‘The Flight Attendant’ Season 2, Episode 8 Spoiler Review — “Backwards and Forwards”

This episode was written by Steve Yockey, and directed by Silver Tree.

Never get in the way of a mother and her family, because she will make it a point to end your life. Which is what Megan (Rosie Perez) promises her captive before ditching him in an airport parking garage.

At the airport, Megan hides from lingering cops by taking notes from Cassie’s (Kaley Cuoco) book on incognito and stuffing her book less than an inch away from her face. It’s surely not how normal people read a book, which is ironically the title of the book she’s holding (Normal People by Sally Rooney). Megan managing to catch a flight while still being a Wanted Person is logic beyond my own comprehension. Not to mention, it’s still a mystery as to why she decided to book her flight with her ex-airline company. Continuities aside, she’s heading to Los Angeles.

Cassie is staring at her terrified reflection in a hospital bathroom. They’ve graciously given her a new change of clothes, but didn’t bother to offer her a wet towel to clean Grace’s (Mae Martin) blood all over her face? Seeing a man get blown up to pieces back in Berlin was dark enough for Cassie to bear, I can’t imagine how shaken up she must be watching a friend shoot herself in the head right in front of her. It’s bound to leave some traumatic marks on her.

Dot (Cheryl Hines) comes to Cassie with new information on her case. Apparently, Ben (Mo McRae) is in the clear because there have been no records of contact between him and Grace, also that Grace isn’t the only doppelganger out there. So the matter is still at large.

Before Dot and Cassie head over to the CIA office, Cassie visits Shane (Griffin Matthews) in his hospital room to surprise him with Megan. Considering it had been Shane’s mission to capture Megan for so long, he instinctively reaches for his phone. Cassie pleads for him to hear Megan out. Megan offers information about the North Korean groups in exchange for her and her family getting put under the Witness Protection Program. Though it wasn’t Cassie’s initial plan to help Megan out by getting Shane injured and on a hospital bed, it sure helps her that he can’t jump out and detain her right there. Shane agrees to help Megan only on the account he receives complete transparency from her.

Now en route to the CIA office, Dot welcomes Cassie into her home for a quick stop to recollect and wash Grace’s blood off of her (about time, come on). It’s when she’s in Dot’s bathroom that she sees the obvious connections between Dot and Grace. A torn picture of her in the army matched Grace’s torn army picture at her apartment. A perfume in her cabinet that Grace had mentioned once before. It’s almost common thought to raid someone’s bathroom cabinet, though I widely advise to never do that to someone’s personal space. It helps Cassie though because now she’s starting to figure it all out.

With Max’s (Deniz Akdeniz) tech help, Cassie manages to escape when Max hacks his way into setting off an alarm in Dot’s apartment. “It’s easy enough to turn it off,” Dot calmly assures her as Cassie tries to seek safety. It turns out that Dot really was the one behind it all. She had been using Cassie as her scapegoat to cover her own bad deeds.

What really impressed me was Dot’s use of the View-Master. Knowing that Cassie has a liking for solving puzzles, she knew Cassie would show up at every location pictured in the View-Master. Therefore, there would be photographic records of Cassie at each location. In one last attempt at survival, Cassie pulls a portable alarm out of her pocket and sets it off, distracting Dot long enough to not kill her. Two agents conveniently run in and arrest Dot. They had been sent by Ben, the man we were all conditioned to be a leading suspect.

Well, there’s our answer folks. It was Dot the entire time! I can’t say I’m jaw-dropped and surprised, but it was a clever way of getting Cassie back into another criminal mess without it seeming overdone.

Episodes seem to fly by quickly when you’re so invested in them. Which is what I initially thought while Cassie and Ben made amends on Dot’s balcony. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief because Cassie finally got this huge weight lifted off her shoulders. Now she can take the rest of the episode’s time dealing with other smaller plots, like Megan’s situation or even Annie (Zosia Mamet) and Max’s.

Then I checked the time stamp on the episode and realized I’ve only gotten halfway? Oh no.

