A year after his plane to London was hijacked by an organised crime group, Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) decides to board a train in Berlin. He should have taken an Uber.
Streaming On: Apple TV
Episodes Seen: 8 of 8
Netflix’s knack is in knowing how to prepare the perfect ‘gourmet cheeseburger’ — shows that feel familiar, yet somewhat premium, and are absolutely devoured by any who taste them. It’s a formula that has served up nibblesome streaming delights ranging from Emily In Paris to The Diplomat. Apple TV, meanwhile, has traditionally taken a more haute cuisine approach to programming: a tasting menu of exquisite, meticulously prepared dishes that won’t be for everyone, but whose quality is undeniable. Breaking slightly with that paradigm is Jim Field Smith and George Kay’s Hijack, which represents a far more burger-adjacent strategy from Apple — albeit one made from perfectly ground wagyu beef, garnished with truffle aioli and served in a brioche bun.
When it debuted back in 2023, this moreish airborne thriller saw businessman Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) match wits with a plane full of criminals across seven taut episodes. Set one year later, this second season finds itself cornered into a very specific format by the show’s title and, like John McClane in Die Hard 2, pondering quite how the same shit can happen to the same guy twice. Thankfully, Smith (solo now, with Kay having returned to Lupin duties) opts for a rather more sophisticated solution than sardonic lampshading. Still grieving the death of his son, Nelson is obsessed with tracking down the criminal who masterminded the original incident (Ian Burfield), a quest that takes him to Berlin and, unfortunately, a U-Bahn locomotive rigged with explosives.
Elba remains the show’s charismatic core, bringing a fresh desperation that makes the formerly unflappable Nelson feel more lived-in and frayed around the edges.
To delve much deeper into the connective tissue between the seasons would be to spoil the series’ whiplash-inducing turns, but suffice it to say, there’s far more going on here than unlikely happenstance. And while the U-Bahn is neither as showy nor cinematic a venue as a mid-flight Airbus, Smith makes good use of Berlin’s labyrinthine underground, losing the train amid its warren of used — and abandoned — tunnels. Meanwhile, the Teutonic setting adds texture, location exteriors and a sizeable chunk of German dialogue, providing this season with a new and distinctive flavour.
Elba remains the show’s charismatic core, bringing a fresh desperation that makes the formerly unflappable Nelson feel more lived-in and frayed around the edges. Meanwhile, additions to the cast include Christian Näthe’s put-upon train driver Otto, Lisa Vicari’s control room operator Clara, and Toby Jones as delightfully inscrutable British intelligence officer Peter Faber. The train itself contains a gaggle of commuters, a mysterious older couple and a class of unruly students on a field trip, but the passengers take a disappointingly literal back seat this time around, their involvement in the action somewhat stymied by the layout of a multi-carriage train.
The story, meanwhile, thrashes around like a live wire, protean plotting causing the show to ricochet wildly between the opaque and the obvious. By the time we reach the home stretch, it does begin to lose momentum and with most of the pieces revealed, the story’s latter section, much like its central conceit, feels on rails. But while this latest Hijack may not quite manage the gourmand’s takeaway its first season was, this is still much closer to a Five Guys than a Happy Meal.
A lesser if still compelling outing for Idris Elba’s have-a-go hero as he once again navigates the perils of public transport. Next up: Hijack on the Megabus to Inverness!