Hijack

Idris Elba is in full action hero mode in the Apple TV series Hijack. He stars as a corporate business negotiator onboard an airplane that is taken hostage by an eclectic bunch of assailants with mysterious motives. The series is very fun and very silly. Hijack just came back for a second season, so we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our conversation about the series. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu.

• 0:19Aisha Harris?

  The bracing drama series Hijack is about, well, a hijacking. An airplane heading for London is taken hostage by a bunch of assailants with mysterious motives. Their problem? A brilliant business negotiator, played by none other than Idris Elba, is a passenger on this plane. And he's not going to let them carry out their plan without a challenge. Hijack just came back for a second season, so we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our conversation about the first season of the series. I'm Aisha Harris, and we're talking about the thrilling Apple TV show Hijack on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  This message comes from Rosetta Stone, offering an alternative approach to language learning. Without relying on traditional memorization, the platform guides users to intuitively think in a second language. More information at rosettastone.com. This message comes from AT&T. Right now at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with eligible trade-in. It has the ultimate pro camera system and a big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Connecting changes everything. Requires trade-in of $230 or more and eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit an AT&T store for details.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. Personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive, and more. Try it free for 14 days at g o o dot g l e slash Workspace with Gemini.

• 1:59Aisha Harris?

  Joining me today is the host of Weekend Edition Sunday, my fellow Ayesha, Ayesha Roscoe. Hey, Ayesha.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.

• 2:06Aisha Harris?

  Yes, it's so great to have you back. And also with us is Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi. Welcome back to you too, Roxana.

• 2:13Speaker 04

  Thank you. Very excited to talk about this supremely silly and wonderful show.

• 2:19Aisha Harris?

  Supremely silly is the perfect way to describe this show. So Idris Elba is in full action hero mode here in Hijack. He stars as Sam Nelson, a corporate business negotiator onboard a seven-hour flight from Dubai to London. Now, soon after takeoff, a small group of hijackers makes its presence known, though the motive is unclear, at least for most of the series. Their no-nonsense ringleader is Stuart, who's played by Neil Maskell. With the help of the crew and his fellow passengers, Sam immediately taps into his very particular set of skills to try and get everyone home safe and alive. This requires a lot of smooth talk, shrewd, conflict-avoidant tactics, and covert message sending. Now meanwhile,

• 3:03Aisha Harris?

  various parties on the ground are trying to understand what's going on onboard, including air traffic control and the British police. Archie Punjabi plays Chief Inspector Zara Gaffour, and Max Beasley plays Police Officer Daniel O'Farrell. Daniel also happens to be dating Sam's estranged wife, Marcia, who's played by Christine Adams. We said, "This is supremely silly." We were not lying. The series is streaming on Apple TV. So, Ayesha, let's start with you. Now, you've got Idris, you've got a hijacking, you've got all of this supposedly happening over the course of like seven hours. So, how did this play for you?

• 3:38Speaker 03

  So, I have to say, I watched this show because I interviewed Idris Elba about the show. So, I have to put that disclaimer out there because, yes, I enjoy interviewing him, but it wasn't just the interview with Idris that sold me on this show. Like, I went into the show with very low expectations. I had heard some of the reviews. I'm like, And then I think it's very difficult when you're like in a plane and like to make a hijacking work over seven hours, right? Like that is something to keep that going is very difficult. But what I think they did very well, and what I think made it work for me is like, yes, you have to suspend your belief, right? Like you can't go into this like this is realistic.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  But they have these little plot twists that happened at the end of every episode that drew me in and I cared just enough about the characters. And I got to the second to the last episode and it was so, I was like, oh my gosh.

• 4:42Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 4:42Speaker 03

  And I had to finish it. And so that to me tells me when I'm finishing it and I don't have to.

• 4:47Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  It got me.

• 4:49Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, that second to the last episode. And I will tell our listeners that we might be spoiling some things, but it's not really, there's not much to spoil here, but if you want to go in completely cold, maybe, you know, come back after you've watched the final episode if you haven't yet or whatever. But yes, Ayesha, now you, you are the, the Idris Elba expert in a way because you interviewed him. But Roxana, you also wrote about this series.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  I did, yeah.

