Hostage: Who is Vivienne Toussaint? Details from the Netflix political thriller, explored

British political thriller mini-series Hostage premiered on Netflix on August 21, 2025, and has impressed both critics and viewers alike with its five tense and tight episodes. The official synopsis of the show, as mentioned by Rotten Tomatoes, reads,

“When the British prime minister's husband is kidnapped and the French president starts receiving threats, both leaders must face an impossible choice.”

With two extremely powerful leaders at each end of Hostage, the story keeps getting more twisted with each episode. Suranne Jones stars as Prime Minister Abigail Dalton alongside Julie Delpy as French President Vivienne Toussaint. When Dalton’s husband, Alex, is kidnapped, Toussaint becomes a crucial ally in the desperate fight to bring him to safety.

French President Vivienne Toussaint is blackmailed by kidnappers in Hostage

When Dalton’s husband Alex gets kidnapped while working in French Guiana in the very first episode of Hostage, she finds an unlikely ally in Vivienne Toussaint. While the two women are not exactly on the same page when it comes to their political careers, they work together here, and eventually it is revealed that Alex’s kidnappers are blackmailing Toussaint so that she does not help Dalton.

After Toussaint decides that she will be sending a rescue team for Alex, she gets a call, in which it is revealed that she had an affair with Matheo, her own stepson. This is an extremely scandalous secret, and if this gets out, Toussaint’s career and life would both be over.

Therefore, once she receives the threat, Toussaint ultimately decides to call off the mission to rescue Alex.

Dalton, on the other hand, receives a different kind of threat as Alex’s return is promised at the cost of her resignation. Unlike Alex and Dalton, Toussaint and her husband clearly have a fractured relationship, and yet it is ultimately because of Toussaint’s intelligence and her change of heart that the kidnappers get outwitted.

An extremely complex character, Vivienne Toussaint’s arc wraps up beautifully when she makes the ultimate sacrifice and ensures that no harm touches Matheo. Her death is one of the most brutal and yet poignant points of the show. Talking about the same, Matt Charman told Tudum,

“The death of Vivienne hangs over the show. It becomes a sort of guiding light, almost, for Abigail in terms of speaking truth to power, following through, making sure that, even when she seemingly has lost power, that doesn’t mean she gives up.”

With her death, Toussaint sealed her history in a light that would be bound to treat her with respect and admiration.

Hostage can be streamed on Netflix.

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