sam’s King. Interestingly, it also contains Elba’s best performance of the year to date, as we can clearly see the weight of what he’s being forced to do start to press down on him. Elba has always had an ability to add melancholy to characters who might be played purely as stoic by lesser actors. He doesn’t just find the flaws in a character like Stringer Bell, for example, but knows how to allow those rifts to influence body language and cadence. One can feel the growing anxiety and maybe even something like regret that’s starting to eat away at Sam in this episode. People are getting stabbed; babies are getting sick; there’s a bomb under the train. How is this all possibly going to work? And will Sam be able to look at himself in the mirror even if it does?

Back to those other pieces: There’s a sick baby, a potential ally in Mei, the trio around Marsha, and the reveal of who’s really behind the stabbing from last week. It’s hard to overstate how much a show like Hijack improves when it expands its focus. Imagine Die Hard with no Sergeant Powell or Argyle! These characters support the arc of the protagonist in a way that makes it more resonant and entertaining. Even though Toby Jones, Näthe, Lisa Vicari, and Christiane Paul did solid work in their tight boxes over the last three episodes, they felt like they were just clearing their voices more than actually saying something.

To be fair, we’re still a bit stuck with a few dozen interchangeable faces on the hijacked train. At least most of them look more worried than they did before they saw Freddie’s dead body on the platform. Mei suspects that the gentleman with the bloodied hand was behind the murder—and we’re clearly supposed to feel the same—but the big reveal of “Switch” is that it wasn’t the tattooed, long-haired, bleeding guy who stabbed Freddie. It was actually the woman who offered to help with his wound, a “medic” who Sam figures out is the inside woman on the train, the one who murdered to show Sam who’s really in charge.

The title “Switch” refers to several aspects of this episode. It’s literal in the idea that the hijacked train has to switch tracks to the U6 to reach an abandoned station to make sure that an asthmatic baby is returned to his mother. It refers to the narrative gamesmanship that allows viewers to think that the man with the bloody hand is a murderer when he’s really just a guy who cut himself trying to hide a backpack full of drugs. It’s also embedded in Marsha’s subplot this episode, wherein it’s revealed that the suspicious guy in the car is actually working for DI Daniel O’Farrel in an effort to protect her. He pays for that job with his life at the end of a shotgun blast from the male half of the “neighbors” who brought those flowers to Marsha’s door in the premiere. They may have been the most “yeah, I don’t trust them” characters in recent memory.

Of course, there’s also the impending switch of hostage for target. Sam offers to make a deal by allowing the sick baby to disembark the train with the promise that he will finally get his hands on John Bailey-Brown. What will he do with him when he does? After a rough beginning, this chapter of Hijack makes me more likely to care about the answer to that question.

Stray observations

• Archie Panjabi is back! DCI Zahra Gahfoor fills in O’Farrel on what’s happening in Berlin. And the pair agree that they have to connect with the horrendously-named Cheapside Firm—the capital behind the hijacking in the first season—to figure out what to do next. Panjabi can be legitimately great, never more so than in 2024’s Under The Bridge, in which she brings compassionate nuance to a character that could have been all melodramatic histrionics. 
• Props to the cinematographers of this season, folks who contrast a sweaty claustrophobia on a crowded train with the snowy climate of winter Berlin. It’s a color palette that actually fits the tone of the show instead of just using the Ozark playbook to make everything cool gray. You can feel the chill in the German air. 
• There’s a line early in the episode that got me thinking about Apple shelving The Savant way back in September. Will this really never see the light of day? 
• I do love how much the creators of Hijack love to use ’60s soul tunes as their closers, and this episode has one of the best: the spectacular “After Laughter” by Wendy Rene.

Brian Tallerico is a contributor to The A.V. Club.