Abhiroop Das
Created by Matt Charrman, Netflix’s ‘Hostage‘ tells the story of two world leaders, the British Prime Minister Abigail Dalton, and the French President Vivienne Toussaint. What starts out as an international summit between the two soon takes an alarmingly dark turn when Abigail’s husband is abducted. Not long after, Vivienne receives a video, which serves as blackmail, further complicating the situation. Civil unrest and interpersonal complications bring the miniseries together, and both characters are forced to make one troubling decision after another. This elaborate game of chess has no victors in sight, and the true mastermind hides in the shadows, waiting for the protagonist to make a mistake that could cost her everything she treasures. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Hostage Plot Recap
The story begins with Abigail Dalton being sworn in as the prime minister of the United Kingdom, before quickly jumping to the present, eight months into her tenure. The country has fallen into a healthcare crisis, with tensions also mounting at the borders due to a refugee crisis. Abigail makes use of a summit meeting with the French President, Vivienne Toussaint, to make note of the number of stranded refugees in France. Her initial deal of taking in refugees in return for medical supplies is rejected, and Vivienne instead makes the bold suggestion of putting the French military to guard the British borders. Before Abigail can respond to this, she is hit with devastating news. Her husband, Alex Anderson, who is a doctor, has been abducted along with four others in French Guiana.
The abductors send a video through the phone of Abigail’s daughter, Sylvie, demanding Abigail’s resignation. Alarmed, the protagonist seeks Vivienne’s help, and the latter agrees to send in her military forces once the captors are identified. However, just when they are ready to attack, Vivienne is sent a video recording of her being intimate with her step-son, Matheo. The abductors use the video as a threat to keep her out of the operation, and she relents, much to Abigail’s confusion. Realizing that she is out of options, she makes the entire turn of events public information. The French military carries out a rescue mission, and while Alex is extracted alive, many of his teammates die in the process. Meanwhile, Abigail’s adviser, Kofi, finds the mole in the system, who is none other than Vivienne’s assistant, Adrienne Pelletier.
However, it appears that she is not the only person working behind the screens, as Matheo’s girlfriend, Saskia, is also revealed to be an operative. The de facto leader of the abductors makes his way to the United Kingdom and creates havoc in the public sphere, with mob revolts taking place all over the country against Abigail’s administration. This results in a vote of no-confidence, bringing her down, and Dan Ogilvy stepping in as the Interim Prime Minister. When Matheo discovers Saskia’s laptop containing many details of her operation, he brings it to Abigail and Vivienne. However, there turns out to be a bomb inside the device, which explodes, taking the life of Vivienne. With the true gravity of the situation coming to light, the protagonist and her team get to work, ready to smoke out the perpetrator.
Hostage Ending: Who is Behind the Abduction?
In episode 5 of ‘Hostage,’ the person who has been pulling the strings all along is revealed to be none other than General Livingston, the chief of the defence staff. His involvement comes to light when some of the abductors are identified as members of the Highland Guards regiment of the British army. The regiment, along with several other constituents of the army, was retired as part of Abigail’s budget cuts policy as prime minister. While we learn early on in the story that she did it to redirect funds to the healthcare crisis, Livingston interprets her actions as a national security threat. Infuriated, he kicks off an elaborate plan to create civil unrest in the nation. He hoped to use the chaos to make a case for the reinforcement of the military’s strength, and then use the added funding to safeguard the armed forces’ future.
Livingston’s ideas are rooted in a twisted love for his nation, and he believes that they must always be prepared for war. To bring his plan to life, Livingston assembled a team of military operatives who had a personal grudge with the government, hoping to harness their rage to further his cause. The topmost figures in his team, Shagan and Saskia, both served under him during the Belize crisis of 2017, and Livingston manipulated them to commit one act of terror after another, given their shared goal of removing Abigail from power. In the present, things go out of his hands as Shagan decides to move independently. Nonetheless, the chief of the defence staff tastes victory for a brief moment with the reinstatement of the Dan Ogilvy as the Interim Prime Minister, and wastes no time in exercising his power through police brutality.
When the truth about his crimes comes out, Livingston at first carefully tries to avoid the subject by painting Abigail’s words as a desperate attempt to regain her power. However, when the protagonist probes further, he becomes aggressive and reactive, criticising her for seemingly not making the right decisions and disabling the military. Realizing that she has found his weakness, Abigail presses further, accusing him of blowing up her residence at Downing Street. Overcome by his emotions, Livingston commits a blunder and accidentally blurts out his knowledge that caused the laptop, causing an explosion. Since this information is not supposed to be known by anyone outside of Abigail’s immediate circle, the chief’s cover is blown. Dan Ogilvy immediately gets him into custody, and in an ironic turn of events, it is Livingston’s very own military that escorts him out of the room.
Why Did Shagan Become a Terrorist? How Does He Die?
While Shagan operates as a member of Livingston’s team, he has his own motivations at play, and this results in frequent clashes between the two. As the leader of the group that kidnaps the doctors, he is the primary needle mover for most of the season, and when the team of captors is neutralized, he decides to take on the mantle of destroying Abigail’s prime ministership himself. Following his arrival in Britain, Shagan takes part in a number of schemes, cleverly blending into the crowd and inciting violence among the mobs. His plans reach a peak with the bomb explosion at Downing Street, but it is also there that his downfall begins, as he is identified as a former soldier who was deployed in Belize and was later medically downgraded due to a decline in his mental health. Hearing this, all pieces of the puzzle fall into place for Abigail, as she realizes that he is exacting revenge for her actions in the past.
