‘Hijack’ Boss & Idris Elba Explain Shocking Sam Twist in Season 2 Premiere

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the Hijack Season 2 premiere “Signal.”]

Hijack delivers quite the shock in its first episode: Something’s clearly happened that leads to a surprising move from Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) that you likely didn’t see coming.

In the first season, Sam stepped up to try to smooth things over when his flight was hijacked. Now, in Season 2, Sam is the one who does the hijacking. Yes, Sam hijacks the underground train in Berlin, and furthermore, he makes sure there are no police officers on board by claiming a man with a backpack is suspicious. Uh-oh! What’s going on?!

“We wanted to have a big hook to bring the audience along at the end of that first episode. We wanted people to feel like, “OK, I’m in. How on earth is this possible? How has Sam got to this point?” co-creator, executive producer, and lead director Jim Field Smith tells TV Insider. “And actually, the enjoyment is in living in that reality for an episode or two.”

That’s exactly what will happen this season.

“How could Sam have got from the Sam we thought we knew to this new version of Sam who seems to be unhinged and doing things that we would never think he was capable of? And, really, that’s the theme of this season: What are you capable of as a person? What would you do if, when it all comes down to it — when everything’s on the line, how far would you go?” the EP continues. “That’s what we try to explore in this season is how far will Sam go for the people that he loves and how far is he prepared to threaten the lives of other people, or at least convince other people to go along with what seems like an incredibly dangerous ruse in order to win the day? That’s really his challenge in this season is he’s got to convince a lot of people that he actually has everyone’s best interests at heart, even though he’s asking everybody to do some pretty unsavory things in the process.”

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When we met Sam in Season 1, it was as a corporate negotiator, with skills he could bring to the table for the situation he was in. But in Season 2, it’s a completely different story, Idris Elba explains.

“The foundational elements of why he was a good negotiator are all shot to pieces. We’re watching a man who’s not sure how to manipulate in the way that he does for his living, but this time there’s a natural instinct that’s driven by something else completely,” he says, admitting that he sometimes didn’t want to read the scripts. “I just wanted to be there because Sam isn’t there. He’s not thinking about every single thing he’s going to say like he would do in the boardroom of a closing of a business. So his negotiation skills in this are very much a different sort of beast altogether. I applaud Jim and George [Kay] and the team of writers and producers who are like, let’s make a puzzle that the audience can’t see coming. We did it the first time around, let’s do it again. This team is so clever. So, I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a really interesting twist. Nobody’s going to see that coming.'”

In fact, Smith notes that in Season 1, Sam learned that his negotiating skills would only work to a certain extent. “It has a short-term success, but in the long term, it actually leads to consequences and ends up damaging his family. And in Season 2, as Idris said, he’s not going to try and deploy those negotiating tactics again,” he explains. “But what he does know is when people use them against him, he can understand what they’re trying to do, and he can second-guess them. So it’s kind of flipped on its head in Season 2.”

What did you think of the premiere twist? Let us know in the comments section below.

Hijack, Wednesdays, Apple TV

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