Apple TV’s hostage thriller show Hijack is back with its 2nd season, with Idris Elba resuming his role as the protagonist, Sam Nelson, a corporate business negotiator by profession. While the incidents of the first season involved a hijacked airplane headed from Dubai to London, the scene has shifted to Germany this time around, as Sam boards a train at Berlin station. Hijack season 2 episode 1 lays down the basics of the series’ 2nd iteration, establishing the drama that is about to unfold, while also ending with a shocking twist that is going to be crucial to the plot.
Spoiler Alert
What is Season 2 about?
Hijack season 2 episode 1 begins on a cold snowy afternoon in Berlin, where Sam Nelson walks into the central station with a look of intent on his face. We were introduced to Sam Nelson at the very beginning of season 1, where the professional negotiator played a crucial role in getting the Kingdom Airlines Flight 29 safely back to London. Now, Sam is seemingly on some professional tour in Germany, as he is often hired by corporate businesses to negotiate deals on their behalf. Carrying just one small briefcase with him, which is still more luggage than what he had been traveling with back in the previous season, he walks into the station and casually waits for the upcoming train to Honow.
But there is something else that the man is currently involved in as well, as a woman named Olivia leaves a voicemail on his number after he refuses to answer her calls. Interestingly, Olivia works at the British embassy in Berlin, meaning that the British government is, or will soon be, involved in the whole fiasco that is about to kick off very soon. As mentioned a bit later in the episode, Sam had been regularly asking for the embassy’s help in some regard, because of which Olivia had finally asked him to come to Berlin and sit down for a meeting, despite her superiors not really being interested in the man’s claims. At present, an officer from the German Federal Office of Justice, Arnold Goth, is visiting the embassy to attend a meeting with Olivia and Sam, which is why she keeps calling him up to know his whereabouts, since he has not reached the embassy yet.
A different situation unfolds in another part of the city during the same time, as the tactical unit of the Berlin police force reaches an apartment block to check on a tip they had received. The seemingly anonymous tip had informed the police about a suspect preparing for a terrorist attack, for which he had apparently been making bombs, and this is why the tactical unit has been brought in to investigate the matter and apprehend the suspect. However, as the team breaks into the apartment and goes through the place, they find it to be empty. But some of their hasty belief that the tip must have been false is immediately quashed when the police chief finds clear evidence of someone having been making intricate bombs at the apartment. He also finds an identity card of the suspect they had come to arrest and realizes that they are already too late.
The ID card appears to be a counterfeit one made specially for the terrorist plan, as it belongs to the company that provides maintenance workers for the railroads in the city. Around the same time, this very suspect is seen walking through the tunnels of the underground railway network, and he carefully avoids a team of workers by claiming that he is supposed to be working at a different part of the tunnel, with a different team. But the man, later revealed to be named Marko, manages to slide into an empty part of the tunnel, where he starts messing with the track and the levers, clearly with ill intentions. Thus, as it becomes clear in the first half of the episode, the train from Berlin to Honow that Sam is about to board is soon to be hijacked by some terrorists, and the protagonist will eventually have to negotiate some deal with them for the sake of his own safety and that of the other passengers.
Where is Marsha?
One of the developments suggested at the end of season 1 was the protagonist’s reconciliation with his estranged wife, Marsha Smith-Nelson. Despite the growing differences between Sam and Marsha, they had seemed to get over their past misunderstandings in the end, and it had appeared like they would probably get back together once again. After all, Sam had always wanted this reconciliation in order to give their marriage another chance, but it was Marsha who believed her husband would keep failing at maintaining a normal, happy relationship. But as season 2 begins, it is revealed that the couple have not gotten back together after all, although there might be more twists to the tale.
On the fringe of some forest, seemingly in the UK, a woman is seen walking up to a cabin and knocking on the door, asking for a certain Marsha Nelson. It is indeed Marsha who opens the door of the cabin, and it becomes clear that she has been living there for a few weeks. Marsha is probably here on holiday, and the woman who comes looking for her turns out to be a neighbor who lives in a nearby property some distance away in the forest. The neighbor brings Marsha a bouquet of flowers and reveals that it had accidentally been delivered at her house, although the name on a card attached to it clearly said Marsha Nelson, and so she now brings it to her.
The fact that Nelson is mentioned as her surname makes it very likely that it is Sam who has sent the flowers for his estranged wife. But what Marsha is doing at the place is unclear, and her reactions make it seem like she is not on a holiday after all, but maybe hiding from the world for some odd reason. While Hijack season 2 episode 1 gives us some more clues, or context, in this regard at the very end, the woman’s situation and what she is up to remain shrouded in mystery for now. But it is definitely confirmed that Marsha Smith-Nelson will continue to be an important character in the 2nd season as well.
What is inside the mysterious backpack?
Back at Berlin station, Sam notices a man carrying a heavy backpack acting a bit suspiciously, first as he seemingly skips a queue and runs down the stairs to avoid any trouble. Incidentally, the man boards the same train as Sam later on, which makes the latter keep a wary eye on him the entire time. His suspicions grow stronger when the man keeps nervously flitting around the coach and then runs out of the train only to get onto a different coach every time a new station comes. He quickly becomes the prime suspect, not just for the protagonist but for the audience as well, based on how the series portrays him. Sam soon confronts the man about whatever he is up to, and the latter reacts quite rudely, with the police getting involved as well.
