{"id":407004,"date":"2026-01-14T17:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/407004\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T17:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:06:09","slug":"hijack-season-2-review-apple-tv-thriller-drags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/407004\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Hijack’ Season 2 Review: Apple TV Thriller Drags"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn Season 1 of Apple TV<\/a>\u2019s \u201cHijack<\/a>,\u201d Idris Elba<\/a>\u2019s Sam Nelson boarded a Kingdom Airlines flight from Dubai to his home base of London. A lawyer and shrewd negotiator, Sam quickly determined the plane had been hijacked, and employed every skill in his arsenal to try to land the aircraft safely while keeping all 200-plus passengers safe. The first season worked for two reasons. There was Elba\u2019s endless charisma and believability, as well as the continuous rush of tension and surprise, which kept the entire seven-episode arc afloat. In the second season of the George Kay and Jim Field Smith thriller, Sam finds himself in an entirely different sort of hostage situation. But this time, it\u2019s nearly wholly devoid of the brilliance and bingability that made its predecessor a fan favorite.
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\u201cHijack\u201d Season 2 opens just outside of a U-Bahn train station in Berlin, Germany, two years after the incident aboard Kingdom Airlines Flight 29. The setting is different, and so is Sam. At first glance, he appears to be the same stoic, sharp man from Season 1, but taking a closer look, he is exhausted, downtrodden and shifty. He acts hesitantly, and is uncertain of his moves before finally stepping onto a crowded U5 train amid the morning rush hour. His uncharacteristic demeanor immediately puts viewers on edge.
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Expanding outward, Sam\u2019s ex-wife, Marsha (Christine Adams), is seen on a solo retreat in an isolated, wooded area. The audience also meets Clara (Lisa Vicar), a new employee at the U-Bahn command center, and Olivia (Clare-Hope Ashitey ), a woman awaiting Sam at the British Embassy in Berlin for their scheduled morning meeting. Otto (Christian N\u00e4the), the U5 conductor, also comes into focus. Though he\u2019s on his usual route, the train driver is even more agitated than Sam. Otto\u2019s behavior is so odd that a station manager at one of his stops witnesses his unease and requests a replacement. Things take a shocking turn when Sam breaks into Otto\u2019s conductor\u2019s car and announces he is hijacking the train.
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To be sure, the show\u2019s narrative is strongest when zeroed in on the train and its passengers. There is an insufferable former intern who once worked with Sam, a group of teenagers and their teachers headed to a museum and a young father trying to comfort his fussing infant. \u00a0As Sam takes control of the train, the audience watches as the passengers slowly realize something is amiss. Most of the intrigue occurs in watching these varied human behaviors in a crisis and how quickly things shift and change when Sam\u2019s plan is thrown off course or law enforcement intervenes in unexpected ways. \u00a0
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Unfortunately, \u201cHijack\u201d Season 2 is determined to take itself more seriously than Season 1, and that\u2019s its main issue. Instead of a streamlined storyline aided by a robust throughline of taut tension, the season is a jumble of plot points stretching between the past and the present. As a result, it becomes clunky, cumbersome and wearisome. Though it\u2019s almost immediately apparent that Sam is enacting vengeance, he is not at the center of this tale. Instead, numerous characters outside of the train serve to further the plot. Berlin Chief of Police, Ava Winter (Christiane Paul) and MI5 Agent Peter Fabar (Toby Jones) float around like mismatched puzzle pieces in the narrative until they awkwardly click together in the final hour for a rather dull climax.
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Still, there are numerous compelling themes to consider here, including global surveillance, the costs and depths of revenge and even the gut-wrenching pain of grief. Unfortunately, all of this detracts from the thriller\u2019s intense ebb and flow, which made Season 1 so highly watchable. Moreover, believing that the same man would find himself in yet another shocking international incident is too ridiculous for even the most enthusiastic TV lover. Despite the fantastic acting, \u201cHijack\u201d Season 2 doesn\u2019t have the steel to go the distance. Instead, Sam\u2019s story would\u2019ve been better left bookended on that London runway.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHijack\u201d Season 2 premiere Jan. 14 on Apple TV, with new episodes dropping weekly on Wednesdays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Season 1 of Apple TV\u2019s \u201cHijack,\u201d Idris Elba\u2019s Sam Nelson boarded a Kingdom Airlines flight from Dubai…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[5896,88,185004,81549],"class_list":{"0":"post-407004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-apple-tv","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-hijack","11":"tag-idris-elba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}