Hijack Season 2: Idris Elba Goes From Planes to Trains

Two and a half years after Apple TV's Hijack captivated audiences with a high-stakes plane thriller, Idris Elba returns as Sam Nelson for an entirely new crisis. The surprise 2023 hit transported viewers from Dubai to London aboard a hijacked flight, unfolding in real-time over seven tense hours. Now, the series reemerges with Season 2, dramatically shifting its setting from 35,000 feet in the air to the subterranean depths of Germany's U-Bahn system.

The transition from airplane to subway represents more than just a change of scenery—it's a fundamental reimagining of what the series can be. While the first season's airborne setting created a self-contained pressure cooker, the underground train environment presents an entirely different set of spatial and narrative challenges. The production team faced a monumental task: recreating the claustrophobic intensity of a subway hijack while maintaining the real-time tension that defined the original.

For star Idris Elba, the return to Sam Nelson's world wasn't guaranteed. Unlike traditional action heroes, Sam isn't a trained operative or law enforcement officer—he's a high-end business negotiator with an estranged family who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The question of why this ordinary man would find himself in another extraordinary situation drove the creative team's decision-making process.

According to Jim Field Smith, the series co-creator, executive producer, and lead director, the decision to return to Hijack's world required careful consideration. The first season essentially functioned as a "puzzle box" that consumed nearly every idea the writers' room could generate. Smith describes the initial season as an all-in proposition where they "water tested everything," making the prospect of a second season seem like "madness" on the surface.

When you make a TV show, you spend so much time literally making the show, but you spend a lot of time with the character, and you spend a lot of time problem solving.

The show's unique real-time format provided the narrative flexibility needed for a continuation. Because Season 1 unfolds over just seven hours of flight time, character development remained limited—Sam Nelson only moved "a few inches" psychologically during that brief window. This temporal constraint meant that fundamental questions about the hijackers' motivations, the crime lords' relationships, and Sam's family dynamics remained unanswered, creating natural story threads for future exploration.

Additionally, the audience already possesses intimate knowledge of Sam's capabilities and personality. As Smith explains, "You've got the shorthand with the character. You already know this guy, and you have your expectations of how this guy is going to behave." This established foundation allows the series to place a familiar protagonist into an unfamiliar environment with new motivations, creating fresh tension without abandoning what made the character compelling.

The creative team's solution to avoiding sequel fatigue was to embrace diametric opposition. Smith immediately thought in opposites: "Season 1 is 35,000 feet in the air. What's the diametric opposite of that? And my brain just went straight away to an underground train." This philosophical approach extended beyond mere geography into character dynamics and narrative structure.

Where Season 1 featured a passive protagonist who gradually became embroiled in a crisis beyond his control, Season 2 positions Sam as the instigator. Rather than reacting to events, Sam actively causes them to happen. This fundamental shift transforms the storytelling from survival thriller to something more complex, where the protagonist's agency drives the narrative forward.

The two-year timeline jump between seasons also allows for meaningful evolution in Sam's personal life. Picking up after the events of the first season, Sam has embarked on a journey of "revenge and justice" that ultimately leads him to the Berlin subway. This personal motivation provides a stronger narrative anchor than simply placing him in another random hijack scenario.

Smith describes the dual-season structure as a "yin and yang partner piece" where each season comments on and completes the other. This approach ensures that Season 2 doesn't merely replicate the beats of the original but instead creates a complementary narrative that deepens our understanding of both the character and the world he inhabits.

Translating the vision from script to screen required what Smith calls a "wildly colossal lift" from the production team. Unlike an airplane where cameras can capture multiple classes and sections, a subway train presents unique spatial limitations. The writers discovered that "on a plane, you have a contract with the audience about where the characters can go," but the underground environment demanded a completely different approach.

The production built two full-scale subway trains to accommodate the shooting requirements, along with a complete control room and an entire subway station set. This massive construction effort was necessary to capture the claustrophobic intensity of the hijack while maintaining the visual scope needed for a television thriller.

The confined nature of the subway also fundamentally changed how the writers approached the season's structure. In the first season, the action traveled throughout the plane from cockpit to galleys, exploring business and coach classes. The subway's limited geography forced the creative team to find new ways to create tension and movement within a more constrained environment.

Despite these challenges, the production team's commitment to building practical sets rather than relying solely on visual effects helped maintain the grounded, immersive quality that made the first season so compelling. The physical reality of the trains and station provided actors with an authentic environment to inhabit, enhancing the performances and overall atmosphere.

At its core, Season 2 represents an opportunity to explore the unfinished business that the first season's real-time format could only hint at. The original series' tight timeline meant that while viewers experienced the immediate crisis, the broader context—the why behind the hijackers, the relationships between criminal elements, and the full complexity of Sam's fractured family—remained tantalizingly out of reach.

There's unfinished business, and this is a chance to not just set the record straight, but to actually explore that unfinished business.

The series now has the freedom to delve into these unanswered questions while simultaneously placing Sam in a situation where his established skills as a negotiator are tested in an entirely different context. The underground setting creates new rules for survival, new obstacles to overcome, and new opportunities for character growth.

For audiences, this means returning to a familiar character while experiencing an unfamiliar version of the Hijack experience. The shift from sky to underground, from reactive to proactive protagonist, and from immediate crisis to deeper investigation creates a second season that honors what made the original work while boldly charting new territory.

As Hijack continues to evolve, it demonstrates how a successful thriller can expand its universe without losing the essential DNA that made it compelling. The journey from Dubai's skies to Berlin's subways proves that sometimes the most effective way forward is to completely flip the script.