Hijack: Comply Slowly
July 26, 2023 12:57 PM - Season 1, Episode 6 - Subscribe
Faced with an impossible decision, the passengers ready themselves for a fight.
This series started off better than it probably should have been, but each episode is a new low now. Sending people to threaten relatives of a passenger while also demanding to kill any passenger makes zero sense. Just kill Sam, it has bee n your best move for hours. Having lead hijacker wave a gun around begging people to volunteer to be murdered was just unbearably stupid. Worse because he also played Arby’s the good Utopia. Has any actor ever gone from terrifying to stupid so completely? Having a secret actually competent hijacker was pretty good, so I will give them that.
posted by snofoam at 6:11 PM on July 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 6:11 PM on July 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
Well, in case it's not clear (it's not), this is secretly actually been a market manipulation scheme and possibly less so a jailbreak. The hidden hijacker is going to crash the plane, that's her job and why she was psyching herself up. That's why the hijackers are incompetent but the people on the ground are not. The hijackers were always intended to die, they just didn't know it, except for the hidden one. I've assumed the other hijackers didn't know who she was, but that doesn't really allow for her having the gun, so it makes more sense that they thought she was secret backup, or that the leader alone knew she was there are arranged for her to have the gun.
They would want to get leverage over someone like Sam because they wouldn't want to allow him to somehow foil the hijacking or force events to move more quickly than planned (which did happen), because both the jailbreak and the market manipulation rely upon the plane being in the air for many hours. (They intend more than just crashing the plane — they're aiming to make this a huge debacle, implicating the government.)
They had this carefully planned — they were responsible for the traffic-jam, and planned the detour. The traffic and blaming it on the police completely made it seem like being at that gate to that road was entirely coincidental.
I still suspect the Foreign Secretary is involved.
A fair bit of the dumb stuff can be explained by the hijackers as chosen as expendable by the bosses. The whole thing is still very contrived and doesn't quite hang together, but I was quite surprised when the ending made a lot of the inconsistencies make more sense.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:33 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
They would want to get leverage over someone like Sam because they wouldn't want to allow him to somehow foil the hijacking or force events to move more quickly than planned (which did happen), because both the jailbreak and the market manipulation rely upon the plane being in the air for many hours. (They intend more than just crashing the plane — they're aiming to make this a huge debacle, implicating the government.)
They had this carefully planned — they were responsible for the traffic-jam, and planned the detour. The traffic and blaming it on the police completely made it seem like being at that gate to that road was entirely coincidental.
I still suspect the Foreign Secretary is involved.
A fair bit of the dumb stuff can be explained by the hijackers as chosen as expendable by the bosses. The whole thing is still very contrived and doesn't quite hang together, but I was quite surprised when the ending made a lot of the inconsistencies make more sense.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:33 AM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Oh yeah, I mean if there's a "some corrupt government toadie is using this to gain more power" plot that comes out of this at the end... Ugh, figure out what story you wanted to write, guys.
And I was annoyed that the pilot kept looking at the cockpit like it was going to grow a second head. G'won, git, regain control of the plane, your little work flirt hates you, you're all going to die from incompetence otherwise, may as well take control and try and ignore the gunshots behind you.
posted by Kyol at 11:39 AM on July 27, 2023
And I was annoyed that the pilot kept looking at the cockpit like it was going to grow a second head. G'won, git, regain control of the plane, your little work flirt hates you, you're all going to die from incompetence otherwise, may as well take control and try and ignore the gunshots behind you.
posted by Kyol at 11:39 AM on July 27, 2023
I'm still enjoying this show, but the on-plane stuff is way better than anything happening on the ground.
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:11 PM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:11 PM on July 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
(Pocketing my $20) Well I did think it was another guy, the one who just put the plastic bag over the hijackers head. My next guess is that since stealth hijacker took over the cockpit, the rest of the hijackers will realize they have been played and unite with the passengers to (somehow) retake the plane and surely someone onboard has taken flying lessons.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:28 PM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:28 PM on July 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
surely someone onboard has taken flying lessons.
Well the co-pilot is still alive….
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:18 PM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Well the co-pilot is still alive….
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:18 PM on July 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Plastic bag guy was identified by the ground team as a former criminal, and initially suspected as a possible hijacker by them.
posted by snofoam at 3:14 AM on July 28, 2023
posted by snofoam at 3:14 AM on July 28, 2023
> That's why the hijackers are incompetent
That's a delicate needle to thread - can't be too incompetent to not pull off the hijacking nor astute enough to catch there's something off with the sleeper's role.
> I've assumed the other hijackers didn't know who she was, but that doesn't really allow for her having the gun
She could have smuggled it in similar to how the others did, but independently.
posted by daksya at 3:21 AM on July 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
That's a delicate needle to thread - can't be too incompetent to not pull off the hijacking nor astute enough to catch there's something off with the sleeper's role.
> I've assumed the other hijackers didn't know who she was, but that doesn't really allow for her having the gun
She could have smuggled it in similar to how the others did, but independently.
posted by daksya at 3:21 AM on July 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Arrrgh. Somehow between the previous episode and this one, I lost half the plot. Yes, the co-pilot is still alive but I can’t believe no one’s offered her a napkin or a handkerchief to wipe the blood. They’ve managed to pass around a juice box for crying out loud.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 2:17 PM on July 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 2:17 PM on July 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
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Also, c'mon, baddies trading places under cover is a big enough of a cliche I'm sure TVTropes has a 100,000 word page on it.
I still don't get the point of the cleaners at Sam's apartment though. I mean "put pressure on Sam", sure, but to what extent? "Look, here's a picture of your kid with a gun to his head, you will stop fucking with us" I suppose.
And ok fine the head baddie was tracking the cop following him with the phone he gave him. So, leave that cop and his partner in a field somewhere and let the other two cars tail him? I mean, it was moot since they had a drone up surveilling them anyway, so the tail was only necessary to, uh. Stop them from stealing a Cornetto?
What does the guy who leaked the hijacking to the reporter get out of things? Or is he just another one of the OCG's pawns?
I hope next week is the end, it's starting to fall apart as the hijacking goes on. This _might_ have been better as a binge release, give the audience less time to see that the writer's room is kinda winging it.
posted by Kyol at 6:04 PM on July 26, 2023 [2 favorites]