‘Hijack’: What Christine Adams Thinks Sam & Marsha Said During Finale Call

All Marsha (Christine Adams) wanted to do in Hijack Season 2 was get a little time away alone to deal with her grief after her son was killed in a hit and run — which wasn’t actually an accident, as her ex-husband Sam (Idris Elba) realized. Instead, she was used against Sam to make him hijack a train.

The Season 2 finale, now streaming, revealed who was behind it all as well as saw Marsha take a final stand to save her own life against the people sent to kill her. Below, Christine Adams breaks down Marsha’s Season 2 survival story and relationships with Sam and Daniel (Max Beesley).

Talk about finding out about Marsha’s Season 2 arc. You’re off in your own story. Marsha’s in a cabin in the middle of the woods, fights for her life, and then she saves herself.

Christine Adams: Obviously, I knew there was going to be a Season 2. I didn’t know for sure if Marsha was going to return. And I also wasn’t quite sure how they would weave her character into a second season, bearing in mind that her and Sam have separated. But I think one of the things that works really well that kind of translates from Season 1 to Season 2 is the emotional connection that they’ve got. Whatever that looks like, whether there’s a distance between them or not, obviously they had this child together, and she’s sort of one of the only people that I think knows who Sam is truly and knows maybe his vulnerabilities and his weak spots and his blind spots. So I think that was always sort of an interesting dynamic between those two. And I think it also gave the audience an emotional grounding to the whole story because, obviously, when your stories are sort of very high stakes, you need a respite somewhere where you can get the audience grounded in something real and know a bit more about what the stakes are for Sam.

So going into Season 2, I thought it would be interesting to see how they sort of do it. And it kind of went above and beyond what I was imagining. I think they did it really, really well because suddenly you’ve got someone who’s always traditionally grounding the central character now kind of fighting her own battle, really, for her own survival. And I thought that was really, really interesting and probably not what the audience would’ve anticipated.

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How was filming the season, especially the finale for you? Because most of it’s you by yourself.

I know. It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? It’s like the ultimate game of make-believe in the sense of when you’re not bouncing off other characters or dialogue, then it really becomes about going inwards and tracking that emotional journey that she’s on. Obviously, she’s grieving the loss of her son, which is devastating. She also now knows that her life is in danger and potentially Sam’s life as well. She’s really having to go on this unbelievable journey of how to put that horrible grief to one side and fight for her survival. And so yeah, a lot of it is very much like — and Jim was very good at this —keeping you on track of where the character is at any given point in time. She’s absolutely terrified. She’s really, really cold. She thinks she’s still being watched. We’d have to talk it through like that every day. Where is she? Where is she going and what’s going on inside? And then figure out how to play that. It is quite challenging because all the conversations are internal in terms of what’s going on with the character, and then you just hope that that translates to the screen.

Then there’s also the location, which is gorgeous compared to the rest of the season’s setting, an underground train.

Yeah, it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s February in the U.K. So you’ve got your thermals piled on, and the backdrop is really stark. And that sense of isolation, I think you really get that from where she is, how small she seems in this kind of huge backdrop of the Scottish Highlands. And so that feeling of isolation and being alone, but maybe being observed in some way, I think it works really well in that setting, doesn’t it?

Yeah. At any point, did she think, “Maybe I’m not going to make it”?

I think always. I mean, I think that’s always the tension. Once you get into the sort of last few episodes of the show, once she realizes that she’s being followed and when she realizes that maybe the good guys aren’t the good guys, I think from the minute those thoughts start to happen, the minute she discovers the abandoned Range Rover, I think she’s constantly thinking, “Is this going to be the end of me?” And ultimately, “there’s nobody here to help me. There’s no way to communicate.” So it’s kind of like, “If the bad guys don’t get me, I’m up against the forces of nature.” So I think that it’s kind of always there, but I feel like in those situations, when you are that scared, and you’re fighting for survival, something else probably kicks in that drives you to keep going. So, that fear is probably not at the forefront. I think it’s more just survival.

Marsha is very adamant that she didn’t want Sam to let them use her against him. So, how does she feel about everything he did?

