The Flight Attendant Finale: Yep, Gonna Need a Season 2 [Update: It’s Happening!]

Editor’s Note: Since this was written, the show has been renewed for Season 2, huzzah!

At some point the word “miniseries” went out of fashion, and the “limited series” was born. Ostensibly it meant the same thing, but how studios and networks chose to actually define it became “limited unless we say otherwise.” If a limited series—often a short run of episodes that features movie stars or other A-list types who don’t want to be tied down by endless network seasons ahead of them—proved popular enough, it would continue. Sometimes as an anthology (with a new story or a new cast) or sometimes creating a reason to get the gang all back together, for better or worse (like Big Little Lies Season 2, which is an example of “for worse”).

So every time a great limited series ends on a high note, as most do (as they were designed to do, as many are adapted from novels) there is an immediate call for more. Mostly, it’s a bad idea. Would I like to see more of The Queen’s Gambit? Of course I would. But it’s perfect the way it is—please don’t touch it. TV fans shouldn’t always be given what we ask for, yet it makes sense that if something actually manages to break through the deluge of Peak TV and cause a clamor for more, networks would hurry to oblige.

In the case of The Flight Attendant’s “limited” status though, its finale (“Arrivals and Departures”) actually sets up a second season pretty obviously. The series, which was meant to be a launch title for HBO Max’s streaming service, may have come late but it still made a (much needed) splash. As Amy Amatangelo noted in her review of the first episodes, the series was a consistently riveting romp that proves Kaley Cuoco is a bonafide star. Had the series just been focused on the salacious murder that kicks things off, it would have been just fine. But the fact that it was actually, sneakily, about her character Cassie’s alcoholism and denial of her traumatic past made it fantastically compelling.

“Arrivals and Departures” gave us some sense of closure for both threads, with Cassie being exonerated by the FBI for Alex’s death and starting meetings to help her quit drinking. I really cannot praise the show enough for glossing over all of the government agency and worldwide conspiracy mumbo jumbo with essentially a wave of a hand (“blah blah laundering money blah blah smuggling guns”) and making space instead to really lay the groundwork for Cassie hitting a personal rock bottom and climbing her way out of it. Cuoco made us completely understand why people love and are hugely frustrated by Cassie simultaneously; she’s as vibrant and charming as she is a drunken mess. The way The Flight Attendant showed us both the fun and tragic sides of this character in ways that felt real was an unexpected boon—that it also followed her believably clawing her way back to forgiveness (from others and for herself) was something of a master stroke.