The Flight Attendant is one of those shows that you tell your friends “Oh, you have to watch it, it’s so fun.” The zippy HBO Max stars The Big Bang Theory’s Kaley Cuoco (who also executive-produces) in a career-redefining role that takes her extroverted Penny persona and adds an emotional range to it. Cuoco plays Cassie Bowden, an alcoholic flight attendant with a penchant for getting herself in trouble. Season 1 starts with her getting caught up in an international murder mystery after waking up next to a murdered one-night stand, while Season 2 finds her sober and side-hustling for the CIA, but still plagued by personal demons while she tries catch a killer who seems to be impersonating her.
Season 2 recently came to a close, and you probably can’t wait for more. But we have some potentially bad news — there are no plans for Season 3 at the moment. Kaley Cuoco recently said that if The Flight Attendant comes back for Season 3, it won’t be any time soon. “I think for me, at this moment, the plane has landed,” she told People, though she left the door wide open for more, should an idea come along that makes her feel like she has to put her uniform back on.
You
You and The Flight Attendant are cousins. They’re both executive-produced by Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter, and share key behind-the-camera talent, like the awesomely named director Silver Tree. And the connections between the shows are spiritual as well as familial. They’re both super-fun thrillers that refuse to take themselves too seriously, blending twisty suspense plots with hilarious dark humor, though You is darker than The Flight Attendant, as its main character Joe Goldberg (Gossip Girl alum Penn Badgley) is a sociopathic serial killer. The Flight Attendant and You are doing a very specific “comedic thriller based on a series of novels with a career-redefining performance from its star” thing that no other shows are doing right now. -Liam Mathews [Trailer]
Sharp Objects
Let’s bring the mood down right away with Sharp Objects, the eerie, atmospheric adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s debut novel. Amy Adams stars as Camille Preaker, an alcoholic reporter who goes back to her small Missouri hometown to investigate the murders of two young girls. Camille has a history of self-harm, and memories of her own trauma bubble to the surface once she’s reunited with her cold but overbearing mother (Patricia Clarkson). While Sharp Objects lacks the delirious fun of The Flight Attendant, there are shades of Camille in Cassie — they both self-medicate to cope with their pain, and they’ve both carried their troubled relationships with their mothers into adulthood. It’s an incredibly dark series, but gorgeous, fully realized, and totally worth your time. [Trailer]
Search Party
It’s hard to describe Search Party, a show that boldly switches genres every season and ends in a completely different place than the one it starts, but let me try: After learning about the disappearance of a college classmate, listless Brooklynite Dory (Alia Shawkat) and her three friends make it their business to track the missing girl down, and everything kind of spins out of control from there. The first two seasons vibrate with a darkly comedic Flight Attendant-esque spirit as Dory and company get embroiled in a crime they absolutely do not have the coping skills or general intelligence to handle, and the final three seasons deal with courtroom drama, psychological torture, and, eventually, cults. And if you appreciate The Flight Attendant’s Hitchcockian elements, you’ll enjoy Search Party, which at different points pulls inspiration from Vertigo, Psycho, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. [Trailer]
Killing Eve
If you love the psychological aspects of The Flight Attendant, meet Killing Eve, a show all about mind games. Sandra Oh plays Eve, an MI5 agent obsessed with tracking down an assassin (Jodie Comer) who calls herself Villanelle. It’s a true game of cat and mouse as Villanelle goes to increasingly complicated and dangerous lengths to evade Eve while also harboring a growing infatuation with her, and in the seasons that follow, the two women suffer personal and professional consequences as they invest all their energy into getting closer to each other. While the show’s ending was, uh, controversial, the rest is a twisty, absorbing thrill ride. [Trailer]
The Afterparty
All your favorites comedians got together and made a murder mystery show, isn’t that great? Like if Knives Out were made for the improv crowd, The Afterparty stars Ben Schwartz, Sam Richardson, Ilana Glazer, Ike Barinholtz, Jamie Demetriou, and more as a group of people who become the lead suspects in the investigation into the murder of a pop star (and their high school classmate), played by Dave Franco, after he’s killed at the afterparty for their reunion. (John Early and Tiffany Haddish play the cops looking into it.) Each episode spotlights a different character’s potential motive, and it all adds up a silly whodunnit that’s very watchable and doesn’t take itself too seriously. [Trailer]
Only Murders in the Building
For another light mystery about sad people, Only Murders in the Building is the ideal next watch. Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez star as a trio of neighbors who join forces to investigate a murder in their opulent Upper West Side apartment building, which they report on via their true crime podcast. Their fumbling incompetence will surely remind you of Cassie, and the incredibly charming performances from Martin, Short, and Gomez are as essential to Only Murders as Cuoco’s is to The Flight Attendant.
Dead to Me
A lot of the shows on this list are about what happens when ordinary people become involved in a crime, and Dead to Me is very much about that, but similarly to The Flight Attendant, it’s also a show about how people process (or, in some cases, repress) grief. After Jen’s (Christina Applegate) husband dies in a hit-and-run, she decides to join a support group, where she meets Judy (Linda Cardellini), who claims her fiancé has also recently passed away. As their friendship deepens, secrets are exposed, and Jen and Judy get in over their heads trying to cover up and justify their actions. It’s darkly comedic and smartly written, balancing its many twists and turns with well-executed commentary on dealing with loss. [Trailer]
The Undoing
Is The Undoing kind of goofy? Yes. Is that part of what makes it so enjoyable to watch? Also yes. The miniseries is the second TV collaboration between creator David E. Kelley and Nicole Kidman (their first was Big Little Lies). Here, Kidman plays Grace, a psychologist whose husband, played by Hugh Grant, is named as the prime suspect in the killing of a young woman, which he fervently denies. While Cassie regularly communicates with the deceased spirit of Alex (Michiel Huisman) throughout The Flight Attendant’s first season, Grace is tortured by visions of the murder as she descends further into a state of paranoia. If you like watching a well-dressed woman absolutely lose her mind as a result of being adjacent to a murder, this is the show for you. [Trailer]