We learn in a flashback sequence that in 2017, when Abigail was still the junior minister at the Foreign Office, a Guatemalan invasion of Belize threatened the lives of all the British troops stationed there. In that moment, she made a critical decision, calling for a mass evacuation of all soldiers, at the cost of leaving many locals who supported them behind. In the present, Shagan reveals that his wife was one of the Belizean locals and helped the army as a translator. Shortly after he was forced to leave the country, she was arrested, labelled a traitor, and killed. We also learn that she was pregnant at the time, which made the situation all the more heartbreaking for Shagan. Refusing to give up on his revenge, he locates the safe facility where Matheo, Alex, and Sylvie are hiding and infiltrates it with Saskia.
Shagan’s Vendetta Against Abigail Brings Harm to Her Family
With Abigail’s family right under his thumb once again, Shagan rings her up and asks her to come to the hiding point alone. His intentions are the same as they have been since day one: to settle the score with his death. Once face-to-face, the protagonist tries to apologize for her actions in the Belize crisis, but instead, Shagan confronts her for playing God with humans, all the while comfortably sitting far away from the conflict. When it becomes clear that he will not rest without killing her, Alex gets into action and tackles him to the ground. Shagan gets the better of him in no time, but before he can react any further, Sylvie enters the scene with a gun in her hand. In an intense sequence, Abigail and Alex desperately plead with their daughter to drop the gun, but in the face of death, Shagan finds one last way to traumatize the entire family.
With Sylvie’s gun pointed towards him, Shagan begins to poison her ears with the correct way of gunning him down. When that doesn’t seem enough, he delivers the final blow, revealing to her that he was behind her grandfather’s death. This fills the teen with rage, and she pulls the trigger, ending Shagan’s life. While it appears to be counterintuitive for him to encourage his own demise, there is a deeper meaning underlying it. In making a killer out of Sylvie, he delivers the ultimate blow to Abigail, ensuring that her child’s psyche is altered for life. There is also a cyclicality to his actions, as his primary motivation for revenge has consistently been the death of his unborn daughter. As such, the antagonist’s decision to die at Sylvie’s hand can be interpreted as an ironic attempt to get even with the protagonist. However, the ending shows Sylvie handling the trauma well, suggesting that his final act may have been foiled as well.
Why Doesn’t Saskia Kill Matheo? What Happens to Her?
While Shagan deals with Abigail and her family, Saskia has her own dilemmas to face, and they appear in the form of her former lover, Matheo. Tasked with holding him at gunpoint, she initially falters at her job, only to realize too late that he has been calling the police in secret. Following this, a scuffle ensues between the two, and while she easily gains the upper hand, she realizes that Matheo is not fighting back. It becomes clear that he is still in love with her, and this becomes her breaking point. She lets go of him before allowing him to call the police and alert them about the situation. Reciprocating her act, Matheo lets her escape as well, and the two bid their goodbyes. While her status is not brought up in the narrative following this scene, the lack of any confirmation lends some credence to the possibility that Saskia successfully ran away.
Saskia’s decision not to kill Matheo is likely influenced by two factors. It is implied that over the course of spying on him, Saskia fell in love as well, and that makes it difficult for her to be the one to take his life. During their fight, she brings up how he would reject her if he knew the true mess of her reality, and his saying no to that appears to be the tipping point. This suggests that beneath all her acts of terror, Saskia merely wants to be seen and loved despite all of the blemishes in her life. This sentiment also directly goes against the nature of her mission, and at every point, we see her struggling to weigh her priorities. This affects her decision-making, both in instances such as missing the shot on Adrienne Pelletier and in questioning her actions as Shagan’s teammate. All of her internal anxieties culminate in her releasing Matheo, who is innocent in this whole fiasco.
Does Abigail Become Prime Minister Again?
With the revelation of Livingston working behind the scenes, the Interim Prime Minister, Dan Ogilvy, has a change of heart. He reaches out to Abigail, informing her that the no-confidence motion has been declared void as it was made without the full scope of information at hand. This effectively makes her the prime minister once again, and she immediately steps up to the role, working on her promise to resolve the country’s healthcare crisis. Prior to Vivienne’s death, Abigail made a deal for the supply of important medication from France to Britain, and it is likely that this decision ultimately makes a positive impact on public health, while also cleaning up the protagonist’s image in light of the recent string of controversies.
However, this is not where Abigail’s story ends. Three months after the hostage situation, she makes a public appearance calling for a general election. While this means the end of her present term as the prime minister, which is barely in its second year, it is also an act of courage. Channeling Vivienne’s spirit, the protagonist quotes the former French President’s words on taking control of her life, and promises to make truth and fairness the center of her next campaign. The difficulties she faces as both a public servant and as a human being ultimately become a learning experience, transforming her into an emblem of justice. Abigail promises to put these lessons to use and create a government more transparent than ever. As such, while the results of this next election are not disclosed, it is likely that she has regained the trust and admiration of the public and is likely to return to her role as the prime minister.
Read More: Where Was Netflix’s Hostage Filmed?
