When the HBO Max limited series The Flight Attendant became a critically revered, buzzy fan favorite back in 2020, there was an obvious question left open by the end: How the hell do creator Steve Yockey and the writing team follow this up? The show’s hilariously messy, intense opening season sends flight attendant Cassie Bowden (Kaley Cuoco, in a spectacular performance) off on a ridiculously twisty international murder mystery with what seemed at the time like a thousand different story threads.
But by the end of the season, Yockey and his crew had wrapped up most of Cassie’s storyline surprisingly neatly, including having her deal with the trauma behind the irresponsible behavior and poor decision-making that got her in trouble in the first place. And given the entirely accidental nature of the scenario that caught her up in the season 1 story, it was hard to imagine how she could fall into another, similar entanglement without some heavy chicanery taking place.
The first trailer for season 2 suggests one answer: that instead of accidentally becoming a person of interest in a murder case with international implications, this time around, Cassie is now deliberately involved in the CIA spy trade (she casually refers to it as “a part-time job”), having been recruited in season 1 due to her unconventional but resourceful way of dealing with her crisis situation. Season 1 was a dense series of terrible life decisions and big plot surprises. But season 2 looks like it’s upping the ante by sending Cassie into Alias scenarios where she takes on different personas and chases villains down professionally, instead of in a desperate attempt to clear her name. Still, HBO’s season description does promise she’s going to accidentally witness another murder, and the trailer does make it clear she’s still battling her alcohol dependency and still living precariously inside her own head alongside chatty hallucinations. So we can count on some sense of continuity even if The Flight Attendant does become a more conventional spy thriller.
Season 2 of The Flight Attendant premieres April 21 on HBO Max, with two episodes. The full season will be eight episodes long.