As someone who understands him better than anybody, I think while the sort of ordinary person might say, “Why would you do that?” I think Marsha’s smart enough to know that in those circumstances, you do what needs to be done. And she knows he’s a risk taker. She knows he’s someone that’s going to push the bounds. It’s that sort of irony of within the relationship that perhaps wasn’t the best thing for them, but in situations like this, what he’s really good at is convincing you that he’s got a strategy that might look one way, but is actually the other. That’s what he does really well in his professional life. So, I think she’s sort of intelligent enough to know that that’s what he needed to do.

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The season ends on their phone call, and we don’t hear what they talk about. How do you think that call goes?

I imagine it’s one of those phone calls — when you know somebody really, really well, or you’ve known someone for a really, really long time, there’s so many things you don’t have to say. I think that’s sort of just implicit in that relationship and in the understanding. And I think when all is said and done, they are still two people who’ve lost their son. So I think the conversation, it feels like in that moment would be quite minimal, but it also feels like it’s a conversation that they will continue to have once they really process what this whole crazy journey has been. It feels very much like that conversation is like, this is something for down the line, perhaps over a stiff drink.

Something that stands out to me is that it feels like these two are building to a place where they could be close again, but not in such a way that you’re ever thinking they could get back together, which I like. I like that there’s a relationship between exes where there’s no will they get back together, won’t they? It feels like it’s just, will they be able to reach a new understanding with one another? How do you think their relationship is going forward?

It’s hard to know because already they’ve been through so much, and I think if anything, that will probably bond them forever. Ultimately, he’s still Sam. And I imagine he’s not the sort of person that’s going to retire anytime soon, but I think there is a deep friendship, and I think there’s a deep respect, and there always was. That’s one of the things that I liked about the show is that it’s absolutely fine for people to have had a relationship and split up and be a bit messy and still kind of love each other. All those things can exist at the same time. And I really like that about their relationship. It felt a lot more accurate, rather than just the very obvious, she really hates him, or she feels sorry for him. I think it’s much more complex than that dynamic, but I think foundationally there’s just a massive respect for each other.

How is Marsha doing, though, when it comes to her grief? She’d wanted to get away to have time alone to deal with that, but she didn’t really have time for that.

Obviously, it’s the worst thing imaginable to lose a child, but I imagine that she compartmentalized that and decided on some level that she was going to bring it up to the bothy and not deal with it, but certainly express it in a way that she wanted to. I imagine someone like Marsha, who’s typically stoic and a really strong, thoughtful person, maybe sometimes a bit cerebral, that it was actually really hard for her to know what to do with all those feelings. I imagine for both of them that grief will be ongoing, and it will sort of define Marsha in a different way moving forward and also maybe allow her to not be as stoic and cerebral and thoughtful and maybe actually allow her to be a bit more vulnerable.

There’s also Marsha’s relationship with Daniel. What makes that work?

With Daniel, probably, what they have done really nicely in Season 1 and Season 2 is that he was quite a good counter to Sam’s character because I think in the way that Sam wasn’t necessarily emotionally available, Dan was. And I think at that time that’s what she was obviously really looking for, someone that could be there for her and was emotionally available and emotionally mature and ready for a mature relationship where they were present. So I think that’s what he brings to the table. He seems like he’s been very patient. It seems like Marsha was obviously very careful about how he became part of her life and her son’s life, and also quite respectful to Sam as well about how it all unfolded.

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But I think he’s someone that serves as a real opposite to Sam’s character. And at the same time, I feel like there are similarities between the two of them, otherwise, Marsha probably wouldn’t have gotten involved. I think there’s probably some shared values and things like that. But yeah, he definitely feels like he was a much more grounding presence for her and maybe felt a bit safer in terms of being a bit more predictable and just being there.

We really saw Marsha in the middle of the action in Season 2. If there’s a Season 3, what would you want to explore with her?

I guess probably what it’s like to rebuild. When something like that happens to a character that is that big and that seismic, so not only has she lost her son and then she’s sort of gone through this life-or-death scenario, both of them have really, I wonder if that will sort of lead her in a different direction in terms of her area of expertise, which is neuroscience. I wonder if that might lead her down a certain road that’s perhaps more connected with what Sam does. Maybe there’s a world in which they sort of team up and pool their skills to hook the bad guys.

Do you want to see her in the middle of the hijacking situation?

[Laughs] Just with a chart and a clipboard, just making notes. This guy seems sketchy.

Hijack, Seasons 1-2, Streaming now, Apple TV