What to watch: More turbulence afoot as ‘Hijack’ returns

Two streaming series – Apple’s “Hijack” and Hulu’s “A Thousand Blows” — return for a second season, but are they worth revisiting? We have thoughts.

Meanwhile a popular romance novel — “People We Meet on Vacation” — gets a solid Netflix adaptation while a gonzo vampire flick provides some grindhouse fun in theaters.

Here’s our roundup.

“Hijack Season 2”: A few thoughts spring to mind after watching eight episodes of Season 2 of Apple’s hit series. 1. Idris Elba elevates everything he is in. 2. creators George Kay and Jim Field Smith have cooked up another winning recipe here, but they should seriously consider tossing in some new ingredients next time. And 3. If there’s a Season 3 in “Hijack’s” future, perhaps they can stick Sam on a cruise ship to help wash away the nasty aftertaste from 1997’s awful “Speed 2: Cruise Control.” But I digress.

Like its predecessor, “Hijack” is a fun escapist thrill-ride, though it does go off the rails and sticks too closely to the same playbook as Season 1 — trading air passengers for Berlin train commuters. It does throw a sad curve ball at Nelson, the dapper and assured negotiator and lawyer, and his ex-wife Marsha Smith-Nelson (Christine Adams). At the start, they are both mourning the loss of their son Kai — featured in the first season. That death (not shown, but discussed) looms over the proceedings as Sam boards a commuter train loaded with the prerequisite good and extra-shady passengers a la an old-school Irwin Allen disaster flick. The big shock is that Sam and nervous driver Otto (Christian Näthe) are the ones who have taken the train hostage. Has Sam leapt to the dark side? The gotcha setup sustains a solid level of suspense that carries through the series’ eight episodes (though it could easily have been trimmed to six). The negotiation chatter between Sam and train authorities is tightly intercut with Marsha confronting danger in a cabin in the woods, a rather cliched side story that doesn’t add much. Season 2 brings back key memorable players including Max Beesley as Marsha’s DI boyfriend and Archie Panjabi, not given much to do, as a counterterrorism expert. But even with a handful of others resurfacing and a sly turn from Toby Jones as an official with intel, it is Elba, also an executive producer, whose magnetic star power keeps this train on its tracks. Details: 2½ stars out of 4; first episode drops Jan. 14 with one episode released weekly until March 4.

“A Thousand Blows Season 2”: One of Hulu’s best, most underrated series returns and it retains all the swagger and saltiness of its first season. It also  tests the scrappy survival instincts of its larger-than-life rogue’s gallery of brawlers, stealers, immigrants and schemers who rely on their street smarts and fists to get ahead on the gritty 1880s East End of London. Created by Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders,” “House of Guinness”), this six-parter is as lean and sinewy and strong as its lead actor Malachi Kirby. He’s a force you can’t take your eyes off as Hezekiah Moscow, a Jamaican fighter and dreamer now grieving the loss of his friend Alec Munroe from Season 1. He is given an offer he simply can’t refuse, to train Prince Albert (Stanley Morgan) for his first fight. Before that, though, he continues to be tugged back and forth by all-consuming emotions to strike out in the name of his friend while, at the same, again gets drawn into the treacherous web of the Forty Elephants, a female gang spearheaded by the vehement and cunning Mary Carr (Erin Doherty, having the time of her life). That rowdy group is out to swindle and hoodwink rich guys. Carr and Hezekiah’s paths cross again and they’re again attracted to each other while drunken brute and fighter Sugar Goodson (Stephen Graham, bristling with volcanic volatility) continues his bout with the bottle that is destroying everything around him. There are numerous other bold characters getting tangled up in new ploys aimed at giving them a step up in a world that wants to keep them tamped down. The violent series once again is breathlessly plotted, and the production details all but make you smell the stench of the mangy streets. The cast, meanwhile, seems as if it has been lifted from the squalor of another era. As he has accomplished before, Knight lines these rugged edges with surprising emotion in a historical deep dive that’s based on somewhat real events. At the end, it leaves us with a hope that “A Thousand Blows” will get renewed for more seasons by Hulu. Details: 3½ stars; all episodes now available on Hulu and Disney+.

