{"id":453607,"date":"2026-02-04T16:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T16:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/453607\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T16:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T16:18:08","slug":"season-2-episode-4-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/453607\/","title":{"rendered":"season 2, episode 4, “Switch”"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a relatively sluggish start, the second season of Hijack<\/a> 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 N\u00e4the 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\u2019t work without a cadre of allies, enemies, and even collateral damage. By giving more character and plot to people like Sam\u2019s former colleague Mei and filling in what\u2019s 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\u2019re more likely to care about what happens next. It\u2019s about time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSwitch\u201d is about pieces on the chessboard other than Sam\u2019s King. Interestingly, it also contains Elba\u2019s best performance of the year to date, as we can clearly see the weight of what he\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019s starting to eat away at Sam in this episode. People are getting stabbed; babies are getting sick; there\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n

Back to those other pieces: There\u2019s a sick baby, a potential ally in Mei, the trio around Marsha, and the reveal of who\u2019s really behind the stabbing from last week. It\u2019s 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, N\u00e4the, 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.<\/p>\n

To be fair, we\u2019re 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\u2019s dead body on the platform. Mei suspects that the gentleman with the bloodied hand was behind the murder\u2014and we\u2019re clearly supposed to feel the same\u2014but the big reveal of \u201cSwitch\u201d is that it wasn\u2019t the tattooed, long-haired, bleeding guy who stabbed Freddie. It was actually the woman who offered to help with his wound, a \u201cmedic\u201d who Sam figures out is the inside woman on the train, the one who murdered to show Sam who\u2019s really in charge.<\/p>\n

The title \u201cSwitch\u201d refers to several aspects of this episode. It\u2019s 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\u2019s really just a guy who cut himself trying to hide a backpack full of drugs. It\u2019s also embedded in Marsha\u2019s subplot this episode, wherein it\u2019s revealed that the suspicious guy in the car is actually working for DI Daniel O\u2019Farrel 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 \u201cneighbors\u201d who brought those flowers to Marsha\u2019s door in the premiere. They may have been the most \u201cyeah, I don\u2019t trust them\u201d characters in recent memory.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Stray observations<\/p>\n

\u2022 Archie Panjabi is back! DCI Zahra Gahfoor fills in O\u2019Farrel on what\u2019s happening in Berlin. And the pair agree that they have to connect with the horrendously-named Cheapside Firm\u2014the capital behind the hijacking in the first season\u2014to figure out what to do next. Panjabi can be legitimately great, never more so than in 2024\u2019s Under The Bridge<\/a>, in which she brings compassionate nuance to a character that could have been all melodramatic histrionics.\u00a0
\n\u2022 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\u2019s 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.\u00a0
\n\u2022 There\u2019s a line early in the episode that got me thinking about Apple shelving<\/a> The Savant way back in September. Will this really never see the light of day?\u00a0
\n\u2022 I do love how much the creators of Hijack love to use \u201960s soul tunes as their closers, and this episode has one of the best: the spectacular \u201cAfter Laughter<\/a>\u201d by Wendy Rene.<\/p>\n

Brian Tallerico is a contributor to The A.V. Club.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a relatively sluggish start, the second season of Hijack finally finds some rhythm this week as it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-453607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}