• 5:13Aisha Harris?

  And you actually laid out a lot of great points about why this show is both supremely silly, but also just really engrossing. So tell us how this plays for you as well.

• 5:23Speaker 04

  I think that I have been craving something goofy to watch in the summer and it felt like we used to get like goofy summer stuff. We'd get like creature feature movies about like some gigantic animal that we were all afraid of.

• 5:38Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 5:39Speaker 04

  And we used to get like the shows that were a bit wackier that would air in the summertime on networks because like other shows were taking a break. So I sort of miss and crave that like low stakes absurdity. And this show is very much, although it's about a hijacking. Episodically, each episode ends on a little bit, like Ayesha said, like a little bit of a twist, a little bit of a cliffhanger. There are different characters and subplots, as we talked about. So I just found it very smartly constructed in a way that kept me wanting to watch. And I will also praise the fact that it's seven episodes. I think we've all got a little bit burnt

• 6:22Speaker 04

  out on like 13-episode streaming series that feel too stretched out.

• 6:28Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  Seven episodes is exactly right. So like, in terms of the formula, I think there are a lot of formula things that really work here.

• 6:36Aisha Harris?

  They hit it. They hit it.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  They get it. And I also really enjoyed, as a Middle Eastern person, that this is not just like a hijacking by Middle Eastern characters sort of thing. The show does something very different in terms of like, what's motivating its villains, what's motivating its heroes. It is very, uh, subversive, I think, in who it presents as doing the bad stuff and who it presents as like, rising to the moment and trying to like, stop this hijacking. So there are a lot of those sort of things that the show just sort of took me away from what I expected it to be. And a lot of that, I think, comes down to Idris's performance.

• 7:21Aisha Harris?

  Yes.

• 7:23Speaker 04

  Very controlled. I mean, Idris is great at exuding control, right? Like, this is why he plays so many authority figures. It's The Wire, it's Pacific Rim, it's Beast. Thank you to Idris for giving us Beast. But yeah, so like, he's in that mode of, I'm gonna be very composed, but when the moment requires, I will explode as the moment requires. And that's just really fun to watch. It's fun to watch an actor who knows what he does so well, do it really well.

• 7:54Aisha Harris?

  Yes, yes.

• 7:55Speaker 04

  And I just think it's a good time.

• 7:57Aisha Harris?

  It really is. And Roxanne, one of the things you point out in your piece for Vulture is, like, one of the great things about Idris is his ability. To subtly tell people they're being stupid.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 8:09Aisha Harris?

  And just kind of the way his eyes dart at someone saying something so inane, or there are a couple of passengers who immediately, as soon as they realize there's peril, they're like, all right, what are we gonna do? We gotta like, we gotta take this over. And he's like, no.

• 8:22Speaker 04

  Idris has no patience for that.

• 8:25Aisha Harris?

  Right. And I love that. And that's, and I think that's partially why this makes such a good episodic series is because he has to be very strategic. You can't just like go full on like

• 8:36Speaker 04

  America.

• 8:36Aisha Harris?

  Or whatever. I mean, obviously it's not America, but like full on.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  A UK.

• 8:40Aisha Harris?

  Like, yeah. Yeah, UK or just like brash and gron.

• 8:45Speaker 05

  No one is asking you to make this call. You know what?

• 8:49Speaker 05

  Just because you speak the loudest doesn't mean you've got anything better to say. Doesn't mean you've thought this through. There's nothing to think through. No, there is. You just haven't thought of it yet.

• 8:58Aisha Harris?

  He's a negotiator and that's what he's gonna do. He's gonna negotiate his way out of the situation. And it's always interesting to think about how the protagonist is gonna get out of whatever situation. I think one of my favorite moments comes later in the series where Idris takes a carton, water bottle carton or something like that. And he circles like a slogan on it that it says something along the lines of like, it's time to shake things up. And he just starts passing it through and everyone seems to know what it means. And I love those moments. Like, did that work for you, Aisha? Yeah?

