Hijack Season 2 Finale Review: It’s Over; We’re Free. Or Is It?

Critic’s Rating: 2.3 / 5.0

2.3

Hijack Season 2 never knew what it wanted to say. It plays out like a rejected idea from Season 1’s pitch meeting, but now massaged to seem substantial.

The season finale puts everyone out of their misery — the characters and the viewers.

This season is the epitome of keeping limited stories at that level because some ideas are one-and-done, and that’s okay.

This season has been held together by fabricated stakes, weak villains, and frustrating tensions.

Hijack Season 2 Episode 10, “Terminal,” has no justification for its existence other than the fact that a train usually reaches the terminal, even with bombs strapped under it.

A Masterclass In Dissapointment

At the bare minimum, we wanted a satisfying conclusion, but we’re left with half-answered questions and a couple of new ones.

The main problems that have destabilized the season become stark in this hour. There’s a lot of talking and no action.

The main question of what happened is deferred to us to judge for ourselves.

More of the peripheral storylines that have made the season feel like it’s tackling entirely different stories finally converge.

The detective who has been going to and fro tracking down the bomb’s origin finally has a breakthrough when he questions the bomb maker, only to learn that all that work has been for naught.

Those scenes were valuable real estate that could have been used to flash back to some of the passengers’ lives to better connect with the viewer.

If that had happened, some of the deaths would have had a greater impact, rather than feeling like something the writers realized they needed to do.

Most, and I mean like over 90%, of the storylines taking place outside the train and the control room were unnecessary.

And even those that play a huge role in the final two episodes, like Marsha and her neighbors, were a drag for eight episodes.

It begs the question of why no one thought to keep everything confined to the train, leaving it only when absolutely necessary.

But if that had happened, how would the show keep shoving Stuart into the storyline without a clear picture of his purpose?

The “Hidden” Twist

Where Stuart begins is where things get messy and confusing because, in a bid to deliver a shocking finale twist, Hijack reveals that Stuart has been behind the hijacking.

What was presented as a jailbreak is actually a puppetered revenge plot.

That twist would have been quite exciting if it weren’t for a glaring logic gap.

It’s easy for criminals to run a jail empire like in Mayor of Kingstown because they have direct influence in the environment. 

It’s another thing for a British criminal to plan an international murder from a maximum security prison where every move is recorded and analyzed.

How was Stuart able to employ mercenaries to do his bidding from a cell? What were his plays in case someone refused to play ball?

He couldn’t have thought that one guy could break John Bailey-Brown out, force a guy to build a bomb, force another to hijack a train, get John on the train, and blow it up without being detected.

There are so many points of failure in that plan that it was bound to go wrong.

This is why the villains felt unthreatening because they weren’t professional pieces of shit.

Otto was shaking like a leaf in the Hijack Season 2 premiere because he was an amateur, while Jess looked like she was watching puppies get killed on repeat because she is not a killer.

Oh, did you forget that Otto was working for the bad guys? It’s not your fault because the show touched on it in passing, and by the second episode, he had gained a lot of moral clarity.

Things don’t end in a bang here. They just end with an explosion that disguises an execution.

It was a very convoluted way for Stuart to seek revenge for what John made them do on the KA29 flight. But here’s the thing, sweetheart: you are a grown man who has made his bed. The only conclusion is to lie in it.

This Is What the UBhan Hijack Was About

So to unfurl this mess, John Bailey-Brown is in jail in Hijack Season 1. He orchestrates a plan that sees his large criminal network hijack a commercial plane and demand his release.

However, he also wants to profit from the crisis by tanking Kingdom Airlines’ stock after betting on the dip.

He makes a clean break for Germany, while Stuart goes to jail after his brother’s death.

Somehow, in jail, Stuart may have had Kai murdered, and on the first anniversary of Kai’s death, he already has a plan that involves insider access to German law enforcement and blackmail to force Sam to hijack a train.

The goal is to get John and Sam on that train, blow them up, and avenge everything that has happened in the last several years.

It’s an ambitious plan that becomes ridiculous when the planner is a mid-level criminal serving a prison sentence. The plan largely fails, and Stuart is left kissing the ground between yells.

Hijack wants viewers to suspend logic and believability, but does nothing to help us in that journey.

We might never know what happened to Kai, and I’m okay with that if it means no more seasons of this mess.

Gut Check

“Terminal” is the final nail in the coffin, allowing me to say with confidence that this story didn’t need to continue.

The premise was interesting, but it could have worked better with a different protagonist every season, caught in a hijack on a plane.

Nothing works here without a plane, cut off from the world at 30000 feet in the air. That’s where the show lost the plot.

I don’t like how the season just ends with a literal blur.

I wanted to see some reunions, especially between the teachers who I think are a couple. It would have added more weight to the situation to see them happy that they’re safe together.

This makes me wonder if they were a couple or if I misread the signs. This season has a way of creating expectations it intends not to meet.

Stray Observations

• How did Sam evacuate the train but remain with so many passengers? I heard 100 and couldn’t believe it.

• Imagine surviving all that, only to have to get on a bus. Has no one seen Speed? I’d walk from Germany to the UK on my own two feet.

Who’s ready for Hijack Season 3? Just kidding — or am I? The show leaves everything incomplete, as if they are planning on a third outing. Would you watch? What did you think of the finale?