HBO Max's The Flight Attendant wraps up its main storyline, but the series leaves unanswered questions that pave the way for another outing.
The murder mystery plotline that drives HBO Max's miniseries The Flight Attendant gets solved, but the series leaves enough unanswered questions to justify a second season. The Flight Attendant stars Kaley Cuoco (who also served as an executive producer) as Cassandra "Cassie" Bowden, a flight attendant who finds herself the prime suspect in a murder investigation. The dark comedy created by Steve Yockey follows Cassie as she tries to piece together the events of a drunken one night stand after she wakes up to find the man murdered. As Cassie works to clear her name, she's forced to reexamine her life choices and come to terms with her personal demons.
Cassie Bowden is a jet-setting party girl who travels the world as a flight attendant for the fictitious Imperial Atlantic. After spending the night with a passenger named Alex Sokolov (Michiel Huisman), Cassie wakes up in his hotel room only to discover her date's dead body beside her. Cassie panics and makes a series of decisions that make her look guilty. To clear her name, Cassie tries to piece together the events of that fateful night and learn more about Alex and why someone would want to kill him. Helping Cassie is Alex himself, who resides in Cassie's mind as both a memory and imagined confidante. The fact that Alex stole a ton of money from the wrong people is less interesting than Cassie's cloak-and-dagger antics as she stumbles through the events happening to her in a drunken haze.
The Flight Attendant ends with the bad guys being exposed, Cassie surviving her showdown with Buckley Ware, aka "Felix" (Colin Woodell), and Cassie being exonerated for Alex's murder. She also gains forgiveness from her brother for her role in making his childhood a living hell. She even finally lets herself off the hook for her father's death. However, nobody in The Flight Attendant is exactly who they seem (several familiar faces round out The Flight Attendant's cast), including Cassie's best friend and attorney Ani Mouradian (Zosia Mamet), co-workers Megan Briscoe (Rosie Perez), and Shane (Griffin Matthews), and assassin Miranda Croft (Michelle Gomez). Cassie solves the mystery of who killed Sokolov, but the show leaves viewers questioning some of its characters' fate, including its flawed heroine.
At the start of The Flight Attendant, a montage shows Cassie partying with her co-workers/friends worldwide, and every moment reveals that Cassie's idea of fun includes alcohol. Cassie can't even make it through a day without drinking, whether she's working or playing. Cassie tends to drink to such excess that she blacks out that gets her into trouble in the first place. Cassie's poor decision-making isn't just part of her DNA; it's also the result of her thought process being compromised by the seemingly endless amount of vodka she's consuming. In a show filled with assassins, shady corporations, money laundering, smuggling, secret agents, and Hitchcockian twists and turns, the most unbelievable aspect is how Cassie functions at all with so much booze running through her veins.
As The Flight Attendant progresses, viewers learn Cassie was introduced to alcohol at a very young age by her father. To stay a daddy's girl, Cassie needed to be his drinking buddy or risk the abuse suffered by her brother. Cassie's mom was in the picture but apparently unaware of what was going on with her daughter. Cassie's clouded judgment creates a gravitational field that pulls everyone she's close to into her drama. She's in denial throughout most of the series about her childhood, and she has severe PTSD due to the circumstances of her father's death, for which she blames herself. Cassie's drunkenness isn't used to garner laughs but set up a backstory that helps explain everything from her strained relationship with her brother to her career choice to the reasoning behind her impulsive behavior and ill-conceived schemes.
Of course, Cassie finally figures out that the only way to survive her current predicament and stop hurting those around her is to give up drinking. In the finale, the temptation is still there as she lingers a little too long over a drawer full of mini bottles of alcohol at work, and she admits to Ani that she's "trying" to quit, but it's hard. Still, she successfully makes the transition from self-involved to self-aware. However, Cassie has been a drinker her entire life, and throughout the show, it's her go-to way to cope with stress or avoid dealing with her emotions — she's an alcoholic, and quitting cold turkey will be very difficult. Cassie's last-minute sobriety provides a tidy ending for viewers, but it also feels like a problem that's been solved quickly with minimal effort. The true test of whether or not Cassie will stick to her new teetotaler lifestyle in the second season.