• 9:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that was the thing that got me, that really made it relatable. Everybody's been on a plane, right? And you imagine being on a plane with all these people you don't know. They did a very good job of everyone looking at each other from one section of the plane to the other, like, cause you think like, how would you communicate? And then what would you do? And then you would always have that annoying person who's like, I'm not going along with the plan. And then you're like, oh my goodness, can this person shut up? Like, but that's gonna happen, right? On the plane. So I just felt like they got the feeling right. And that made it accessible, even though nobody's been on a hijacked plane.

• 10:09Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  A lot of times I was like, this plane is huge.

• 10:12Aisha Harris?

  International flights tend to be.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  But there are some times where I was like, I don't know. But to your point, like they use the structure of the plane really smartly, like the window shades come up a lot in various episodes. But also just like the plane itself becomes a character. And that I think is really, really well done. I would almost say that I like the stuff on the plane a lot more than I like the stuff on the ground.

• 10:42Aisha Harris?

  Oh, absolutely. I was gonna ask you about that because one of the points you make, Rexanna, and which I completely agree with is like, they made it seem in the advertising like Archie Punjabi was going to have a pretty significant role here. And she's maybe like of the people who are not on the plane, who are on the ground, dealing with trying to figure out what's happening on the plane, she's maybe like the third or fourth most important person.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  Yes. Did Archie just have like two days on set? What happened here?

• 11:06Aisha Harris?

  It kind of seems like it. Instead, you know, we're focused on the Daniel O'Farrow character, who's the police officer who is also dating Sam's wife or estranged wife or partner. I'm not sure if they're still together or not, but.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  I think it's almost X, maybe.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Almost X, but he's like trying to maybe get her back.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  Right. With the Gucci bracelet, the Gucci bracelet is very important.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  It's very, we gotta talk about that Gucci bracelet. I mean, Idris Elba just saunters in with the Gucci bracelet and nothing else.

• 11:38Speaker 04

  No other luggage. What were you doing in Dubai?

• 11:41Aisha Harris?

  Maybe he was getting the Gucci bracelet in Dubai.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  You don't need nothing else, Sam. Nelson's like, I'm gonna get on this plane and I'm gonna get my woman.

• 11:51Aisha Harris?

  I, I will say, there were some tense moments that did come up on the ground. And I think that, you know, I agree that they weren't maybe quite as interesting as what's happening on the plane. So there are these two cleaner guys who are working with like the same sort of organization or unit or whatever as the hijackers are. And they go around like murdering people who are related to people who are on board. And at one point, they target Sam's son, Kai, who's played by Jude Cujo. And he like goes to his dad's house, his dad's very luxurious apartment. But of course it is because like he's the guy who's flying to Dubai apparently to get a Gucci bracelet.

• 12:34Aisha Harris?

  Very luxurious apartment, then the cleaner show up and he has to figure out, okay, how to not let them know that he's there and he sees they have guns. That had me legitimately in my seat like, oh my god. And then when they find him and that whole thing goes down and it's just, I thought that was really well done. And I also thought the way that Daniel, the police officer, gets him out of that situation where he like has them do a fire alarm and then like forces them out. Like, I thought that was great.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  It was, it was really great. And then the way he like signaled to Daniel, because they had the argument about the bike. It's like, I'm going on a bike ride. I love going on a bike.

• 13:09Aisha Harris?

  Everyone is so smart.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  Everyone is so smart.

• 13:12Aisha Harris?

  Things I would never think of.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  I would be completely useless in all of these situations.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 04

  But the villains are legitimately scary. I really like that Simon McBurney shows up. He's such a great ominous character actor. And when he arrived, I was like, oh, things are actually gonna get very intimidating. So I think there are these little like casting moments that are also really well done and really smart. I don't think RG gets enough to do, but like everyone else I thought was sort of, as I just said, like punching above their weight class. Like, it just became something more than what I expected the show to be.

