The Flight Attendant season 2 review

If The Flight Attendant dropped on HBO Max in 2020, it was Kaley Cuoco’s first major project since Big Bang TheoryA year earlier, she had been taken off-air. With the role of Cassie, she earned her first Emmy nomination 20 years into her career and reached new heights of creative involvement — she’s involved in all aspects of the show, from optioning to producing to fronting the show in a lead role that allows her to meld her comedic chops with a more dramatic edge.

“Was I able to reinvent myself overnight, and they’ve totally forgotten about everything else?” she told Variety. “If they’re willing to see me like that, I’m just laughing in the corner.”

This underestimation perhaps worked in Cuoco’s favor, with few really expecting her move from lowbrow sitcom girl to the heroine of a drama-comedy-thriller series. It mirrored her character’s journey, and she knocked it out of the park. Now, The Flight Attendant is back, and season 2 is pushing Cassie’s story even further.

The Flight Attendant Season 2: Who are the real people behind it?

Based on Chris Bohjalian’s 2018 novel, The Flight Attendant was optioned by Cuoco’s own production company, Yes, Norman Productions, in 2017 prior to the book’s publication.

“One night, I was swiping through upcoming books on Amazon and saw The Flight Attendant,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “I read one sentence called my attorney: ‘Have you heard of this book? And, if you have, did Reese Witherspoon get the rights?’”

Photo: Julia Terjung/HBO Max

Producer Greg Berlanti (Riverdale and Amazing Adventures of SabrinaAlong with Susanna Fogel, he came aboard in 2019 to help him complete his various projects.My Spy who Dumped Me, BooksmartThe pilot was directed by ),

Originally conceived as a limited series, the runaway success of the first season — which premiered Thanksgiving weekend 2020 and sustained many of us through the first bleak pandemic winter — led producers to explore a possible second season. Season 2 was swiftly ordered following the season’s finale. It departs slightly from the source material which the first series adhered very closely to.

Steve Yockey joins the first season as showrunner (Supernatural and AwkwardNatalie Chaidez (Terminator: The Sarah Connor ChroniclesThe showrunner Queen of SouthAfter the exits of Meredith Lavender (season 1) and Marcie Ulin (season 1). “They had only signed on for a year, not realizing exactly how insane it was going to get with COVID and the pandemic pause in production, as they like to call it at the studio,” Yockey told The Hollywood Reporter’s TV’s Top Five podcast.

What’s it about?

Photo by Jennifer Rose Clasen/HBO Max

The first season kicks off with a bang: Cassie wakes up in a Bangkok hotel next to the dead body of Alex (Michiel Huisman), a guy she’d partied with the night before. Not remembering what happened and what role she might have played in his death, she cleans up the crime scene and hops on a plane out of there and back to work — before getting embroiled in an international spy caper.

At the start of season 2, she’s a year sober, has a loving photographer boyfriend Marco (Star Trek Picard’Santiago Cabrera), Santiago’s supportive sponsor Brenda (Shohreh Aghdashloo The ExpanseHer brother Davey, (T.R. Knight) and friends Annie (Zosia Mamet) and Max (Deniz Akdeniz) come to visit her in the Golden State … all while she’s also moonlighting as a CIA informant (because of course she is).

Though she seems happy and settled to those around her, espionage work isn’t done putting her through the wringer. She is being impersonated by someone, while her ex-flight attendant friend Megan (Rosie Perez), is currently on the run. Plus Sharon Stone is there as Cassie’s caustic, estranged mother. This is so much fun.

What’s it really about?

The Alex storyline is over and Cassie has gotten sober. It was going to be fascinating to see how the mind Palace, which was a key plot element, was incorporated into season 2.

I’m happy to say the plot device manages to reach new heights, using different versions of Cassie throughout her life — traumatized teen Cassie; season 1 Cassie in her gold dress from that life-changing night in Bangkok; rock-bottom Cassie; living-her-best-life Cassie, etc. — in place of Alex, who acted as a guide for a real and clueless Cassie. Now that she’s a bit more sure of herself and her spy side hustle (at least outwardly), she takes steps towards realizing that it was in her all along.

Photo: Julia Terjung/HBO Max

These doppelgängers seem to function as a form of therapy for Cassie, while also reflecting the Actual doppelgängers Cassie is faced with in the real world. This is the Orphan black It all leads to Cassie having an identity crisis. She’s always been good at masquerading a life other people think is glamorous — after all, what got Megan into trouble in the first place was wanting to be more like Cassie. Cassie thought she could escape it all by moving to a new city where everyone looks shiny and happy on the outside, but there’s a dark underbelly lurking beneath. As the season often reminds us, things aren’t always as they seem on the surface.

Are you satisfied?

It’s really fun to watch Cassie get her international woman of mystery on as she flits between Los Angeles, Berlin, and Reykjavík trying to figure out who’s impersonating her and to what end. The fashions, too, are on point, melding LA cool while still finding use for Cassie’s impeccable coats from season 1.

But what this season excels at is Cuoco’s character work as Cassie — not only as all the alternate versions of her in the mind palace, but also as the real-world version of her, who’s working through her trauma, addiction, and self-sabotaging tendencies.

Season 1 spent plenty of time focusing on Cassie’s destructive, alcoholic father and how her upbringing influenced her actions. With the introduction of Cassie’s mom this season, who appears to be doing just fine without Cassie in her life, Cassie gets another glimpse into how her life could play out: nothing fancy, but having reached a level of contentment by eliminating toxic people (like her daughter) from her life.

Photo by Jennifer Rose Clasen/HBO Max

Photo by Jennifer Rose Clasen/HBO Max

Cassie’s journey is intercontinental, yes, but it’s also one of self-discovery and healing. She does some truly reprehensible things (not quite as bad as season 1, but it’s Cassie, so take that with a grain of salt); however, Cuoco plays her so empathetically that it’s hard not to sympathize with her as she tries to get her shit together. The actor’s two-plus decades of experience in the industry are on display here, as she effortlessly flits between the drama of burning her personal life down and the more traditional comedy elements when the reality of just how wild her life has become hits her. The multiple versions of Cassie in the mind palace grant the character more dimension than we might’ve otherwise seen, but no matter where you pause an episode, you’re likely to see Cuoco’s expressive face perfectly hamming it up.

What should I do if The Flight Attendant is not eating?

Is it worthwhile to keep up with every show, considering how season 1 turned into a huge success? Flight AttendantHow can you change from one week to the next?

HBO Max is a bit split on the binge or follow idea. The network dropped twice as many episodes in the first two weeks of its pilot to grab viewers’ attention, before transitioning to weekly episodes and launching a second season. I’m a fan of the binge, having consumed the first season over Christmas after everyone else was talking about it, and binged all of the episodes made available for review (which crucially didn’t include the last two). I guess I’ll be forced to see how the follow model works out for me and, indeed, The Flight AttendantWhen the last two episodes season 2’s second season drop, they will do so on May 19th and 26th respectively.

So far it appears to be a frothy mystery that the viewer doesn’t ever really have to think too hard about. Megan, Max and Annie are back to what drew them to this series. New characters, with an honourable mention to Alanna Ubach who is experiencing something of a revival right now, shake up the show. The Flight Attendant Season 2 is a great weekend binge-watching option. That way you won’t have to wait as long for the answers to Cassie’s mystery.

The Flight Attendant season 2, where can I see it?

The Flight AttendantOn April 21, season 2 of HBO Max premieres. New episodes drop every Thursday.