As the title suggests, are we going backwards just when we thought we already solved the case?

It’s comical to believe Cassie finally catches a break. I’ve mentioned my worries about Jenny (Jessie Ennis) before, and so now it’s her time to shine. She manages to trick Cassie into coming into her house, using a drugged-up Davey (T.R. Knight) as bait. It’s in Jenny’s Grandma’s creepy mini-mansion where Cassie discovers a wall collage of everything that has to do with her, including her affiliation with Alex from Season 1. Words like “Fake” and “Liar” are sprawled over security camera pictures of Cassie out in public.

Things take an unexpected psychotic turn, and I guess this is where it makes up for the show’s anti-climactic Psycho Dot reveal. I mean, it seemed easy for Cassie to escape her then. I expected a full chase around the apartment and we didn’t exactly get that. Now, Cassie gets her cat chase with Jenny. Right beside Jenny’s creepy Cassie wall is a crafty little shrine with cutout pictures, hearts, and Mr. and Mrs. stickers of none other than… get ready for it… Felix (Colin Woodwell)! Or more commonly known as Buckley, a.k.a, the man Cassie got convicted for trying to kill her in the last season!

Apparently, Jenny’s lust for Felix fueled enough resentment to get revenge on Cassie in his name. Felix played Jenny for a while through flirty letters and phone calls and convinced her to go after Cassie. Oh, how is Cassie going to get out of this near-death trap this time?

While running her way through the many hallways and rooms, Cassie comes to a revelation. The Cassies in her mind locus (Narcissistic Party Cassie, Sad Troubled Cassie, and Depressed Alcoholic Cassie) aren’t just the annoying voices in her head getting in the way of her thinking. They are her, and although she doesn’t like it, she comes to terms with it. She finally understands that that’s just who she is as a person. She’s no better or worse. Kind of a weird moment to choose to realize all of this, but her speech about self-acceptance lasts long enough for a zombie-like Davey to knock out Jenny with a pan.

Now Cassie can breathe because all questions are finally answered.

Megan receives her happy ending as well and is given a safer place to live with her family under the Witness Protection Program. Cassie gives her mother a call, telling her that she hears her. As in, she sees eye-to-eye and that she’s not just apologizing, she’s telling her mother that she understands her anger. And that she really wants to try and mend their relationship for real this time.

Moments pass and the episode concludes in Vegas. Think: why else would you go to Vegas if it’s not to gamble and peruse the famous strip? You guessed it! Annie and Max are getting married, with Elvis present of course. They’ve had their own ordeal this season, and they managed to turn their traumas into a fruitful idea of starting their own private investigation firm.

Final thoughts on The Flight Attendant Season 2, Episode 8

As always, I’m beyond impressed with the show’s stylistic elements. They’re unique and engaging on top of the already crazy storyline and phenomenal acting performances. I also love that other characters got their own fair share in the spotlight. As different as they were, they still connected together in some way to the bigger puzzle.

The show’s big mystery reveal was a bit anticlimactic, but to be fair, it was still somewhat unexpected. The writers threw in a bunch of red herrings, which succeeded in keeping Dot off the potential suspects list.

I’m also glad my instincts about Jenny were right. Even though she wasn’t the direct source of Cassie’s wrongful criminal framing, I knew there was something up with her. It would’ve made a lot more sense for Jenny to be the main villain masterminding the whole doppelganger issue.

With each character’s ending to the season, it hinted that the story is definitely not over yet. Megan’s hiding could be a key problem in the third season, and Annie and Max’s private investigation firm can prove to be a big asset if Cassie somehow finds herself in this same position again. My only question is: what is Cassie gonna get herself into next time? She could be taking her sobriety journey much more seriously, and maybe her relationship with her mother will be stronger and mended.

With a potential third season, I can see the show deviating from a Cassie-centered narrative and diving deeper into the lives of other characters. This second season opened up possible storylines capable of keeping the unthinkable chaos The Flight Attendant is famous for.

The Flight Attendant concluded its second season with episode 8 on May 26, 2022. All episodes are available for streaming on HBO Max!

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