Watching Season 2’s fourth episode of Hijack felt like stepping into a pressure cooker where every choice carries risk, and while I came away genuinely impressed with how the story continues to unfold, there were moments where the momentum wavered under its own ambition. Switch moves the needle in meaningful ways, advancing character arcs and deepening the stakes of this Berlin train hijacking, and yet it leaves you aware that the intricate plot might sometimes be better served with a touch more clarity.
What struck me first about this installment was how it embraced complication rather than simplification. Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) has been under immense strain ever since the season revealed the personal cost behind his involvement in the crisis — the heartbreaking loss of his son has warped his judgment and given his actions an undercurrent of moral ambiguity. In this episode, when he makes what some would call a gesture of good faith, it isn’t delivered with the triumphant confidence you might expect from a classic hero beat. Instead, it feels like a calculated gamble, one that reveals both his skill and his fatigue. That ambiguity is where this episode shines: it doesn’t give you easy answers about Sam’s motivations or whether his choices will ultimately save or doom the people around him. From a performance standpoint, Elba delivers Sam with a nuanced weariness. He isn’t just negotiating with the hijackers but wrestling with his own internal conflicts, and the weight of that shows in every line read and every hesitation. The writing captures this intricacy without resorting to exposition dumps, favoring small gestures and measured dialogue to reveal Sam’s psyche.
Interwoven with Sam’s arc is the parallel storyline above ground, where DI Daniel O’Farrel leans on contacts in London in hopes of unravelling what’s happening beneath Berlin’s streets. This subplot adds necessary breadth to the episode, reminding us that the crisis isn’t confined to the hostile train car but is part of a wider, murky geopolitical puzzle. These sequences, though brief, add texture and make the world feel lived-in. They also allow Eve Myles’s Alice Sinclair and others to have more agency, which freshens the dynamic of a series that could easily become too Sam-centric. Still, the crosscutting between the confined, hyper-focused environment of the hijacked train and the broader, shadowy work of law enforcement sometimes feels jarring. The pacing doesn’t always bridge the two worlds as smoothly as it should, making it clearer when the episode has to switch gears.
Cinematically, this episode continues Hijack’s commitment to a grounded, no-frills aesthetic. The cramped lighting and close camera work inside the train amplify discomfort — you can practically feel the vibration of the tracks and the nervous breaths of the passengers. The direction in these moments is tight, prioritizing tension over spectacle. There are sequences that leverage silence masterfully; when conversations drop out, and all you hear is static or the barely audible hum of the subway, it heightens your attention without artificial sound design. Yet, I did notice that some scenes felt overextended — the show’s mission to build dread is commendable, but at times it verges on lingering too long on beats that don’t advance the plot or character understanding in any tangible way.
One of the bigger strengths of Switch is how it tightens the show’s ensemble. Characters introduced earlier in the season start to have clearer roles and motives. That matters because in a thriller built on suspicion and duplicity, you need to feel that each person could genuinely tip the scales, for better or worse. There’s no filler here; even brief interactions can carry risk or reveal cracks in someone’s resolve. Credit to the casting and ensemble direction here, because these interactions feel organic and meaningful, not artificially loaded for shock value.
For all the episode’s successes, there are a few narrative choices that left me less enthused. The “gesture of good faith” that serves as the episode’s linchpin is intriguing, but the payoff feels under-baked in terms of clarity. I found myself wanting a bit more context for how exactly this move recalibrates the stakes — yes, it’s meant to be ambiguous, but that ambiguity sometimes feels like ambiguity for ambiguity’s sake rather than strategic narrative tension. Similarly, the London storyline, while thematically rich, could have benefited from tighter integration with the train drama. I wanted the emotional through-line to snap more quickly between those two threads; instead, it occasionally felt like watching two different shows running concurrently.
Still, few shows deliver this level of sustained intensity without feeling like it’s all spectacle and no substance. Switch avoids that trap by anchoring its thrills in real consequences and real grief. You feel the emotional cost every time Sam makes a decision, and that is what keeps this episode compelling even when the plot becomes knotty. The writers trust the audience to follow the intricate web they’re weaving, and while that trust doesn’t always pay off in perfect clarity, it does result in a richer, more layered viewing experience.
In an era where thrillers often default to shocks over depth, Hijack Season 2 Episode 4 earns respect for how it juggles psychological complexity with pulse-driven plotting. The performances are strong, especially Elba’s, whose Sam remains one of the most textured protagonists on television right now. The direction and production value maintain the claustrophobic reality of the situation without lapsing into overwrought artifice. If there’s a flaw, it’s that the episode’s ambition sometimes outpaces its ability to make every twist feel earned. But even that is the kind of flaw that comes from trying to push the narrative forward in bold ways rather than playing it safe, and in the context of the broader season, that’s the kind of risk I’m glad Hijack continues to take.
Final Score- [7/10]