RAVE/REC
Spoiler For: Nothing! I made it a virgin drink ;)
It’s another weekend night in the land of quarantine. Your friends are all vaccinated and you’re still waiting for your turn. What to do? How to stay busy? On top of all of that, you’re feeling a little blue...
Then you see it. You’ve remembered it was always there, always an option, but is it a good idea? Maybe a sip? Take the edge off. You know it would be more fun with friends but that’s not an option this time. Just go for it! Maybe you’ll feel a little buzz. Or is the whole thing tacky or worse, a slippery slope? What if it leads to rock bottom... aka watching The Big Bang Theory! Oh, the horror!!
I’m talking about watching The Flight Attendant on HBO, of course, what else did you think?
The premise has us follow Cassie, played by Cuoco, who is basically an international party girl who gets to her destinations by working a couple of shifts as a flight attendant. She drinks too much but man does she enjoy life… until one day when she wakes up to a dead body next to her and because of her drinking, she can’t remember a damn thing. Suddenly Cassie is thrown into a mystery that has her sleuthing about New York City trying to get to the truth of her wild night. She pulls in some pals, plays some dirty tricks, and gets caught up in something much bigger than she anticipated.
It’s been out for a while but I’ve put off watching it because I’ve always been put off by Kaley Cuoco. No hate, but I just associate her with the kind of low-hanging fruit, paint-by-numbers, blah sitcoms that only Chuck Lorre churns out.
But HBO’s programming is like wine-tasting at a fancy vineyard compared to drinking at the Applebee’s that is CBS. Surely this show was delicate, layered, and more refined than I was giving it credit.
So I gave it a shot and took a shot.
The first taste was fun, thrilling, and yes, got me a little buzzed. So I had another. By the second episode, I was feeling my blues dance away. And so I had another...and another...and another. Next thing I knew I had binged nine episodes in two nights. Talk about being a lush. It was all whirlwind. I was drunk on the rush that each episode brought.
When my bender was over I woke up and tried to piece together my memory of the show. I had to ask myself “was it really that good or did the bubbles go to my head?”
A few flashbacks to tropey characters like a sassy gay friend and a sassier black girl did make me cringe, and some graphic violence made me a little queasy, but overall it was worth the TV show hangover.
Kaley Cuoco is kinda amazing in it. Like the girl can act and not just make the same joke about her boobs to a live studio audience for the hundredth time. She is relatable, even as an alcoholic to this semi-teetotaler, and vulnerable. She fucks up, she succeeds, and she keeps going.
The plot is a solid A-. It didn’t reinvent the wheel but it did bring back some classic Hitchcock vibes that went down like smooth a perfectly aged whiskey.
The secondary characters pair nicely and the B plot leaves the door open for a promising second season.
One element to the show that I won’t go into detail because it’s a potential spoil, but for those who’ve watched know how Cassie uncovers some of her memory is a tad bit bizarre. At first, it made me gag. It seemed like a lazy way to dump a bunch of exposition. But it was an acquired taste and once I learned to enjoy it I saw the ways in rich it built the show’s climax into an intense frenzy.
The Flight Attendant is a good time. It will liven up any mundane TV rut you may have gotten yourself into, even if only for one night. I recommend it for a get-together with friends, or even a quiet evening on your own. Just watch responsibly ;)
4 out of 5 Tentacles
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