Conspiracy Theories

"**Conspiracy Theories**" is the fourth episode of the first season of HBO Max's *The Flight Attendant*. It was released on HBO Max on December 3, 2020, along with the following episode "Other People's Houses."

## Synopsis

After literally piecing together evidence from Alex's family home, Cassie follows the paper trail to a private jet service. But she also has to juggle a visit from her brother Davey and his family, unearthing more of her 'unconventional' childhood.

## Plot

### Teaser

Cassie kicks one of her high heels at Miranda Croft and then flees in the opposite direction. Miranda begins pursuit, shoving aside whoever might be in her way in her attempt to reach Cassie. Cassie reaches a security guard on a train, telling him there's a woman chasing her, who might have a weapon. However, at this point, Miranda has given up and disembarked from the train.

### Minute Jets

Cassie returns to Annie's place and pushes the button outside, asking Annie to buzz her up, as she lost the extra key. Annie asks if this is like the ID she didn't lose and Cassie calls it totally different, apologizing for not having messaged her. Annie says that she doesn't know the strings she pulled to help her out that day. Another woman walks up to the door and Cassie asks if she can let her in. Annie calls over the intercom, telling the woman to not let Cassie in. The woman enters, not letting Cassie in, and Cassie buzzes Annie again, telling her that she saw Miranda. Annie finally relents and buzzes Cassie in. She heads up to Annie's apartment, showing her the bag of shredded files she took from the Sokolov home. "Okay, so you got chased by a dangerous criminal and now you're holding a bag of stolen trash," Annie comments. Cassie replies that it was evidence and she's improvising. Annie tells her she knows she's going through a lot and she may be suffering from PTSD. She tells Cassie that she can talk to her about more than just psychotic women and the FBI.

Cassie nods, but then goes into another hallucination in which she is talking with Alex. He suggests she talk to Annie, but she asks where she would even begin. He suggests she start by telling her about her chats with him, but she replies that it would not go over well and everything she's dealing with his messed up. Back in the present, she tells Annie she can't deal with more than one thing at a time. Annie says she's got it and they shake hands. Cassie tells Annie that Miranda's not the person they thought she was, saying that maybe Miranda thinks she knows something from Bangkok. Annie's sort-of boyfriend, Max, comments that the papers in the bag aren't even cross-shredded and it really wouldn't be crazy to tape them together, that he's found weirder things in other people's trash. Annie says they still need to acquire evidence legally and Cassie suggests that if Miranda was on the train, she may have been caught on camera. Annie agrees that she might be able to get some tapes but not to get her hopes up. Max says he got a match and Annie asks him if he's coming to bed. She stays with the shredded papers, however, and Annie tells him to have fun. