‘The Flight Attendant’ Season 2 Derails Into More Darkly Hilarious Dysfunction 

Alci Rengifo

We love characters like Cassie Bowden because they embody the flaws we hate to admit, putting them out in the open through the catharsis of fiction. She returns in the second season of HBO Max’s “The Flight Attendant” trapped in a new caper. The series was originally based on a novel by Chris Bohjalian, so this is another gamble by the studio in continuing an adaptation beyond the original source material. Yet there’s something comforting in seeing Kaley Cuoco return with dysfunctional zest, walking into self-made traps. Some commentators have constantly used the word “stressful” to describe this series. It does indeed encapsulate so well the pressure of trying to get your life together. But not even working for the CIA can alleviate her boredom. This is when the show cheerfully messes with genres. It opens this time around as a spy thriller, while channeling just how restless we can become with life is meandering.

Cassie is now living in Los Angeles and seems to be living a more pleasant existence. She’s dating Marco (Santiago Cabrera) and has been sober for a year. Cassie regularly attends AA meetings where she gives updates on her progress. On the side, she’s now a CIA asset, doing the espionage equivalent of the gig economy. She’s given the task of simply tracking the moves of a courier in Berlin. Although she’s been instructed to keep a distance, Cassie gets quite voyeuristic and spies on the mark in his hotel room. To her shock, he starts having sex with a blonde woman who looks suspiciously a lot like Cassie, down to having the same tattoo on her back. When Cassie decides to follow this apparent twin, the result is a car bomb explosion that apparently kills the suspect and leaves Cassie with tinnitus. It also triggers a new downward spiral for the flight attendant. 

As odd and morbid as the plotting sounds, “The Flight Attendant” is driven by pure comedic edge. We root for Cassie even as we shake our collective heads as viewers. Cassie joins similar characters in shows like “Russian Doll” as someone trapped in a surreal situation augmented by their flaws. Her hassles as a would-be spy are allegories for how we try to cover up our issues. After the whole Berlin incident, she comes back home to brother Davey (T.R. Knight), bestie Ani (Zosia Mamet)  and Ani’s boyfriend Max (Deniz Akdeniz), who are basically her cheering section. They are hilariously nonchalant about the situation involving the CIA, even when she accidentally spills some compromising items right in front of them. Her other friend and fellow spy operative, Megan Brisco (Rosie Perez), remains on the run while hiding from North Korean assassins, which means Cassie has to contact her for advice carefully over the phone. This all works together because it links to Cassie’s emotional and mental state. She spies on the courier in Berlin, but looking at the woman he’s sleeping with, wild and abandoned, is also in a sense, Cassie looking at what we assume is her past self. Simultaneously, it’s a fun mind puzzle as our flight attendant scours front desks in Berlin to investigate the double, hearing details that seem to confirm it’s not some hallucination. Or is it? 

This season would play as a TV version of a real-life relapse if it wasn’t for the quirky writing and the excellent acting by Kaley Cuoco. Her search for the double then flows into Cassie undergoing a series of manic episodes, meltdowns and fidgety bouts of anxiety that capture how hard it is to really move on. For most addicts, it just takes one trigger to fall off the wagon. Zosia Mamet is endearing and prickly as the tougher sibling who also deals with anxiety, although Max points out her problems are not quite the same as getting blown up for the CIA (she won’t even admit to others they are engaged). “The Flight Attendant” also has some wonderfully surreal moments where Cassie speaks with her looser alter ego and as well as a projection of her younger self, debating why she keeps tripping in life. Such moments balance well with the whacky spy material, which can sometimes be less convincing than the dark comedy revolving around AA meetings, sharing tales with your sponsor over donuts, or Megan dealing with life in hiding. We also have to wonder if Marco is really as perfect as he seems. It’s all a ball of stress which will prove fun as it follows the first season. And now, by placing Cassie in Los Angeles, a city that thrives on the stress between truth and appearances, her journey will be a trickier set of triggers to maneuver.

“The Flight Attendant” season two begins streaming April 21 with new episodes premiering Thursdays on HBO Max.