The episode begins with Joe Roag (Joe Col) reeling from the death of Daniel ‘Danny’ Geoghan (Daniel Cahill). This will only briefly sideline him before Abby Aysgarth (Alexandra Roach) brings his attention back around to sharing the contents of Rachel Li’s (Katie Leung) USB drive. Despite his very brief respite, Joe is hit even harder by the death when he receives a call from UCH Maternity, announcing the birth of Danny’s daughter. The commuters aren’t handling the death much better. Yasmin ‘Yas’ Brown (Sharon Rooney) practically gives up and announces that she’s resigning her post while Arran Moy (Alex Ferns) begins rifling through the other’s belongings in search of possible answers.

After learning that The Blue Blockade Group (BBG) has released a Manifesto, claiming responsibility for the hijacking, Abby pulls Nicola Miller (Pamela Nomvete) to the side to ask if the hijacking could be tied to Mashhad. Nicola’s response is that she doesn’t know but there are lots of people she needs to speak to. Abby’s focus will soon return to Joe, who has called to share the news about Danny’s baby. She realizes he’s in need of an introspective pep talk when he asks who she is and how she got to the point she is at in her life. She practically tells him what matters in life is that they try to help each other. This apparently does the trick and it’s a good thing because Zed Hylton (Jasmine Naziha Jones) has tracked the hack back to a group out of Johannesburg.

Joe’s return couldn’t have been more aptly timed, as several of the commuters appear to be on the verge of fighting. Their attention will soon be drawn to a gunshot that crashes through one of the train’s exterior windows. Abby is just as stunned as Joe when she learns about the incident, but she’s even more surprised to learn that she and Mark ‘Hud’ Hudson (Jonjo O”Neill) are behind. Things only continue to spiral out of control on the train when Joe realizes there is now a fire in the section of the train where the device is installed.

Joe works to extinguish the fire while Abby shares her discovery with a few select members of her team. As she hands out new assignments, Joe learns that Max ‘Mouse’ Ellis (Adam Mitchell) has been trapped by the fire. He will eventually rescue him while Saj Sidhu (Parth Thakerar) finds a line of code in hack, containing the word Mashhad. Cleary recognizing the meaning, he immediately takes the discovery to Nicola. At the same time, Paul ‘Pev’ Peveril (David Threlfall) discovers that the train is on fire.

Things are on the verge of ending very badly for Joe and Mouse when the commuters show up to provide a much-needed assist. Despite that, he’s nearly speechless when he learns that the gunshot was the police’s badly executed attempt to drain the gas tanks. Abby receives an equally shocking call from Megan ‘Meg’ Hooton (Remy Beasley) at Glasgow Central, with the message that the train is, ‘back on track.’ It is also at this time that Abby begins to notice Nicola and Saj’s strange behavior.

Joe is apparently feeling sentimental about the commuter’s rescue and proposes the suggestion that they all take a moment to get to know each other. After suspecting that the others aren’t too interested in playing along, he’ll briefly share his story of returning home to meet with his son. Surprisingly enough, Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Draycott (Sharon Small) is the next to share and as it turns out, her attendance on the sleeper was completely random and not by choice. Elsewhere, Abby will privately discuss her earlier suspicion with Tobi McKnight (Gabriel Howell) and Pev. As Abby suggests hacking Nicola’s terminal and sends her a phishing link, things take an unexpected turn on the sleeper train when Billy McCloud (Scott Reid) isn’t so enthusiastic about sharing. Joe will soon become sidetracked by a call from Abby but just shortly before that, Leon Parhill (Micah Balfour) shares his CCTV discovery with Abby. It would appear that there is another individual on the train.

Joe does not share the new discovery with the others but it doesn’t take them long to become suspicious when he asks for Billy’s keycard. At the same time, using keyword-based searches, Tobi has discovered something equally suspicious that he does share with Abby and Pev. It would appear that over the past several weeks Nicola has been in constant contact with Liz about Iran’s transportation hub city, Mashhad.

Joe begins assembling the rife he discovered earlier while Abby confronts Nicola. That confrontation is just beginning when all attention is drawn to the live CCTV of Joe’s search of the train. He will be joined by Billy right before they discover the hooded intruder. The man will attempt to run and it appears that Billy is about to intervene right before Joe shoots him. This is how the episode ends.

 

Nightsleeper Review

I do appreciate how each episode ends with a slightly resolved conclusion. Instead of being left on a total cliffhanger, viewers are given a bit of a handhold going into the following episode. I supposed this doesn’t matter since all the episodes were released at once, but I felt that was worth mentioning. As for the story, things are shaping up nicely. After several episodes, the series does appear to be growing on me but it is kind of hard to get behind it at times and there are very few likable characters. I’d give the episode a 5.1 out of 10.

Get more Nightsleeper recaps here. Join our newly established forum to see what others are saying. Support our site by donating. Learn about our advertising packages here.