Some of the passengers immediately call foul play on the police officers, as they accuse the authorities of being racist because the suspect is a Middle-Eastern man with a cap and a hood over his head. But the fact that the man reacts rudely to every situation and vehemently refuses to let anyone check or even touch his backpack is what escalates the situation. Sam informs the two police officers on the train they should be aware of the suspicious man, and they immediately start to question the individual. This quickly leads to an altercation, with the man refusing to cooperate with the police, and so he is forcefully ejected at the next station.
Although Sam had been involved in the whole situation from the very beginning, he chooses to stay on the train, and quite rightly so, as it soon leaves the station with the police officers and the suspicious man still on the platform. Being held at gunpoint, the man finally agrees to cooperate and let the police check his backpack, which does contain something incriminating, but nothing apparently related to any terrorist attack. Inside the backpack are a few insignificant items, and also the man’s passport, which reveals that he is an asylum seeker. The man had seemingly overstayed his visa, and since his passport was inside the bag, he was apprehensive about letting anyone check its contents. Thus, it is revealed that the man has nothing to do with the imminent train hijack, but the situation does turn out to be quite significant.
Who is Mei Tan?
Just as Sam was about to board the train, a young woman introducing herself as Mei Tan approached him and tried striking up a conversation. For the rest of the journey, Mei Tan keeps trying to speak to an absent-minded Sam, as the two had apparently worked together on a project in Singapore. Mei states that she had been an intern at AmBank, a client for whom Sam had worked on a specific deal, and because of her comparatively insignificant role at the company, she does not expect him to identify her instantly. Sam does not only have no recollection of Mei whatsoever, but he is also not at all interested in talking to her, which makes the situation look all the more strange. It appears almost as if Mei is trying to distract Sam from the developing situation on the train, and this makes her look like a part of the terrorist group.
Mei makes sure to not lose track of Sam even when he keeps getting out of the coach and then sliding into some other coach while trying to follow the movements of the man with the backpack. Eventually, it is revealed that Mei is indeed very desperate to make herself noticed by the protagonist, for a completely professional reason. She quickly guesses that he must be in Germany on some business, and therefore Mei wants to check whether there is any potential employment opportunity that Sam can lead her to. Towards the end, she directly asks him about any such chances, and Sam reluctantly tells her to get in touch with him online, specifically by sending her CV to him. Mei is pleased by the response, and although she recalls that she does not have his email address, Mei does not get another chance to speak with Sam. However, she does keep following him off and then back onto the train, meaning that she continues to be on it when it is finally hijacked.
Why is the driver the prime suspect?
Soon after the man with the backpack is revealed to have been just a distraction, the driver of the train, Otto, becomes the prime suspect, as he starts to act very erratically. Otto is in communication with the apparent terrorist in the underground tunnels, Marko, and he seems to have been recruited to do a certain job. Given the circumstances and the nature of the show, it is most likely that the job requires Otto to help in hijacking the train, and specifically in diverting the train from its usual route. But midway through the journey to Honow, Otto grows extremely nervous and takes an emergency break at one of the stations, lying to the operator that he has to use the restroom. In reality, he tries calling up Marko and calling off their plan, as he is too nervous and afraid of what the consequences will be.
But as Marko does not respond to his calls, and the station authorities grow wary of his unusual behavior, Otto decides to get back inside the engine and continue. Strangely enough, he is revealed to have been recently suspended from the job, meaning that he is not supposed to be driving the train, and this raises alarms with the station chief, who suggests the instructor have the driver of the train changed at the next station. Otto is given the order to deboard and let the new driver take over the job, and this is where he panics the most. Fearing that it is too late for him to escape the law, Otto drops the pretense and drives the train at an extremely high speed, eventually taking it into an unused tunnel in the underground network, where he does finally bring the train to a halt. But crucially, this tunnel is not on the railway network map back at the operations room, meaning that the U-5 Wagon 2600 train from Berlin to Honow is now impossible to trace remotely for the authorities.
Who actually hijacks the train?
Because of these sudden developments, it is obviously Otto, and also the railway worker he had been in contact with, Marko, who appear to be the terrorists responsible for the crisis. However, in the very last seconds of Hijack season 2 episode 1, the protagonist, Sam Nelson, enters the engine room and directly tells Otto that he is now hijacking the train. This unexpected twist suddenly changes the whole scenario and makes it look like Sam himself had anonymously hired Marko and Otto to do whatever they had done so that the train could be taken off the traceable map of the tunnel network. It is most likely that he has sent Marsha away from London to some remote forest for an apparent holiday for this very reason, as he fears the authorities retaliating against his family members. He definitely has some solid reason for hijacking the train, though it is obviously a criminal act, about which we will start to learn only from the next episode.
Back at the British Embassy in Berlin, it is revealed that Sam had sent in numerous reports about a certain unnamed man he had been tailing, for he suspected that he was the main perpetrator behind the hijacking of the Kingdom Airlines Flight 29. Recently, the man had supposedly entered Germany through the border at Hamburg, and Sam had sent photographs of him doing so to the embassy. This is the reason behind the urgent meeting called by Olivia with Arnold Goth and Sam Nelson, to discuss a possible threat to national security. Therefore, it might be that this man, the main perpetrator behind the events of the previous season, might be on the U-5 Wagon 2600 train at present, for which Sam hijacks it. After all, Sam has been seen carrying a master key from the very beginning of the episode, which he used on vending machines and then in the end to open the door to the engine room as well. This confirms that he had been planning this hijacking for a long time, and there must be some solid reason behind the supposed hero turning to such a serious crime in season 2.
