Hijack Season 1 Episode 5 Review: Less Than an Hour

This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Hijack, being covered here, wouldn’t exist.

Hijack Season 1 Episode 5, “Less Than an Hour,” manages to make the plane almost landing more engaging than anticipated.

Just like with Hijack Season 1 Episode 4, “Not Responding,” we knew that the odds of the plane actually landing were slim to none, and yet the show is able to keep us entertained despite the fact that we know the outcome.

This is done by highlighting how Sam and the passengers manage to work together to outwit the hijackers and then quickly have to backpedal once the stakes are made clear to them.

Now that Sam knows his family is in danger, I’m curious how he’ll act in the final two episodes of the season.

You’d assume that he wouldn’t try to do anything sneaky out of fear that his family will be hurt, but perhaps the focus will shift back to trying to get a message to someone on the ground — his ex-wife, most likely, since that’s the only person he’s reached out to this entire time.

If Sam just sat back and was a good little hostage, we’d be in for a boring conclusion to this show. So he’s got to do something. Any theories on how this news will affect Sam’s final couple of hours on the flight?

We finally get some answers on the hijackers’ organization. Naturally, we still have a lot more questions, but we’ll take this progress.

While it’s clear they are an extremely violent sort of people, hijacking a plane seems like a lot of work just to get two people released from prison. It doesn’t make sense that this is their go-to move, especially considering they seemingly only operate in Europe and the plane takes off from Dubai.

A hostage situation or coordinated attacks in London seems like the logical next escalation for them, but for whatever reason, that’s not what this group chose to do.

Perhaps another criminal organization that uses this group’s transportation networks is assisting with the Dubai part of the scheme, but that isn’t made clear. While the focus of the show is notably the moments on the plane, it’s a little surprising that the hijacker’s motives and demands are quickly glossed over.

We get one brief on how the two people named in the demand letter were arrested last year, and that’s about it. Then, the focus is on having Daniel interview the mother of two hijackers so that we can hear her take on the group.

Seeing as how Sam gets basically the same information out of the Hawaiian shirt hijacker on the plane, Daniel’s trip to the mom’s house is pointless. That time should’ve been spent giving us more background on the organization and the two imprisoned people that Sam wouldn’t necessarily be able to learn about.

That’s how Hijack should have been using the storylines on the ground — giving us information Sam and the people on the plane can’t know or get somehow.

And yet, instead, we’ve mainly been watching the people on the ground either work out something Sam and the passengers already know or watch them react to something that’s already happened, like learning about the hijacking.

The one exception to this is the clean-up crew a.k.a. the hitmen. While Sam finally learns about them in this episode, prior to that, it’s been something only we knew about for the longest time. It kept us invested and concerned for the fate of the passengers on the plane more than anything else that happened in the episodes because we saw how ruthless the group can be.

Stray Thoughts

• Finally, the Dubai murders have been discovered.
• I’ve given up on trying to understand who all these British government officials are. Maybe one day I’ll be able to keep them all straight, but today is not that day.
• Here’s hoping Sam’s son manages to outwit the hitmen somehow.

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“Less Than an Hour” was written by Anna-Maria Ssemuyaba and George Kay and was directed by Mo Ali.

What did you think of this episode of Hijack? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Hijack airs Wednesdays on Apple TV+.

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