WARNING: spoilers for Hijack season 2 episode 1 ahead.
As if Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) having to safely control a hijacked plane in Hijack season 1 wasn’t bad enough, he’s now got to deal with a commandeered subway train in the second installment. Can you not get anywhere these days without a bit of interruption?
Well, that’s putting it mildly, frankly. While the second season of the Apple TV show is surely set to be an explosive showdown on the U-Bahn in Berlin, season 2 episode 1 didn’t really deliver the goods. Instead, it’s setting the scene for drama that’s about to happen, instead of immediately introducing any intrigue.
That’s all well and good – any decent TV show needs a sense of world-building – but the lack of proactive action makes episode 1 as a season premiere incredibly flat. In all honesty, I’m in two minds about continuing with it at all… the incentive isn’t actually promised.
It might be the cynic in me, but I actually think the U-Bahn plot already has a few holes in it. While we’ve been slowly meeting our passengers boarding different carriages, something about them isn’t sitting right with me.
Hijack season 2 episode 1 clearly doesn’t understand how Europeans travel
Let me set the scene. It’s January in Berlin, and I’m on my way to a work event across the city. I’ve bought a 3-day U-Bahn pass and have been absolutely thrilled by the cheap price (watch and learn, British National Rail). I board the train, and the packed crowd sits in complete silence through the screech of the outside railways.
This, my friends, is how a broad cross-section of Europeans travel, from London to Paris and Berlin. When you get into the big metropolitan cities, nobody is making conversation with strangers, especially during peak work travel times. So why is Hijack season 2 convinced that people from all walks of life would be nattering minutes before disaster?
I understand that this is a) incredibly pedantic and b) neither here nor there, particularly as these strangers will soon be intimately acquainted while being held hostage. But considering season 2 episode 1 is strictly dedicated to the show’s world-building, I’m struggling to buy into its reality.
Paying attention to the little things separates a good show from a great one, and this could well be Hijack season 2’s downfall. It’s already tricky to believe that Sam could have two separate instances of public hijacking on the Apple TV show, which means there aren’t brilliant prospects for season 3 and beyond.
Either Sam needs to stop traveling by transport altogether or Hijack season 2 is going to be the end of him. Either way, don’t expect random passengers to actually be talking to each other.
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