Much happened in the previous episode of Hostage. But what truly stood out in the fourth episode was Abigail and Vivienne discovering the name of the lead captor and the explosion at Downing Street. The blast resulted in one major casualty that we did not see coming at all!
Now, we've finally reached the end of the limited series. How will things wrap up for Abigail and all of the other characters? Continue reading along as we've provided a full recap of what all happens in the series finale.
Spoilers are ahead from Hostage episode 5!
Abigail was involved in a deadly military operation
The fifth episode opens with a flashback to many years ago, before Abigail became the British Prime Minister. However, she still held a good amount of power. During Sylvie's birthday party, Abigail receives a call from the military stating that there's a situation unfolding in Belize. The Guatemalan army invaded the country and took the capital.
The military informs Abigail that they require an immediate decision from her regarding the evacuation of their troops. However, the issue is that if she orders the troops to leave, the Belizean locals who supported them would be left behind and most likely executed. In the end, Abigail makes the difficult decision of ordering the military to depart Belize.
General Livingston is behind everything
Back in the present, Abigail reunites with Alex and Sylvie at a safehouse. Meanwhile, Shagan, Saskia, and their team prepare to leave the UK after carrying out the Downing Street explosion. However, their plans shift when Shagan receives a phone call from General Livingston. During the call, it’s revealed that General Livingston orchestrated the broader operation, but blowing up Downing Street was not part of his plan. That was Shagan’s own idea, and General Livingston is furious about it.
He informs Shagan that Abigail is still alive and that the explosion ended in the death of the French President instead. While struggling to process this information, Shagan tells the General that his mission isn't complete yet. However, the General doesn't care and wants him out of the country as soon as possible.
He tells Shagan that he never wanted Abigail killed, just out of the way. Now, with the French President dead, a nationwide manhunt has been launched. Before hanging up the call, the General tells Shagan that he's going to handle things himself going forward. Shagan then tells Saskia that their new mission is to track down Abigail.
Back at the safehouse, Abigail watches the news and learns that Dan has declared a state of emergency as interim Prime Minister and has partnered with the military to manage the civil unrest. This puts the General in command of the operation. This can't be good, seeing as though the General has already shown that he's ruthless and willing to manipulate events for his own agenda. Abigail then calls Ayesha and asks her to assemble their team.
Shagan was involved in the Belize military operation
While Abigail stays in London to get to the bottom of everything, Alex, Sylvie, and Matheo leave the city to stay somewhere else. At the safehouse, Abigail and her team look into Shagan. After looking at his picture, she realizes that he's the same guy she saw standing outside Downing Street before the bomb went off. Zadie then speaks up, mentioning that she saw footage of him posing as a police officer at the vigil.
Now, the question is what was Shagan's motive for bombing Downing Street? After digging deeper into his background, they uncover that he served in the military and was part of the troops deployed to Belize when the Guatemalan army invaded the country. After everything that happened there, Shagan ended up suffering from depression. With this information, it appears he might be angry at Abigail for the decision she made during the mission. This could be the reason why he's going after her.
Ayesha then suggests that Shagan may not have been acting alone. This leads the team to look into who commanded Shagan's deployment in Belize, and it’s revealed that the General was in charge. Abigail immediately calls one of the cabinet members and informs them that the General is behind everything. She also asks for their assistance in getting her inside the Ministry of Defence so that she can speak with him.
Elsewhere, Shagan and Saskia find the house where Alex, Sylvie, and Matheo are temporarily staying. Saskia is hesitant about the mission at first until Shagan convinces her.
General Livingston is arrested
Thanks to the help of a cabinet member, Abigail gets into the Ministry of Defence with no problem. She enters the building and wastes no time questioning the General about his connection to Shagan. The General acts like he has no idea who she's talking about. With all the commotion, Dan comes out of his office and Kofi brings him up to speed on everything. Fed up with being accused, the General orders Abigail to be removed from the building.
But Abigail immediately starts speaking to Dan, trying to get him to see that the General is a bad person. She explains to Dan that once the country is back in a good place, he's going to be so grateful to the General that he'll agree to increase the military budget by a lot. That's what the General really wants and why he's been committing such bad deeds.
Abigail and the General begin arguing, and the General gets so heated that he accidentally reveals that he knows about the bomb in the laptop. The media never mentioned this as the cause of the Downing Street explosion, so how would he know this? At this point, Abigail and everyone else in the room knows that he was involved in the explosion in some way. Dan then orders him to be taken away.
Later, Dan informs Abigail that she has been reinstated as Prime Minister. Abigail thanks him.
Shagan and Saskia hold Alex, Sylvie, and Matheo hostage
Shagan and Saskia find a way to get inside the house where Alex, Sylvie, and Matheo are staying. However, their mission is to kill Abigail. First, they take down the guards before approaching them. Saskia holds Matheo and Sylvie hostage in the kitchen, while Shagan sets his sights on Alex in another room. Shagan then has Alex call Abigail so that he can make her come to where they are.
However, Saskia has no idea that Matheo is secretly calling the police. When she does figure it out, it's already too late because an armed unit is on its way. She and Matheo get into a physical altercation that ends with Matheo telling her to go before the police arrive. When the altercation was happening, Sylvie broke free and grabbed Saskia's gun before running off.
Sylvie fatally shoots Shagan
Abigail finally arrives at the house and immediately heads to the room where Shagan is holding Alex hostage. During this scene, we find out the real reason why Shagan wants Abigail dead. It's basically what we mentioned earlier.
He didn't like how she handled things during the Belize military operation. His fiancée was a Belizean translator who was left behind to die after Abigail made the order for the British troops to depart the country. Losing his fiancée was already hard enough, but she was pregnant with their child too. He could never get over their deaths and basically made a vow to himself that one day he would make Abigail pay for what she’d done.
Just as Shagan is about to stab Abigail, he hears noise outside. He looks out the window to see that the police have arrived. He immediately accuses Abigail of calling them, not knowing that it was actually Matheo. Alex suddenly rushes him and they get into a fight. Sylvie hears all the commotion from outside the room. She then bursts through the door with her gun aimed at Shagan.
Abigail and Alex try to get Sylvie to put the gun down, but they're unable to convince her because Shagan keeps taunting her. The last straw for her is when he brings up her grandpa's death and how he ordered him to be killed. Sylvie then pulls the trigger and fatally shoots Shagan in the chest.
The police storm the room and yell for everyone to get on the ground before taking Sylvie away in handcuffs. The episode then flashes forward to three months later. It's election day, and after reassurance from her husband and daughter, Abigail decides to run for Prime Minister again. That's how the series finale comes to an end.
You can stream all five episodes of Hostage on Netflix right now.