Review: HBO's THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT: A boozy blonde with a dark secret

by Charles Gerian

"I blacked out, if I blacked out it didn't happen."

Kaley Cuoco's piercing green eyes and sunshine blonde hair paint her as the ultimate beauty as we see party girl flight attendant Cassie Bowden waking up hungover on a subway train, covered in night club entry stamps and wristbands, making her way to her hotel room after a wild night in a foreign city to find a man she doesn't know in her bed- "You told me to come to your hotel room and wait for you," he says. She doesn't remember, but she has a flight to catch, and he's gotta go.

On her flight, Cassie takes a shot to pep herself for the trip to Bangkok , Thailand. It's here we meet her eccentric co-stars, and get a feel for Cassie as a character before she meets the gaze of a mysterious traveler, the handsome Alex Sokolov, played by HBO "Game of Thrones" alumni Michael Huisman, who we last saw in 2014's terrific AGE OF ADELINE.

The two make playful flirty banter of his drink order, and the novel he's reading, "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. She thinks the novel is depressing, and says she's more of a DOCTOR ZHIVAGO girl- the film in question is a sweeping romantic drama set in World War I. She's smart, witty. The two catch fire, and make out hard in the airplane bathroom before she's called away.

Getting off the flight, Alex hands Cassie his card as an invitation to spend the night with him. Sneaking out of her hotel room and away from her staff, she gets into his Aston Martin and we're flirted away, like Cassie, on romantic boat rides, charming walks through night markets with stolen kisses between street food, decadent restaurant, neon lit bars, and finally an expansive hotel room where the two make love on and off again between drinks and romantic talks.

Waking up in the morning, however, Cassie's wild night takes a dark turn as Alex's body is laying next to hers. His throat cut open, and their white sheets soaked in blood. Cassie is panicked, and begins to sloppily clean up the scene before she makes her escape back to her flight. She didn't kill him...right? She has no idea. And neither do we.

Cassie is a functioning alcoholic, and her drinking is a serious problem. Maybe not as serious as the dead body she woke up next to, but serious none-the-less. As Cassie's anxiety grips her, we see brief glimpses of her young childhood where her father takes her hunting, having her kill a deer brutally, before giving her a beer as a prize. We see the seeds of this disease.

Of course, soon the headlines catch up to her and the authorities begin an investigation as Cassie struggles to piece together what happened on that wild night. It becomes quickly apparent that she's in way over her head, and that Alex's death might be the first domino in a sinister international conspiracy.

THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT, based off the novel by Chris Bohjalian, is a quick, flashy, sexy thriller. While HBO has always been interested in the dour, dark, and depressing character dramas such as THE SOPRANOS, GAME OF THRONES, OZ, EUPHORIA with the aesthetics to match, this series is bright, peppy, and colorful. Cassie's drinking, while we can see is a serious problem, is treated (so far) as a surface level character quirk.

It's only through small nuggets here and there that we understand it is actually a serious issues. She had sex with their pilot- which she doesn't remember at first- and her friend makes comments that imply her destructive drinking has been a problem on their flights long before this.

The series is lead by Kaley Cuoco, marking her first major role since THE BIG BANG theory, which she was a main-stay for more than 12 seasons, and she absolutely kills it here. Her unwavering pep can turn to self-contemplating breakdowns at the drop of a hat, and her wildly expressive eyes constantly make us feel everything.

The first episode is available now to stream for free on YouTube with the series dropping exclusively on HBO Max this Friday. If you're looking for a live-action page turner, this exotic, funny, dangerous, pulpy thriller is just what you need.