“I just don’t want anything to damage this – you know, the three of us?” says Abigail Dalton, played by an earnest and wide-eyed Suranne Jones, to her husband Alex (Ashley Thomas) in the opening scene of Netflix’s political thriller, Hostage. The pair are running through the pros and cons of her throwing her hat in the ring to be party leader and, therefore, the next prime minister; Jones is already worried about the effect it might have on her partner and daughter. “If it ever comes down to a choice, you’ll make the right one,” responds Alex confidently – thereby guaranteeing, Chekhov’s gun-style, that Abigail will end up having to make a choice between her family and her job before the episode is out.
This is the overarching premise of the female-led series, which sees Jones star opposite Before Sunrise actor Julie Delpy as French president Vivienne Toussaint: does personal responsibility trump public duty? And, when it comes right down to it, how far are these women prepared to go to cling onto their hard-won power?
As the show’s title suggests, amid rumbling discontent sparked by a British shortage of critical cancer drugs and a high-profile trade visit from Toussaint and her French delegation, Abigail quickly gets pulled into a high-stakes hostage negotiation. Alex has been abducted in French Guiana while working for Médecins Sans Frontières, and the kidnappers’ only demand is that Abigail resign as PM in exchange for the safe return of her husband (oh, and his team – but they are very much presented as 2D, NPC-style characters here, serving as little more than collateral damage).
Vivienne is quickly drawn into proceedings when a past scandal of her own is dredged up to blackmail her into submission. Alongside all of this, Abigail must contend with an unruly cabinet, a combative chief of staff (Lucian Msamati) who’s threatening to quit, a renegade teenager (Isobel Akuwudike), and a critically ill father (James Cosmo) in hospital. Cue the twists and turns we’ve come to expect from a paint-by-numbers political thriller: moles and sleeper agents working for a shadowy organisation, conspiracies going right to the top, big-budget explosions, and top-secret meetings in underground bunkers.
I really, really wanted to love Hostage, a series headed up by two such formidable women. Jones is, as always, a safe if predictable pair of hands, but it is Delpy who steals the show when it comes to exuding inscrutable charm and ice queen froideur (she is French, after all). In 2025, it is refreshing, still, to see female characters calling the shots, barking the orders and making the big decisions (instead of being the ones taken hostage themselves, weepily imploring the men to “save them!” down a camera lens). And it is, if nothing else, enjoyable to watch our chic leads strutting around the halls of power in their beautifully tailored coats and trouser suits, looking every inch the heads of state as they exchange frosty smiles and handshakes for the camera, each trying to out-alpha the other.
The trouble is, beneath the series’ slick exterior lies a slightly wonky storyline – one that ranges from the shrug-worthy to the downright jump-the-shark. Without giving too much away, several plot points rely on a frankly shocking lack of security at No 10 (you’d think the major incident room might have a lock on the door, wouldn’t you?), while the motives driving the villains of the piece to murder innocent people and spark a national emergency seem spurious at best. It simply stretches credulity that these particular characters in this particular scenario would have been driven to such lengths; I kept waiting for the “aha” moment when I would finally get why all this was happening, and it never quite arrived.
But perhaps the greatest shame here is that Hostage fumbled the opportunity to grapple with the truly juicy and uncomfortable questions that should be steering the drama. Is Abigail so pure of heart that she’s actually fuelled by a sense of civic duty, or is she that most reviled of things – a woman ambitious enough that her love of power outstrips all else? What does it do to a marriage when one spouse is given irrefutable proof that they will always play second fiddle to the job? And can familial bonds honestly survive the crushing knowledge that, when push comes to shove, they are the ones who are dispensable?
“I have other priorities to consider,” Abigail responds when her father says that getting Alex back is the only thing that matters.
“Then I don’t know who you are,” is his frank reply. And therein lies the biggest problem with Hostage; I’m not sure we ever find out who our protagonist really is.
