Show: The Flight Attendant (HBO Max)
Spoilers ahead
I never really cared for The Big Bang theory, so I didn't have a true point of reference to base my expectations of actress Kaley Cuoco's ability to carry an intense drama series. But I imagine that, had I watched her breakthrough role on the popular sitcom, I would've been pleasantly surprised and thoroughly impressed with her range, intensity, and overall presence practically every time she was on the screen throughout The Flight Attendant.
Cuoco plays a flight attendant named Cassie, who is the epitome of the wrong kind of girl in every way (yet sadly, it's probably a widely common lifestyle). For starters, she's an alcoholic. She thinks she's got it under control, but she "casually" drinks every night to the point when she's willing to sleep with any random (or in some cases, recurring) guy from whatever bar she ends up in as she travels around the world for her job. Every day, Cassie's co-workers take bets on whether she'll show up to work late. She doesn't seem to be a friendly co-worker, either. Early on, she mostly shrugs off Megan, an older, married woman who wouldn't seem to be a good fit in Cassie's life. Even Cassie's best friend Annie, who is a lawyer (much more on her later), seems to put up with her more than invest in their friendship because Cassie's selfishness/utter disregard for any advice Annie offers prove to clash quite a bit.
Cassie certainly is no stranger to waking up in a hotel room having no idea who is in bed with her and no recollection of what happened the night before. But midway through the first episode, her life suddenly hits major turbulence (sorry, couldn't help myself) when she wakes up in Thailand one morning to find that the man she slept with the night before is dead in their bed! His throat is slit. Blood is everywhere. Broken glass is on the floor as the hotel room is in disarray. It's panic time for Cassie, and from this point on, Cuoco's brilliance takes over. She induces a high level of stress, frantic panic, anxiety, moments of sadness, and nervous worry, all of which were skillfully nuanced for the audience, yet so obvious and apparent to the other characters of the show. Cassie decides not to call the police, and she tries to flee the scene out of fear for her life and for how guilty the circumstances make her look. She then tries to get through a normal day, which, of course, includes yet another night of drinking and sleeping around. In her mind, denial is probably the easiest way to cope with the traumatic experience she just had, but seriously, how stupid is that! Of course, this doesn't work because she develops post-traumatic stress that manifests itself the first time she tries to sleep around, and she can't go through with it; at least there appears to be some sort of real-world consequences for this girl's ridiculous decisions.
What ensues for the remainder of the eight-episode season is quite a journey for Cassie, but mostly at the expense of the rest of the story and characters. She discovers the dead man in the hotel room, Alex Sokolov, was involved in a money-laundering operation involving his parents. She finds out that the killer may be after her now. The FBI gets involved. Pretty standard, ho-hum stuff. There's one minor twist about who the killer is, but even that fell pretty flat because, although Cassie had some sort of perverted connection with this character, we never really cared about him at all.
Cassie's co-worker Megan gets her own side story, but not only does it not materialize nor pay off with any real, tangible dividends, but it's actually a poorly told story in general, and it really seemed like a missed opportunity to have a clever connection to the main story. This seemingly normal woman, who is married and has a son in high school, decides one random day to get involved with a foreign government and sell them classified information from her husband's computer (he works for a technology company that occasionally handles government contracts). In the final episode, she has a heart-to-heart conversation with Cassie as they both come clean about their predicaments, which supposedly brings their friendship to a new level (neither the dialogue nor the delivery were executed well enough to sell this notion). Megan explains to Cassie that she more or less wanted more excitement out of life as some lame excuse to justify committing treason and getting mixed up with the kind of wrong crowd she was not equipped to handle in the slightest. Why not make a connection between the group Megan is selling info to and the group trying to find and kill Cassie? It wouldn't have been hard to dovetail those stories. Instead, Megan's story leaves a lot to be desired.
The two FBI agents who work Alex Sokolov's case weave a thin thread of a storyline that also fizzles. One agent is a black woman who is tired of having to prove herself to the rest of the agency, but the engine of this strong character's story never really gets a chance to take off (I know, I really need to stop with those). Instead, the friction between her and her younger hotshot partner occasionally boils over a little bit, but neither character really develops enough for that to amount to anything meaningful.
The absolute best part of the show outside of Cassie and her stories is Annie. I've never heard of Zosia Mamet to this point, but this actress is absolutely on my radar now. Mamet held her own with Cuoco every time they shared the screen. As Annie, she effortlessly played off of Cassie's character as her perfect counterpart; she feels more like an older sister than a best friend (something very common and relatable). While Cassie lives wild and care-free, Annie is level-headed and measured. When Cassie is emotional, Annie is reserved (but don't take that to mean she doesn't feel strongly). When Cassie makes dumbs decisions, Annie is there to clean it up.
Annie's story also hits stronger than any other side story. She finds out she's actually working for corrupt people who are involved with the Solokovs. She's torn between using that to her advantage (which she does to get Cassie out of a jam or two) and feeling like her life's work is permanently tainted. She has an "Ah ha" moment involving bribery and a visit to a man in prison, which make her realize how far off the beaten path she's come. On top of that, she later shares a short, personal revelation she has with one of her co-workers about how people should not be afraid of who they are just because they're different (Turns out Annie is Armenian! I knew there I was a reason she was so great).
Annie and Cassie feel quite a strain on their friendship when Annie's boyfriend Max, who is an expert hacker (how convenient), gets involved with Cassie's case (how ironic that a lawyer would date a guy who makes a living as a cybercriminal). Max nearly dies after the bad guys figure out he and Cassie are trying to find them, and Annie blames Cassie for this. I felt the dialogue between Cassie and Annie when they have a couple of heated exchanges was quite choppy (my wife thought it was good, though, so what do I know?), but overall, the chemistry between Mamet and Cuoco was palpable no matter the situation.
Getting back to the main story, Cassie's whirlwind of crazy life-altering events begins to open up doors in her mind, and I mean that literally and figuratively. The Flight Attendant is based on a book, and these psychological elements definitely feel more like they were created for a narrative format rather than multimedia form. Sure, unlocking memories about her childhood, her dad, her brother, and the event that gave her the desire to be a flight attendant in the first place all give context to the character, but it leads to mostly clunky and less-inspiring writing. I know full well that people can really experience breakthroughs like that in real life, so don't think I'm trying to discount that at all. But her flashbacks mostly seemed a little too on-the-nose/mechanical and were used as a plot or story device rather than create natural, organic occurrences. For context, I often feel the same way about the writing in This Is Us. This style is just stale to me.
The weirder aspect to her psyche was both more interesting and more confusing. She basically had imaginary conversations with herself and Alex, the guy she knew for one memorable night (they did travel around the city and spent the afternoon together before their late-night escapades). As she was trying to solve the mysteries surrounding Alex and his family, we would get a glimpse of her mind's processes, which takes her back to that fateful night in the hotel room. It turns out she'd conveniently recall details of the evening she previously forgot about (a common side effect to hangovers). She would talk through the issue at hand, and Alex would manifest in her subconscious to the point that they had in-depth, and sometimes intimate, conversations. These scenes get weirder when Cassie starts to fall in love with Alex, not fully realizing that she's loving the idea of him instead of embracing her denial and grieving through this traumatic experience.
In the end, she turns out all right. She finds peace with Alex's death, she makes amends with Annie, and she even starts rehabilitating her relationship with her brother after she realizes how badly her dad treated both of them. Even though it was painfully hard to do, she even gave up drinking. The contrived character turnaround had a rocky approach, but ultimately made a safe landing down the runway (okay, that was the last one!). Overall, the show had several weak parts, but it was still a flight worth taking (okay, now I'm done with those!)