“Junction” is an episode that every action series reaches, one in which both the good and bad guys start to scramble as the final pieces fall into place. You can picture it in an action movie too: the scenes right before the climax when the good guy regains a bit of control and the bad guy does something desperate to retrieve it.
It’s also an hour about how most people above ground still think Sam is a bad guy. Yes, he’s back in a leader role, someone trying to help hostages survive, but no one outside of the train knows that yet. And it’s that disconnect between the modes that Mr. Nelson is being forced to play that gives this episode its tension. Can Sam get what his puppet masters require of him and keep everyone on the train alive too? It’s a stronger episode than some this season by virtue of the increased momentum toward a finale, along with Idris Elba’s consistently grounded work. But it still lacks a bit of spark because of how frustratingly the writers this season ration information not just between its characters but to the viewers as well.
The sixth chapter of the second season of Hostage uses confusion and misinformation to ramp up tension. Most importantly, the explosion at the end of last episode not only didn’t take any lives but knocked out the communications with the control center, so the authorities can no longer precisely track Sam Nelson and his U-Bahn of hostages. It gives the episode most of its direct tension as the handoff between Sam and the convoy bringing John Bailey-Brown can’t be as tightly controlled by the authorities.
This is also an episode in which we learn more about Jess, the unwanted ally of Mr. Nelson and the woman who murdered poor Freddie. It turns out she has a way to contact her handler, an authority figure alongside Bailey-Brown in the convoy and the mystery man that Sam met in the pub the night before. Who is this guy working for? He’s clearly a middleman, someone on the Bailey-Brown side of this illogically complex hostage situation, but he also has the control that comes with being able to remotely arm the bombs on the train. They kinda have to do what he says or go boom.
So who is Jess? She’s willing to move quickly to kill someone, although she makes a reasonable case for that decision here, arguing that they needed to kill Freddie or they’d have to worry about what he knew. He was collateral damage. Wait a minute. If that’s true of Freddie, isn’t it also true of Otto? Jess? Sam? If the people behind this want John Bailey-Brown so badly that a passenger is that expendable, how are the perpetrators of this faux hijacking going to live? On the one hand, it seems likely that Sam’s death has always been a part of their plan: They somehow get JBB in their hands, and Sam is the lone, vengeful father who takes the fall. But do Otto and Jess know that a scheme this powerful likely means they won’t survive it too? Maybe not yet.
Speaking of survival, “Junction” sacrifices a passenger in a way that felt a bit manipulative. Almost as if creators recognize that the season has been a bit light in the body-count department, they let the older woman passenger die quietly, seated next to her loving husband. While it’s kinda cheap to kill an underdeveloped character like this one, at least it does seem to deepen the stakes a little. This has been a season too low on action, but the reminder that what’s unfolding has led to a loss of life helps increase tension just a bit.
Things are definitely tense for Marsha Nelson, who discovers rather quickly that her kindly neighbors aren’t so kindly. She flees them into the woods, pausing just long enough to see that they murdered the bodyguard who was there to protect her. If Marsha could somehow get to a safe space, couldn’t that derail the hijacking?
There are a few mysteries remaining that seem likely to be answered next episode before the explosive finale. First, who’s behind all of this? Stuart, one of the hijackers from last season, gets a weird scene in which he learns about the explosion on the train and seems furious. He clearly knew more about what happened than he let on in the last episode. Was he upset that his plans have gone awry? And second, who gave Sam all the information about John Bailey-Brown’s location in the first place? Did Stuart have email behind bars? Probably not. Faber & co. are untying that thread of this story, which will likely lead to the mastermind of the entire operation.
The episode ends with the kind of suspense that one hopes could be carried through the final two hours. Sam and Jess have disembarked the train to switch tracks because they have figured out that authorities can no longer track them and that they’re about to be ambushed at Bergmannstraße. Again, it’s an installment about control and how no one being completely transparent about what they’re doing or why is what’s setting things up for tragedy. The creators try again to leave viewers wanting more. They ended last week with a boom (for the second time). This week it’s a gunshot as a soldier gets the jump on Sam and Jess. We’ll have to wait a week to see if he hit his target.
Stray observations
- • The look on Faber’s face when he sees that Olivia has 12,697 unopened emails represents all of us zero-inbox people. I had a small panic attack just thinking about it.
- • The episode closes with a banger, the great “Ain’t It A Sin” by Charles Bradley.
- • Here’s a deep-cut great train movie: Brad Anderson’s excellent TransSiberian. Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer play an American couple who get caught up in a crime aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway. It’s way more Hitchcock than Hijack.
- • Two episodes to go! I’ve talked a lot here about lack of momentum this season and that nagging feeling that this is a great two-hour action movie stuck in an eight-episode format, but the final pair seem like they have to get to the good stuff. We should get some answers, get some action, and maybe even get to a place where I can forgive where this season has disappointed.
Brian Tallerico is a contributor to The A.V. Club.
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