A year out from the first season finale of “The Flight Attendant,” Cassie Bowden is newly sober, settled down in Los Angeles and on the payroll of the CIA. And for just a brief second, it seems like this all could be working.
But the joy of the show, returning to HBO Max Thursday, is watching Cassie, played by Kaley Cuoco, spiral.
“A big conversation that we had right off the bat was ‘well, she isn’t drunk anymore, so we don’t get to have the same fun,’” showrunner Steve Yockey told the Daily News. “But we do, because the alcohol was just masking the underlying issues. She’s still addicted to thrills, she’s still over-invested in other people’s business, she still has all these flaws.”
“Over-invested” is a generous description for the flight attendant who found herself in the middle of international espionage last season because she couldn’t stand down. This year, she’s more willingly heading into the unknown at the direction of her handler, Benjamin Berry (Mo McRae) and his boss Dot (Cheryl Hines). Almost getting killed repeatedly hasn’t stopped Cassie; it only egged her on.
From the outside, it’s obvious that it’s only a matter of time before Cassie’s world falls apart again. She either knows that and doesn’t care or is too headstrong to see it. But her friends aren’t helping either.
“Annie and Max, Annie probably more so than Max, but Max by proxy, are dealing with some very real-life issues and I think Cassie’s insanity is an easier thing to put their attention toward as opposed to their relationship woes,” Zosia Mamet, who plays Cassie’s best friend Annie, told The News.
“Barring things like being beaten up and tied up, they both really enjoy it. These are both individuals that have come from lives of crime, essentially, and they’re good at it. I think they like that. I think they’re sort of not mad at the circumstances.”
“The Flight Attendant’s” world gets bigger in its second season, not just in terms of Cassie’s world travels but in her growing circle of friends and enemies. Alongside her brother (T.R. Knight) comes her estranged mom, played by Sharon Stone. A new flight attendant (Mae Martin) only raises more questions. Benjamin tries to leash her, only to realize that she can’t be tamed. But suddenly Cassie is fighting multiples of herself: life-of-the-party Cassie, depressed and cynical Cassie, annoyingly perfect Cassie. As the chaos grows, the voices get louder.
“Part of Cassie’s appeal is that she is a person who crosses boundaries. She is a woman that is over-involved in people’s business, that makes mistakes, that makes impulsive decisions, that sleeps with the wrong person,” showrunner Natalie Chaidez told The News.
“I think that endears us to her as a female character; we see a woman who is stumbling and doing her best. We see ourselves in her and block the screen and cringe when she makes those mistakes and we love her for that. We’re rooting for her.”
At the same time, “The Flight Attendant” takes great care to balance Cassie’s spy world with quieter moments and relationships. She argues with her mom and her boyfriend. Annie applies for jobs. Megan (Rosie Perez), on the run from the North Koreans, fights to find her way back to her family.
“We need those real moments,” Perez told The News. “All the real moments are about connections, are about relationships, either with other people or with yourself.”
Cassie wants to believe she can manage it all: her personal life, her sobriety, her CIA work. But she can’t keep it all straight. She sees shadows in the darkness and spies at the baggage carousel.
“She’s essentially playing the Jimmy Stewart role in any Hitchcock film. She’s getting involved in other people’s business, going too far and doesn’t have boundaries in the way that normal people do. The only thing that’s different about it is she happens to be a woman, which I think is long overdue,” Yockey told The News.
“But it’s a lot of fun to have all of these female characters ... playing what would typically be male tropes on a different show and then have the men sort of playing the sidekick female roles. It’s nice to upend that.”
———