“People We Meet on Vacation”: Novelist Emily Henry has emerged as our contemporary romance novelist of the moment. After watching this sweetheart of a Netflix rom-com, it’s easy to understand why so many readers are smitten by her prose. In “Vacation,” her lovers-to-be are likeable and funny and, best of all, flawed. They’re also “just friends” who, after randomly meeting cute for a college road trip back home, go on to take vacations together through years even though they are polar opposites. Poppy’s a restless and spontaneous travel writer who has never felt at home wherever she’s roamed. Alex adheres to a routine and is an English teacher. Over the course of their travels together, they meet each other’s lovers — given real personalities as well — but their connection to each other grows and, of course, splinters. Director Brett Haley keeps this buoyant and plays up the travel hotspots they visit while the screenplay shifts forward and back in time, as did the book. He realizes all that’s window dressing and what makes this work is the chemistry of his two leads — Emily Bader (“My Lady Jane”) as Poppy and Tom Blyth (“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes:) as Alex. Both are adorable and have the charisma that could light up a room, separately and together. Best of all, you really want to see these two together. A strong supporting cast — Lukas Gage, Molly Shannon, Sarah Catherine Hook, Jameela Jamil and Lucien Laviscount – ups the entertainment value. Since rom-coms have been a bit blah of late, this one will satisfy that itch even if it’s no gamechanger. Details: 3 stars; now on Netflix.

“Twinless”: James Sweeney’s sexy jawdropper continues to anyone who sees it and was one of 2025’s best films and included an awards-worthy performance from Dylan O’Brien as a grieving twin who meets up with another man (Sweeney) in a support group. The film blows your mind from there as it twists and turns and gives us a shattering, all-too-real portrait of grief and loneliness, and how both can make us do some terrible things. Details: 4 stars; arrives Jan. 16 on Hulu.

“Night Patrol”: It’s tough to release a horror film about a batch of nasty vampires preying on Black people in the wake of Ryan Coogler’s ambitious genre-smasher “Sinners” while it’s gaining more Oscar steam. But don’t let any of that hinder you from seeing director/co-screenwriter Ryan Prows’ nutso horror movie, which also tosses some decidedly less effective social commentary onto the barbie. Unlike Coogler’s masterpiece, the name of the game here is unhinged grindhouse craziness and does Prows deliver on that as his film enthusastically embraces genre filmmaking  –  jumping from horror to exploitation to buddy cop story to..well, everything else, except romance. In it two LAPD cops, Xavier Carr (Jermaine Flower) and Ethan Hayworth (Justin Long), get sucked into a turf battle between the Bloods and the Crips and a legacy night patrol by corrupt cops with bicuspids. Dermot Mulroney gets an opportunity to sink his teeth into a small but wild role while Long continues to show why he’s a Scream King. Flower makes us actually care about his newbie cop character whose Crips brother (RJ Cyler) lives with their rattlesnake of a mom (Nicki Micheaux, hilariously going for broke) who’ll protect her own turf in any way she can. As what happens with the best grindhouse movies, “Night Patrol” spares no one, gets a bit messy and is devoutly uninterested in playing it safe as it hits us with one surprise after another. It always operates without a safety net and I had a blast watching it. Details: 3 stars; opens Jan. 16 in theaters.

“Bone Lake”: It didn’t do much at the box office when it came out in October, but director Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s kinky horror feature deserved better. It hits Netflix this week and should fire up both interest and libidoes as two couples –the stuck in a sex rut Sage (Maddie Hasson) and Diego (Marco Pigossi) and two hotties, preppy-looking hunk Will (Alex Roe) and the very flirty Cin (Andrea Nechita). A mixup at an isolated sprawler of a rental home on a lake brings them together as enticements and desires, some deadly, grow. “Bone Lake” goes bonkers at the end, but it’s still enjoyable and certain to be a conversation starter on Netflix. Details: 3 stars; Available on Netflix.

Contact Randy Myers at [email protected].