It is exciting to watch a performer handle deftly complicated material. The Flight Attendant is many things all at once: comedy, drama, espionage thriller. It takes a special class of actor to balance those elements without succumbing to one or the other. Zosia Mamet can elevate the comedy of a scene with the tone of her voice or the raise of an eyebrow, and she becomes much more embroiled in this season’s action.
In the freshman go around, Annie was someone Cassie depended on to get her out of sticky jams. When Cassie wakes up next to a bloody, dead body, Annie is the first person she calls to get vague information about Amanda Knox. For season two, Annie and Max’s vacation goes way off their itinerary when they get embroiled in a plot to frame Cassie for multiple murders. Getting out of the office was something Mamet was thrilled to do this season.
“It was awesome. I would make jokes last season that Annie didn’t get to do anything fun. Deniz [Akdeniz] at least got to get hit by a car! Annie is just in the office making phone calls. I was super excited to have a stunt double and then get chloroformed! It’s the biggest pressure of having such a successful first season. We were waiting with bated breath, and I think the writers went above and beyond. The thing that struck all of us is how we went bigger in every way. The stakes were higher, the action was bigger, and Annie and Max get into the shenanigans. It felt like the writers cracked each of these characters open, and we got to go deeper on a personal level.”
The duality of tone is something Mamet understands very well, and she knows that season two goes to some pitch-black dark places as it explores Cassie’s relapse. The first episode of season two ends with Cassie receiving a suitcase with bloody items in it. Most shows would drown in the drama, but The Flight Attendant knows how to jab us with darts of comedy to remind us of the show’s comedic heart.
“So much of that is getting really lucky with it. It is the hardest line to walk. The Flight Attendant takes such big swings in how we switch tones, and the only way to do it is to do it unabashedly. Otherwise it won’t work. At home, we like to describe it as a darkly comedic thriller, but we got so lucky with the entire creative team. That chemistry exists amongst all of us. We are all very similar as actors in the sense that we come to set with the interest in playing around. For instance, that was an improv moment that Kaley [Cuoco] came up with. The episode ended on the line, ‘I think someone is pretending to be me,’ but we all felt too dun, dun, DUN! We are not Law & Order, but we also aren’t Search Party. Kaley thought we would have a reaction to that line, so we did a take where she said the line, and Deniz and I didn’t respond right away. That’s how it got to Cassie yelling at us, “Hello?!” That was something that came on the day out of the moment. There are moments that are too heavy if we let it sit, and we circle back to allow for comedy. I love living in that space as an actor. It’s the most alive.”
Mamet and I agreed that tension is such a contributing factor to comedy in a show like this. You laugh sometimes to alleviate how uncomfortable you feel.
“We have that release, because, otherwise, you’d implode. You have to take the lid off the boiling pot. That’s the most fun and most human place to be. When you push people to the limit and then give them a moment of release and catharsis and then you push them again, that makes viewers sit forward and engage.”
Cassie’s life can sometimes look like a mess, but Annie is someone who is also getting in her own way. With this second season, we are seeing how both of these women are more alike than maybe they even know. Annie is terrified of committing to her partner, and she only confronts that when one of them is in peril or danger. Annie is seemingly more put-together on the outside, but she lends herself out to self-destructive behavior as much as her best friend does.
“That’s why she’s struggling so hard. It’s very hard to forgive yourself if you aren’t fully able to admit to yourself why. It’s a convoluted way to express it, but something I found so interesting for Annie’s path this year is she is getting in her own way. The biggest way. Cassie is very much in denial, but her trajectory towards that forgiveness is very clearly marked for her. Sobriety involves apologizing and taking the twelve steps. Sure, she relapses and she falls off the wagon, but her way forward is about becoming sober and changing her life. Annie doesn’t know what the first step is, and that is why she is basically a dog chasing her dog. She is so scared to admit what she is afraid of, and that paralyzes her. That’s why she keeps making horrible decisions rather than saying she is afraid of commitment. Annie just keeps hurting this wonderful man who puts up with her and loves her. She only does something when it becomes a crisis of losing him–she’s stuck in the mud of her own making. Change is terrifying.”
At the top of episode six, Annie learns about Cassie’s relapse, and Cassie assumes that her close friend is going to lecture or shame her. In a touching surprise, she offers Cassie a hug and reminds her that her journey to sobriety is a marathon and not a spring. Mamet recalls how deep that friendship truly goes, and she acknowledges that we all have that friend who we would help bury a body with.
“That was a special scene for Kaley and I. We are exceptionally close in real life, so that love and tenderness exists so much between us. We joke that their relationship is the real love story of the show. I believe true, deep friendship–especially when we get older–becomes more and more important. I’ll joke with my best friends that I’d help them bury a body, and I think there is some truth in that. When there is something who you love that much and you are not related to them by blood, you would go to the ends of the earth for that person when they need you. You see so much between Annie and Cassie, and they sometimes feel like sisters. It’s this Groundhog Day of Annie fixing Cassie’s mistakes. There is frustration in those kind of friendships, but there is that boundary that you know when that person genuinely needs you, you are there. No questions asked in any way, shape or form. When I read that scene, I got so excited to film, and I believe it’s an aspect of their friendship that they keep inside. Your best friend shows up when you hit rock bottom, and to see that all that Cassie needs is Annie’s love and support, it’s all that Annie is going to give. There’s no anger, frustration, or condescension. Cassie needed to be loved in that moment, and Annie does that for her. They turn themselves out for each other.”
The Flight Attendant is streaming now on HBO Max.
