The Flight Attendant Ending, Explained

One of the most typical characteristics of a good mystery thriller is an open-ended ending, and series creator Steve Yockey (‘Supernatural’) manages to achieve just that with the finale of ‘The Flight Attendant.’ It offers solid answers to most of the questions that the show posed throughout the season and then introduces new mysteries that can keep its audiences busy with speculations for a long while. ‘The Flight Attendant’ gives its titular character a sense of completion, all the while bringing to her new possibilities. SPOILERS AHEAD.

The Flight Attendant Finale Recap

Episode 8, titled ‘Arrivals & Departures’, begins with Cassie Bowden (Kaley Cuoco) reluctantly agreeing to Miranda’s (Michelle Gomez) plans to trap her former lover and legitimate psychopath Buckley (Colin Woodell). However, when Miranda learns that Victor is still in the US, she realizes that she has to take the opportunity and eliminate him. Their conversation reveals how Buckley killed Alex (Michiel Huisman), showing that he takes real pleasure from his gruesome job. Victor tries to surprise Miranda by pulling out his own gun but only manages to hit her leg. She, however, shoots him point-blank on the chest, killing him.

Miranda’s detour leads her to miss the flight. When Cassie reaches Rome, she discovers that Buckley has been waiting for her. She successfully gets away by claiming to other passengers and airport security that he was attacking her. Buckley later has a confrontation with Miranda, during which he incapacitates her and puts her in the bathtub of Cassie’s hotel room as he waits for her to return. Back in the US, Annie (Zosia Mamet) finally believes that what Cassie has been saying all along is true and reveals everything to the FBI agent Kim Hammond (Merle Dandridge), prompting the latter to reach out through her network to find help for Cassie.

However, all this is already too late as Cassie has returned to her room with her Italian friend Enrico (Alberto Frezza) and the gun they acquired from his grandmother’s home. Enrico gets stabbed in the ensuing tussle, but Cassie manages to get hold of the gun and shoot Buckley. Shane arrives out of nowhere and puts another bullet into Buckley. Surprisingly, no one dies in the final moments of the series. Both Enrico and Buckley are taken to hospital, while Miranda vanishes after ensuring Cassie is safe.

The Flight Attendant Ending

In the finale, Cassie is finally forced to admit that she has a drinking problem. Her conversation with Enrico’s grandmother makes her realize that she has been repeating the mistake her father had made. She knows that part of it is driven by the guilt that she feels for her father’s death. Cassie finally learns to forgive herself for that as well. During one of her visions with Alex, she is back at the accident site.

However, this time, Cassie consoles her younger self, telling her that what happened to their father isn’t her fault. Through this admission, she finds catharsis, and ultimately, her way out of alcoholism. When she meets Annie at the diner, she has already earned a chip and has been to a couple of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Megan Absconds

After realizing the extent of her own foolishness, Megan (Rosie Perez) decides that she has to make things right for her family. The show doesn’t give her a satisfactory ending as it does Cassie. In her final scenes of the season, Megan is shown to be boarding a train to somewhere while talking to her son and telling him that she loves him. She leaves, among other things, a USB device for her husband. It is likely filled with data that she took from his computer.

By every definition, Megan has unknowingly committed treason against the US government for North Korea. In fact, Shane, a CIA agent, was assigned to keep an eye on her. Her path back to redemption will be even steeper than what Cassie had to take. Interestingly, the two of them, trapped in their surreal and impossible situations, ultimately find camaraderie in each other. They tell one another their deepest, darkest secrets, which, in turn, gives them the courage to deal with their respective problems.

Who Has Access to The Money?

After she kills Victor, Miranda retrieves Alex’s copy of ‘Crime and Punishment.’ She rips out the page where Alex wrote the necessary information about the account and secretly returns the book to Cassie while she is busy talking with Annie. Inside the book, Cassie finds a note, in which Miranda writes that they will see each other again. Although Victor is dead, the rest of the organization seems too big to go down with one man.

With access to the money, Miranda can now potentially negotiate with them or any other interested party from a position of power. Her transition from a cold-blooded killer to a woman who genuinely cares about others has been quite remarkable. Despite this, Miranda is still a very dangerous person, and the other high-ranking officers in the organization will not make the same mistakes that Victor made. She also has an uphill battle in front of her.

A New CIA Recruit

It is quite possible that a real relationship might not have worked between Alex and Cassie, if the former had lived. But Cassie has developed real feelings for her idea of Alex. After she says her farewell to Alex’s projection, she visits that hotel room one last time in her mind. As the lights start switching off around her, she picks up the copy of ‘Crime and Punishment.’

That piece of Alex will remain with Cassie as she moves forward with her life. Shane recruits her as a CIA asset. His superiors apparently have become interested in Cassie after noticing how resourceful she is during her latest ordeal. They might even be planning to send her after Megan.