The Flight Attendant is filled with twists and turns, and one of the biggest is Cassie's friend, and co-worker Shane is a CIA agent. Cassie and Miranda's plans to take down Felix almost immediately goes awry, leaving Cassie to come up with a Plan B that involves her Italian friend with benefits Enrico and his grandfather's gun. Felix ambushes Cassie in her hotel room, and after he stabs Enrico, Cassie must face down Felix on her own until Shane swoops in and saves the day. He admits to Cassie that he's been working undercover investigating Megan this whole time.
When Cassie returns to work, Shane is still part of the crew, and Cassie questions why. Shane tells her that all she needs to know is that he works for Imperial Atlantic, and anything else he may have divulged was due to jet lag. With Megan on the run, why is Shane still undercover? Does he have other reasons to stick close to Cassie? Perhaps, he knows there's a chance Megan could reach out to her in the future. Is he already on another case? Is posing as a flight attendant just a good way to go undetected?
Cassie isn't the only Imperial Atlantic employee who winds up in hot water with the Feds. Cassie's co-worker Megan, played by Rosie Perez, sells government secrets to North Korea and manages to implicate her husband in the process. At first, it feels as if Megan's predicament will tie into Cassie's mess at some point, but it almost serves as an unnecessary distraction after a while. It's during the finale that Megan's story becomes more compelling. She's a woman who feels unseen and insignificant who often dismissed by others, including Cassie. There are similarities between Cassie's distorted view of herself and Megan's. Granted, industrial espionage is an over-the-top way to infuse meaning into one's life, but Megan's actions pave the way for a season 2 plotline.
After confessing her crimes to Cassie, Megan swears she's going to fix things. Apparently, this means leaving Rome heading for parts unknown, looking for the "right people" to help her. Is there more to her plan than disappearing? Megan's been in bed with North Korea, and the CIA knows all about her dirty deeds. It's inconceivable she has the means or skills to evade capture. After all, she allowed herself to be suckered into committing treason.
Miranda Croft is the primary antagonist for much of the series, but once she figures out Cassie is just a woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, they join forces. Miranda's motives are suspect since all she wants is Alex's book, which will lead her to $200 million. Surprisingly, even after she gets what she needs, Miranda decides to stick around to help guarantee Cassie's safety. It adds some depth to the character to learn that she's got a softer side even if she's a cold-blooded killer. Sadly, it appears that Felix bests her after a fight in an elevator ends with Miranda's seemingly lifeless body in a bathtub — but Cassie learns from Shane that Miranda escaped.
Miranda does leave Cassie a parting gift — Sokolov's copy of Crime and Punishment. Miranda takes the page that points to the money's location, but she understands Cassie's sentimental attachment to the book. Inside there's a note, and Miranda wrote she'll see Cassie soon. This would be an ominous message if it weren't for Miranda's affection for Cassie, but why would these two ever cross paths again? Ani delivers everything needed to expose Unisphere Asset Management and Lionfish, and aside from possibly settling the score with Cecilia (Briana Cuoco), Miranda is free to disappear. Is there a bigger bad than Victor (Ritchie Coster)? What about Alex's parents? Is there enough evidence to permanently dismantle these companies, and it's difficult to believe someone won't come looking for that money?
Despite Cassie's series of missteps, she plays an integral role in solving Alex Sokolov's murder and taking down two shady companies. Shane informs her she's caught the eye of the higher-ups at the CIA who think she could be a good fit for their "human asset" program. He doesn't offer any details other than Cassie will not get a gun. She's obviously flattered and intrigued by the possibility, and it's a way to set up her storyline for season 2. This opens the door for her to reunite with Megan and Croft and possibly Felix, who survived both of his gunshot wounds. The Flight Attendant season 2 may choose not to tie up season 1's loose ends in favor of involving Cassie in a new case.
