The Flight Attendant boss discusses the Season 1 finale and the possibility of a Season 2

Variety

Variety asked showrunner Steve Yockey about a potential Season 2, especially since Kaley Cuoco has been lobbying hard for it in interviews. "Our initial mission was to create an adventure for Cassie that had a beginning, middle and an end," he says. "So my main concern was that her character arc — her journey, her internal journey and her investigation into what happened to Alex — had a complete, dramatic, satisfying ending in Episode 8. So I think that the way forward, really, for us if we decide to do another one is that it would be another adventure for Cassie, much like a Hitchcock character: how did she stumble into another misadventure and get caught up in it? That’s the fun of it for us. It’s not as if getting drunk and sleeping with a guy in Bangkok means you deserve to wake up next to a dead body; she’s not being morally punished for her behavior. It may look a little different because she’s really trying to live a sober life and make better choices, but you saw in the show she chooses the crazy thing a lot of the time and that doesn’t all have to do with alcohol."

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• The Flight Attendant really needs to have a second season: "At some point the word 'miniseries' went out of fashion, and the 'limited series' was born," says Allison Keane. "Ostensibly it meant the same thing, but how studios and networks chose to actually define it became 'limited unless we say otherwise.' If a limited series—often a short run of episodes that features movie stars or other A-list types who don’t want to be tied down by endless network seasons ahead of them—proved popular enough, it would continue. Sometimes as an anthology (with a new story or a new cast) or sometimes creating a reason to get the gang all back together, for better or worse (like Big Little Lies Season 2, which is an example of 'for worse'). So every time a great limited series ends on a high note, as most do (as they were designed to do, as many are adapted from novels) there is an immediate call for more. Mostly, it’s a bad idea. Would I like to see more of The Queen’s Gambit? Of course I would. But it’s perfect the way it is—please don’t touch it. TV fans shouldn’t always be given what we ask for, yet it makes sense that if something actually manages to break through the deluge of Peak TV and cause a clamor for more, networks would hurry to oblige. In the case of The Flight Attendant’s 'limited' status though, its finale ('Arrivals and Departures') actually sets up a second season pretty obviously."
• Kaley Cuoco on the possibility of a Season 2: “If we don’t move forward, I think it was tied up enough that we can leave the characters alone,” she says. “But we’ve been chatting, and I think a second season feels right.”
• Cuoco wanted Cassie to drink more: "Something I fought for was to have Cassie drink more," she tells The New York Times. "Sometimes the network thought Cassie was drinking too much, and I kept saying, 'This girl, she is a functioning alcoholic.' I know a functioning alcoholic, and when they’re not drinking is when they’re actually at their worst. Cassie drinks all day. I didn’t want it to feel like she was drinking every second, but she steals those little bottles to survive the day. Even when she’s drinking, I wanted to make sure Cassie wasn’t sloppy all the time. She does have her act together in some ways, but there’s a lot going on in her mind."
• Showrunner Steve Yockey explains the changes from the book