The Flight Attendant Season 2 premieres with two new episodes on April 28, followed by one episode weekly concluding May 26 on HBO Max.
Two years ago, Chris Bohjalian’s novel, The Flight Attendant, was adapted into a delightfully surprising thriller series starring Kaley Cuoco as Cassie Bowden. She’s a free-spirited, alcoholic flight attendant whose handsome one-night stand (Michiel Huisman) gets murdered. Looking to clear her name, Cassie embarks on her own investigation about what happened and ends up inviting all kinds of danger and shadiness into her already extremely messy life. For eight episodes, Cuoco and the ensemble cast pulled off the perfect tightwire act of high stakes mixed with wit and panache as Cassie desperately tries to exonerate herself. Along the way, she also finally faces her inner demons and addiction issues. It was a fizzy, frothy, and eventually poignant season of storytelling that could have just been a great limited series. But success breeds multiple-season orders and The Flight Attendant is back, following Cassie and company one year after the events of Season 1. While a bit of the magic and intrigue is gone in Season 2, there is still a good amount of fun in watching Cuoco capably slip back into the driver’s seat as the adjusted series premise invites more messiness into Cassie’s life.
Now based in Los Angeles and one-year sober, Cassie seemingly has it all together now. She’s still tempted to drink but she’s got a stable, hot photographer boyfriend, Marco (Santiago Cabrera), to keep her grounded, a wise AA sponsor (Shohreh Aghdashloo), her day job as a flight attendant, and her secret side job as a CIA asset who gets paid to snoop on marks around the globe. In the premiere episode, "Seeing Double," Cassie is keeping up with her new normal until she decides to get too nosy with a German courier she’s asked to only observe, but instead follows all over Berlin. She catches him swapping materials, and bumping uglies, with a mysterious blonde with her same back tattoo, and then, well, trouble ensues.
In the second episode of the two-episode premiere, "Mushrooms, Tasers, and Bears, Oh My," Cassie’s overseas adventure follows her home It takes a Los Angeles visit from BFF Annie (Zosia Mamet) and now sorta-fiancée Max (Deniz Akdeniz) for the snooping to get out of hand, again.
Considering how effective and satisfying the first season of the series was, the news that there would be a continuation of Cassie’s story always felt unnecessary. The plausible murder and the ensuing entanglement of her friends and work peers into the mess can most likely only be done once and be believable. Plus, the subconscious appearances of Huisman as the personification of her guilt and a by-product of her serious alcoholism was an effective interior pocket for her to work out her major issues in a weird but intriguing way. In Season 2, what worked before now feels a lot more constructed and specious to keep the story going. The jumps into her own head work best as a constant temptation metaphor, as the older versions of Cassie serve to mentally wear her resolve down as her anxiety ratchets up. But it still doesn’t feel as interesting or as organic as how it was used in Season 1 as an ingenious way to integrate the fantasy guy who got away into the story.
However, welcome returnees like Mamet and Akdeniz prove how important they are to the show’s pithy and lightning-fast pace, especially when paired against Cuoco’s nervous energy. Annie remains a dry straight-shooter who calls Cassie out on her bullshit, which makes for some great comedy. And on the flip side, she and Max also work well as Cassie’s very smart enablers, who can’t control their curiosity and just exacerbate situations for the worst. The show’s madcap vibe burns bright when the trio’s together and they give the new season a lot of its spark.
The mystery-woman conundrum fueling the action is relatively intriguing, but by Episode 2, it’s already feeling more complicated than necessary. There’s also a very slow sprinkling of a returning character that feels like an outlier subplot that isn’t gelling with the overall Season 2 storylines yet. But the series writers do have a knack for adding new characters into the mix that all have the stink of suspicion around them, which makes the whodunnit feel ever present and engaging.
Emmy Award-winning main title and score composer Blake Neely is also back with his brilliant, jazzy score that works hard to infuse the entire show with a sleek, sexy, and enigmatic vibe that doesn’t leave a lot of empty space for anything to drag. It also incorporates that 24 style of cutting, with picture-in-picture boxes that provide alternative views or multiple angles on any given scene, which means there’s always a kinetic energy keeping the episodes from flagging. The spy theme is always hovering and it helps smooth over transitions from comedy to tension when Cassie is back chasing answers about her latest life pickle. What remains to be seen is if The Flight Attendant's engaging parts will stitch together into a new overarching mystery that pairs well with Cassie’s personal journey of recovery. Right now, we’re cautiously optimistic.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/EFSZ9xr
This could be a real lead forward for personal gaming... Revolutionise gaming
No comments:
Post a Comment