• 13:49Aisha Harris?

  Yeah. We mentioned how silly it is, but I have to ask, like, what to you is the most ridiculous thing about this show?

• 13:56Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh. My thing that I feel like that is silly is the premise of the hijacking and like, I'm like, aren't there easier ways to make money? Like, it just seems like, why not just have somebody like go to a bank and like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it just seems like a really complicated scheme to get some money that could, that has so many ways to go wrong.

• 14:22Aisha Harris?

  Well, we should, we should partially explain what that convoluted scheme is, which is basically, I guess, the stocks of the airliner, they took money out, they were betting on it going down. And so then they hijacked the plane. And then, of course, stocks fall. So now it's like a windfall, I guess, because they did this.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  It's the big short on a plane. Yes.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, on a plane.

• 14:45Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, you would think there'd be easier ways to do it, but I guess if you also just want to be a terrorist, like, that's a great way to go about doing it.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  There have to be better ways to short a stock.

• 14:57Aisha Harris?

  That's what the big shirt was. Okay, so here's mine. Mine is that there only seems to be two kids on this plane. And which like, have you ever been on any flight, but much less an international flight where there's only two kids on the plane? And then on top of that, they are the most well behaved and unfazed kids of all time.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  I forgot about that. Oh, my God, because if my kids were on that flight, okay, first of all, we would have all been dead because they would have been like, well, I need a, I need my, my, my iPad, it's not working, it's no Wi-Fi. Like, they would have been just a hot mess. I would have been like, be quiet, be quiet. They would not have been quiet.

• 15:35Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  It, it just would have been mayhem. And like, where are their snacks?

• 15:40Aisha Harris?

  Like, there are guns being brandished, people being beat in the aisles, and these kids don't like.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  They just have their tablets, which I respect.

• 15:48Aisha Harris?

  I feel as though that was like a missed opportunity for even more attention because it's like trying to keep a child either like from freaking out or just being too loud and annoying. Like, that, that's an extra layer of tension that was just waiting to be mined, but.

• 16:02Speaker 04

  Well, one of them briefly gets lost.

• 16:04Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Speaker 04

  And I think that's the extent of the tension. And it's like, okay, you're getting lost on a plane, really? My favorite moment is at a certain point, Idris notices a flag. And he goes back to first class and like draws the flag and then shows it around first class. And it's like, what country is this? But somehow that's the show. It just somehow pulls off this balance of like really extreme things that are also sort of like normal.

• 16:36Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 16:36Speaker 04

  And it's Idris, and he just sells it.

• 16:38Aisha Harris?

  Yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 04

  I don't know how he does it, but he sells it.

• 16:40Aisha Harris?

  Okay, is there anything else we want to talk about here?

• 16:43Speaker 03

  We didn't talk about how the main pilot beat the mess out of his co-pilot. That was insane.

• 16:48Aisha Harris?

  I forgot about that. There was the affair that was happening.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  I mean, it was like.

• 16:53Aisha Harris?

  You know what, but then at the end, he.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Oh, he got it, he got it, he got it at the end.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  He really got it.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  And the best part to me was when Idris told her, like, I normally tell people what they need to do to get them to do. But if I were in your position, I would do exactly what you're doing. I was like, oh, my God, yes, I need a Sam Nelson on the plane.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  That was the best part. It was so real. I loved it.

• 17:19Aisha Harris?

  Yes, yes. Well, clearly, we had a great time watching this show, the supremely silly show. And if you got a chance to check it out, you should definitely let us know what you think about Hijack. You can find us at facebook.com/PCHH. And that brings us to the end of our show. Roxana Hadadi, Ayesha Roscoe, thanks so much for being here. This was a joy, a pleasure, and just silly fun.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, glad to be here.

• 17:44Aisha Harris?

  Thank you. This episode was produced by Ramel Wood and Mike Cassup, and edited by Jessica Reedy. And Hello Command provides our theme music. Thank you so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.