The Flight Attendant Review: Brothers & Sisters (Season 2 Episode 6)
It’s time to unpack some of Cassie’s baggage on The Flight Attendant Season 2 Episode 6, “Brothers & Sisters.”
After watching Cassie fall off the wagon on The Flight Attendant Season 2 Episode 5, “Drowning Women,” we knew we would be in for some tough moments as the truth came out. After watching Cassie beat herself up with Brenda on the beach it is refreshing to see her have a moment with Ani who very clearly helped her layout a list of things that she could do.
Ani is frank with Cassie, but not harsh. She wants to see Cassie improve and she is going through her own stuff as she tries to figure out what’s next for her career. This kind of gentle touch makes Cassie realize that maybe she needs to put the CIA aside and she’s doing too much too fast.
CASSIE: Well, see, there are other people that can solve crimes. Not just me. I’m not a CIA agent. I’m not real. I need to just focus on being sober. I can’t do this anymore.
ANI: Okay, that’s huge. Decide to make a huge life change. Decide to make a huge life change. I mean that’s a lot more than I can say for myself right now.
Ani and Cassie’s friendship is the kind of relationship we need to see on screen and the way that they are open and honest with each other in this m moment is, to borrow Ani’s phrasing, huge.
Later on, the family drama takes center stage as Cassie tells Davey what happened and they visit her dad’s grave. The moment is palpably tense and shows their sibling dynamic well.
The thing about Davey’s appearance in The Flight Attendant Season 1 is that we didn’t get a chance to really see him and Cassie interact in this heartfelt fashion, and it’s something that needed to happen so that they could heal. It certainly feels like they’re reaching that point as we start to see that they’re both human beings dealing with their own problems, but trying to be there for each other.
Cassie’s conversation with her mom is the most dramatic moment of the episode and it’s something that we needed to see. The betrayal and hurt in the scene make the atmosphere so tense, and the added slap just makes it that much more uncomfortable.
The Flight Attendant has always walked a line with how much we can trust Cassie. We’ve seen her being confident and we love that version of Cassie who’s loving life, but then we see her with others and their impressions of her are so different that it makes us question what we know and gives dimension to her as a character.
When she’s faced with her past she tends to become an unreliable narrator, and the way her mother calls her out on her behavior cements that. We know Cassie is trying to improve, but whether she really wants to do that is the next question and what she’s likely going to have to decide before the season ends.
The family drama is the most compelling part of this season, but it’s also making us forget that there’s a thriller underneath all of this. Cassie’s recovery and addiction is compelling, but the CIA is quickly turning into last season’s FBI. They’re there to move the plot along, but not necessarily to add substance to the story.
In watching the last few episodes, it almost feels like The Flight Attendant is having a bit of an identity crisis. It’s not sure if it wants to be a thriller or a drama about addiction and recovery. A season that started off as a promising psychological thriller has quickly evaporated into a family portrait with no real stakes.
Cassie’s doppelganger and the Viewmaster no longer feel like they’re integral to the plot. Aside from a few passing mentions of it, it doesn’t drive the story forward, and it feels like everyone has forgotten about it except when Ani sends Cassie a text and Davey is able to comment on boat registration numbers.
It’s becoming clearer that the doppelganger is just a vehicle to bring this season to a satisfying conclusion.
The visuals in this episode also seem to heavily be guiding us toward the idea that Dot is the doppelganger. It makes the sense, she has the resources for it, but we’ve also only seen Dot and Cassie interact a handful of times, and not in the most compelling way.
Meghan’s story is also lacking. Her reunion with her son and husband goes exactly how I would expect them to go, but it is also filler with, once again, no integration to the plot.
Given that the Koreans were looking for information about Meghan when they find Cassie and Davey in the woods maybe these two storylines will come together. However, right now, it just feels like it doesn’t belong there.
It’s starting to feel like The Flight Attendant Season 2 isn’t going to reach a satisfying conclusion. While the season started with a lot of promise, there just doesn’t seem to be any cohesion as to where it’s going and the tone of the episodes feels all over the place.
What did you think of this episode of The Flight Attendant? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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The Flight Attendant airs Thursdays on HBO Max.
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Lauren Busser
Lauren Busser is an Associate Editor at Tell-Tale TV. She is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose work has appeared in Bitch Media, Popshot Quarterly, Brain Mill Press Voices, and The Hartford Courant.