After 9/11, almost all countries have become extra cautious concerning air routes and security. No one wants a tragic incident like that to repeat itself. To protect their country, they are even ready to shoot down any unwanted plane if it flies out of its fixed route. The ending of the Apple TV series Hijack revolves around whether to shoot down the plane to save London and the casualties or let the passengers find a way to deal with the hijackers on their own. The British airplane Kingdom 2-9 (or KA29), traveling from a Gulf country to London, had been hijacked by some local Englishmen who wanted their government to meet their demands as soon as possible. So, without any further ado, let’s find out who the passengers were and what their main motive was.
Spoilers Alert
What Were The Hijackers Demands?
For a major chunk of the narrative, we are unaware of the identities of the hijackers and their motives for the hijack. But slowly, the authorities on the ground found out that the five main hijackers had used fake passports to board the airplane. The most crucial piece of evidence arrives in Episode 4 when a man named Devlin (Kevin Eldon) hands over an envelope to British Home Secretary Neil Walsh outside Whitehall. To Neil’s surprise, Devlin had handed him the demands of the hijackers, according to which they wanted two state prisoners, John-Bailey Brown and the notorious Edgar Janssen, released from prison immediately. But who are these two men?
What Did Edgar and Johnnie Do?
As per the official records, the two criminals had been running an organized crime unit called The Cheapside Firm. Edgar and Johnnie are not just local criminals or smugglers; they have been involved in the international drug trade for quite a while though they are not the actual dealers. They just provide safe passage and entry points for all illegal commodities through their secret network spread across all of Europe. This piece of information is crucial as it highlights the fact that Janssen and Brown know all the safe entry and exit points in Europe and have the means to disappear without getting arrested. The authorities seized their operation in November and arrested the notorious traders on January 7, 2023, after which they had been spending their time behind bars and had perhaps planned the whole operation from there.
How Did Edgar and Johnnie Threaten The Hijackers?
The criminal masterminds of The Cheapside Firm had devised a very foolproof method to accomplish their mission. Edgar and Johnnie, who belonged to the streets, had hired some gangsters from their local community to do the job. And in order to put these punks on a leash, they threatened to kill their family members who lived nearby. In Stuart’s case, the leaders of the hijackers, Edgar and Johnnie, had killed his father, Pete, and perhaps threatened to kill his mother if he failed or denied accomplishing the task. To ensure the safety of their mother, Lewis and Stuart had taken the job, which they knew could put them in prison.
Similarly, Edgar and Johnnie had abducted family members of other passengers to force them against their will. They had assigned different tasks to these passengers and any refusal would have resulted in the loss of their loved ones. Speaking of Amanda, the woman who shot Robin Allen, her job was to fly the airplane to the center of London to raise the level of the threat, and if Amanda had failed to do so, then Edgar and Johnnie would have killed her daughter, Elodie. For most of these people, there was no turning back, but for the well-being of their loved ones, they accepted the suicide mission.
What Was The Ultimate Plan?
Freeing themselves from prison was indeed one of the main goals of the notorious criminals, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. They had cooked up a bigger conspiracy that was hidden from the eyes of everyone around them, and no one saw it coming until they finally revealed their cards. When Edgar and Johnnie were released from prison, they contacted their man on the outside, i.e., Devlin. His job was to leak the news of the hijack, which he did through a journalist named Felix. As soon as Felix reported the news on his Twitter account, the share prices of Kingdom Airlines and its insurance company, Macmillan Doyle, started dropping faster than you could say Jack Robinson. Meanwhile, Edgar and Johnnie tricked Officer Daniel, who had been following them since they left prison. They exchanged cars with two anonymous people who looked similar. By the time the suspected vehicle approached the Fernhill airfield, Edgar and Johnnie had already disappeared from the scene, leaving no trace behind.
So the main goal of Edgar, Devlin, and Johnnie was never to hijack the plane and crash it in London. They only wanted to get rich through a bear raid. They had bet their money based on the speculation of a fall in the share prices, and the steeper the line went, the richer they got. The duo probably had some debts to pay, and maybe they were the masterminds behind the whole deal because we refuse to believe that some two-bit criminals from London were capable of such a huge financial scam. Edgar and Johnnie were making more than 18 million per minute, but that wasn’t enough for the greedy Edgar. He wanted to reap as much as he could, which worried Johnnie. He guessed that such a situation might arise, and therefore, being the more sensible one among the two, he ordered his henchman to shoot Edgar before he could dig the grave for both of them.
After Edgar the greedy was removed from the path, Johnnie called Delvin to make the trade, which was probably a signal to secure the profit and run. Johnnie, on the other hand, will drive towards an airstrip where a helicopter has been waiting for him to take him out of the country or the continent. However, if the police find him before he can leave, then we might witness an arrest in the second season of Hijack.
Officer Daniel had arrested two of the cleaners working for Edgar and Johnnie from Sam Nelson’s house, and we speculate that these two criminals may say something that helps the police catch Johnnie. Also, the CCTV footage outside Whitehall registered Delvin’s face, so, if the authorities want, they can use these visuals to catch Delvin before he leaves the country. Hijack’s ending doesn’t reveal the fate of these two important characters, but we are certain that if there is a second season, we may find out what actually happened to them after Hijack Season 1 ended.
Additionally, if the entire thing was about a financial scam, then why should we leave Sam Nelson off our list of suspects? He is, afterall, a man who arranges mergers between companies. We are no financial experts, but there is one thing we can still say: the loss of one is always the benefit of another. Could it be Sam Nelson’s plan to destroy Kingdom Airlines and its insurance company so an interested party or Nelson’s client could take it under its corporate wing? If we get a second season, then certainly the truth around all these unanswered questions will come to light.
