After the big reveal in the Hijack Season 2 premiere that — spoilers past this point — Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) is the hijacker this time around, the second episode of the Apple TV hit, titled “Control,” ends with another doozy of a cliffhanger: did the train really blow up in the end of the episode?
Well… No, of course not. They’re not going to have Sam hijack a subway train in Berlin in episode 1, and wrap things up in episode 2 with the death of the main character. And while you will have to wait until next week’s episode to find out exactly what’s going on here, there are some pretty big clues as to what’s actually happening in the episode itself, so let’s lay them out there.
Once the hijack has been revealed, the German government shuts down the network, and puts another train in the path of Sam’s runaway subway car. They bring the hijacked train to a halt, while the Germans stall for time explaining they need a minute to move the “stalled” car.
Frustrated, Sam points out a room off to the side of the tunnel, which is a “Schaltraum,” or as the conductor explains, a room for the switches and cameras, which leads into the station and up to the street. Sa, heads in to the room, sees the station abandoned, and realizes they lied about the stalled train.
Sam refuses to let the passengers go, and demands they move the stalled train or people are going to start dying. Surely Sam Nelson, our hero, wouldn’t do that, right? Right?
Meanwhile, a cyclist on the train works his way up to the conductor’s booth and discovers the train has been hijacked — something Sam has kept hidden from the passengers thus far. Grabbing the cyclist’s belt-bag off, Sam opens it up and takes out a lighter (remember this for later) and ties up the cyclist. He gives him a briefcase and tells him “no sudden moves.” Sam then tells the Germans that he’s going to send the cyclist to the platform, and if they don’t shift the stalled train by 11am, “you will find out,” aka blow up the cyclist. Sam sends the cyclist — his name is Freddie — to the platform, and notably pulls out that lighter again, in case you missed it.
Heading to the Schaltraum, Sam watches Freddie climb up onto the platform with the briefcase, but the Germans aren’t buying it: they send in the troops. Sam, though, can see them come in and tells the Germans to call them back… Which they do, just as an oblivious station manager comes into to tell Freddie they evacuated the station. The manager approaches, the soldiers enter again, and Sam tells them to clear out or he’s detonating the bomb.
Sam, though, is thrown by the fact that the negotiator has discovered his name, while the manager is cleared out by the soldiers, and Freddie flanked by the bomb squad.
Hey, remember that lighter they’ve showed us twice? Sam, stuck in the Schaltraum, looks over at a trash can filled with papers, then back at the lighter, a third time, then gives the Germans 45 seconds to clear the stalled train. The soldiers all clear out while Freddie panics, looking at the camera. Time runs out.
“I didn’t want to do this,” Sam says, as the feed cuts out. The shocked workers in the subway control room stare in horror, as “Boom Boom” by John Lee Hooker” plays over the credits.
So yeah, they certainly want us, the viewers, to think Sam detonated the bomb, killing Freddie, and depending on the blast radius also the station and the train. But let’s look at the evidence here. First, Sam is in the control room where the cameras are, and can cut off the feed himself. Second, he’s got fire from the lighter, and a trashcan full of flammable trash. It’s pretty clear with an otherwise empty subway station, he can effectively make it look like a bomb went off, without actually killing anyway.
The two big outstanding questions here then are: 1) what happens with Freddie, and 2) how is he going to convince the Germans to move their stalled train, particularly if there’s supposed to now be damage to the station? And those questions are to be answered another time… Hopefully, next week on Hijack.
Hijack Season 2 Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:
New episodes of Hijack technically premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV, though given time zones in the United States new episodes will hit the service at 9pm ET / 6pm PT on Tuesdays. We’ve listed the Wednesday dates below, just for posterity.
Here’s what we expect from the full list of episodes in Hijack Season 2 with premiere dates.
- Wednesday, January 14, 2026: Hijack, Season 2, Episode 1
- Wednesday, January 21, 2026: Hijack, Season 2, Episode 2
- Wednesday, January 28, 2026: Hijack, Season 2, Episode 3
- Wednesday, February 4, 2026: Hijack, Season 2, Episode 4
- Wednesday, February 11, 2026: Hijack, Season 2, Episode 5
- Wednesday, February 18, 2026: Hijack, Season 2, Episode 6
- Wednesday, February 25, 2026: Hijack, Season 2, Episode 7
- Wednesday, March 4, 2026: Hijack, Season 2, Episode 8 *Season Finale*
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