TV Shows #23 - Part 1

The Flight Attendant Season One (2020)
Developed By: Steve Yockey
Starring: Kaley Cuoco, Michiel Huisman, Zosia Mamet, Rosie Perez, T. R. Knight, Michelle Gomez, Colin Woodell, Merle Dandridge, Griffin Matthews, Nolan Gerard Funk, Deniz Akdeniz

Certificate: 15 Running Time: 42-48 Minutes per Episode, 8 Episodes

Tagline: "A Deadly Mystery With a Turbulent Descent."

Love it or hate it, no one could deny that The Big Bang Theory was a huge hit for all involved and the main stars made so much money they could live comfortably for the rest of their lives without ever having to work again. Perhaps some of them will but Kaley Cuoco apparently had other ideas. Back in 2018, you see, Chris Bohjalian wrote a novel called The Flight Attendant and Ms. Cuoco, via her production company, optioned it the previous year. I'm not sure how a novel can be optioned before it has even been released - perhaps she employed the use of witchcraft or is somehow able to manipulate the fabric of the space-time continuum? However it was done, this would've been while she was still working on Big Bang Theory so she was clearly already making plans for the future.

As was presumably the idea to begin with, Ms. Cuoco takes on the main role from the novel for this adaptation which takes the form of an 8-episode miniseries for HBO Max. The role is that of Cassie Bowden, a alcoholic who somehow manages to hold down a job as a flight attendant for the fictional Imperial Airlines, a global long-haul commercial carrier, and that means spending much of her spare time in glamorous, exotic cities all around the world which suits her lifestyle down to the ground.

Looking reasonably professional on the job for a change...

This basically involves spending her layovers partying all hours, getting wasted, and having sex with the lucky strangers who happen to meet her. This reckless behaviour also extends to her actual time at work to a lesser extent where she also drinks and, as we see in the first episode, hooks up with the odd passenger too. The guy who catches her eye on this occasion is Alex Sokolov (Michiel Huisman who you may know as Daario Naharis from off of Game of Thrones), with whom she has a brief-but-intimate session in the aircraft toilet before meeting up with him in the appropriately-named Bangkok after work to... well, to party all hours, get wasted, and have sex, as appears to be the norm for her. Not that there's anything wrong with partying or having (safe) sex, but combine that with strangers and getting wasted and you have strong potential for some complications. As Cassie finds out.

Indeed, for a fun night of boozing and rumpy pumpy with Alex it may have been, but when she wakes up, it's not next to a horny guy looking for some help with his morning wood, but rather it's next to a corpse largely emptied of blood by way of a slit throat, some of which is over her. Now that's a hangover! Of course, rather than report the crime and make a statement, she panics, tries to remove any evidence that she was there, and runs away hoping no one knew they had even met.

Waking to an unexpected sight?

As I'm sure you don't need me to tell you, however, it doesn't quite work out the way she had hoped, and it's not long before the FBI, not to mention some rather shadier characters are interested in having a conversation or two with her. As a basic premise, it's something that has been seen on both the big and small screens before, but thankfully what it's lacking in originality it makes up for in intrigue which is helped by an outstanding central performance from Ms. Cuoco whose Cassie is, to put it politely, a bit of a mess - a 'hot mess' as I believe the trendy youths of today might say. Indeed, it's hard to understand how she is still employed from what we see of her. She is friendly with most of her co-workers but she makes a scene everywhere she goes, basically just by arriving there. Whether it's some drunken goofing around or a manic emotional outburst, she almost is a walking scene!

I can imagine the character being rather annoying if played by someone else but somehow Cuoco makes her likeable, and despite most of her messes being of her own making, you still want things to work out for her. That doesn't seem all that likely at first though, so she decides it's a good idea to try and clear her name by doing some drunken, bumbling investigating of her own.

Cassie being questioned by Hammond and White...

That's assuming she is innocent of course, which is not a given by any means since she can't remember the events of the night in question due to her blackout drunkenness, and we didn't get to see much of her saucy, drunken escapades with Alex either (though we do catch a glimpse of her o-face - tee hee!) so... who knows what happened? She does get a bit of help from her best friend Annie (Mamet) who, in addition to virtually being Cassie's opposite (stable, responsible, monogamous, etc), also happens to be a lawyer, with additional help and/or advice coming from Annie's boyfriend Max (Akdeniz) and Shane (Matthews), a fellow flight attendant. The cast is rounded out by Davey (T.R. Knight), Cassie's long-suffering brother, and Miranda (Gomez), a mysterious woman who may or may not be following Cassie around.

Lastly, there's Hammond and White (Dandridge and Funk), two FBI agents who are on the case, as well as Megan (Perez) who also works with Cassie and considers herself her best friend. Rather oddly, Megan gets a bizarre subplot of her own which, unless I'm being particularly dense, has nothing to do with the main plot and seems a bit pointless unless it was just to give Perez a bit more to do.

Shane and Megan seem concerned about Cassie...

We also see a surprising amount of Huisman considering he dies in the first episode. This is down to the regular conversations Cassie has with him in the 'visions' she starts having which are presumably her subconscious trying to work things out and remember what happened that night. Either that or she's just going mad. She also has several flashbacks to her childhood which go some way to explaining her issues later in life. Suffice to say, it's Cuoco's show and, as mentioned, she really is outstanding here. As we know, anyone who has played the same character for so long, especially such a prominent one, is likely to find it hard or even impossible to shake that role off, but she starts strongly here and doesn't look back for pretty much the entire duration of the show. I can't speak for anyone else but I'm a fan of The Big Bang Theory and I didn't think of it once while watching this (well, maybe when we saw her boobies in the first episode, but only because she did the same in TBBT several times). I can't think of much higher praise than that.

The show itself is more than half-decent too. Things inevitably get a bit silly at some points but despite numerous comedic moments it is a drama first and foremost, and the heavier moments are handled really well. Some of these are unsurprisingly tied in to Alex's murder but many also relate to Cassie's alcoholism and its effects on those around her. The story is pretty well-paced in any case and the mystery remains intriguing throughout. There is a little bit of typically-unsubtle PC nonsense here but other than that and the odd mystery movie/show cliche, there isn't much to fault.

We've got some more to look forward to as well! Despite being, to my knowledge, a miniseries, the show has already been renewed for a second season. Since (spoiler alert!) things were pretty much wrapped up nice and neatly at the end of this season, it's difficult to see where they could go. Oh well, I guess we'll find out!

RKS Score: 8/10