Idris Elba saves the day in the finale of Hijack. I don’t think this needs a ‘spoiler alert’ because, really, were you expecting anything else?
The ending was signposted from the moment Idris Elba strolled onto flight KA29 in episode one. His character, negotiator Sam Nelson, had the smarts of Die Hard’s John McClane crossed with the brawn of Jason Statham and the calm of a Zen Buddhist settling down for an afternoon nap.
While the outcome was never in doubt, there was a great twist at the close of the penultimate episode: just as the passengers finally overpowered the hijackers, a middle-aged woman who had previously gone unnoticed suddenly rose from her seat after receiving a text, shot the captain dead and took control of the cockpit. Now Nelson’s job was to talk his way in there, talk her out of a suicide mission, and help her to land the plane. All in an hour’s work.
Truth be told, this finale was a bit of a disappointment. It spent far too much time on the ground where Zahra (Archie Panjabi), whose job title I never quite grasped, was masterminding the response along with her policeman ex, Daniel (Max Beesley). The ropey motive for the hijack was revealed to be financial: tanking the share price of the airline and its underwriters, allowing a crime kingpin to make a killing.
