Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers from The Flight Attendant Season 2 finale!
Well, folks, you can finally remove those seat belts and move about the cabin, as The Flight Attendant Season 2 ending has come in for a landing after setting Cassie and her friends off on a new adventurous mystery to solve, as part of the 2022 TV schedule. As one of the best shows on HBO Max, the Kaley Cuoco-starring series returned and gave fans a lot more action, brand new characters in a new setting, and more of that dark comedy that we’ve come to know and love from the humorous thriller.
But, another big part of the show also came back in full force, as we watched Cassie come to terms with some major personal issues, and heal amid yet another (rather traumatic) mystery. So, let’s look at how Cassie was able to finally grow up a lot more since The Flight Attendant Season 1 ending!
Cassie Admitted To Being “Deeply Flawed” And Accepted The Many Sides Of Her Personality
Cassie’s “mind palace” was (somewhat unexpectedly) back for the second season, after she’d gone through and closed the mental space down at the end of The Flight Attendant Season 1. But, this time, instead of being populated with a very dead Alex Sokolov, it was filled with four versions of Cassie, who represented the different sides of her personality that she was now trying to cover up while in recovery from her alcohol addiction.
As she was being chased around a giant home by her supposed fellow AA member, Jenny (Jessie Ennis), who was actually stalking Cassie for the now-imprisoned Feliks (Colin Woodell), Cassie realized that she’d gotten herself into another big mess because of her actions, and finally took full responsibility by telling Jenny, “I am a deeply flawed, sad alcoholic, narcissistic, thrill addict.” In doing this, Cassie has finally given in and accepted all of herself, even the bad parts, instead of attempting to hide them behind a falsified recovery.
When The Flight Attendant’s co-showrunners/executive producers, Steve Yockey and Natalie Chaidez, discussed the finale with TV Insider, Yockey said of the moment:
We knew that part of the self-acceptance was she needed to stop denying them and trying to make them disappear and accept that they’re actually a part of her that she’s gonna have to deal with. She can’t just magically be this new person.
As Yockey noted, Cassie’s mind palace disappeared when she finally accepted her whole self, as did the other Cassies.
Cassie’s Helped Solve Another Major Case
Our dear, messy flight attendant / CIA asset is certainly correct about her “thrill” addiction, as it was her clear desire to solve the puzzle of Alex’s murder (despite the danger to herself) that put her on the radar of CIA regional director, Dot (Cheryl Hines). The woman then used the probability of her new asset to go off book and get into trouble against Cassie. Dot convinced former military cohort Grace (Mae Martin) to both get close to Cassie by signing up to be a flight attendant, and also to impersonate Cassie and kill the people Dot ordered her to.
Dot had also sent Cassie the View-Master and other evidence against her, knowing that she’d be unable to pass up the opportunity to investigate, which would only get her into deeper trouble. Once Cassie got inside Dot’s home (which was actually a set up so that Dot could kill her), all of the pieces fell into place for her. Luckily, Cassie had already enlisted Shane (Griffin Matthews) to help her, with her CIA handler, Benjamin (Mo McRae) also getting enough info from Cassie to figure out that Dot was behind the whole plot.
This means that Cassie is, according to Shane, “golden at the CIA” in spite of her rarely sticking to the small missions they give her. And, Chaidez noted to TV Insider that that accomplishment will help Cassie into the future:
She’s gone through quite a journey, given all the betrayals with Dot and of course now Jenny, so there’s that hanging over her, but in another way, she’s cracked a big case, so I think she might be carrying that forward, if we do a Season 3.
She Finally Had A Good Conversation With Her Mom
One of the definite bright spots of The Flight Attendant Season 2 was the moment where we see Cassie reunite with her mother, Lisa (played brilliantly by Sharon Stone) in Episode 6. And, when I say “bright spot,” I do mean “emotionally devastating moment filled with painful truths,” OK? After both women are set up by Davey (T.R. Knight), and are forced to have this face-to-face meeting, we see Lisa tell Cassie she’s not mad for the things she did after her dad’s death as a kid, but the wrong she’s done as an adult. Lisa then told Cassie she loves her, but doesn’t “like” her, and slapped her, leaving Cassie and Davey stunned.
Well, after Cassie solved this season’s mystery and got on a plane to attend Annie (Zosia Mamet) and Max’s (Deniz Akdeniz) wedding in Las Vegas, she decided to call her mom. Cassie told Lisa “I heard you,” when talking about their last meeting, and stressed that she knows she has a long way to go but is slowly getting better and hopes that Lisa is willing to watch her recovery “from a very safe distance.” This clearly got through to Lisa, who told Cassie she'd like if they could talk again soon, with each then telling the other “I love you.”
Cassie Seems To Realize Romance Isn’t A Good Idea For Her Right Now
At the beginning of the season, when Cassie was pretending to be nearing a year of sobriety, she’d also been dating Marco (Santiago Cabrera) for several months. But, as he attempted to deepen their romance, Cassie pulled away, had sex with Benjamin, and then told Marco about it, which understandably led to him breaking up with her.
Cut to Annie tossing the bouquet after her wedding, and even though she asked Cassie to play along, her good buddy simply refused to catch those flowers or the implied promise of a new romance. According to Yockey, this means that Cassie absolutely understands just how far she has to go right now when it comes to being ready for a relationship:
Cassie knows that she’s got plenty of work to do on herself. She already tried handing it to someone else. It doesn’t work. Right now she steps out of the way and doesn’t catch that bouquet for a reason and she’s ready to just be alone for a little bit. When she’s ready to start dating, she’ll start dating.
Right now, there’s been no word on whether or not The Flight Attendant will return for Season 3, so we’ll just have to wait and see whether or not we get a chance to watch Cassie continue to grow and understand how to heal her emotional wounds while solving another wild mystery in this Emmy nominated series.
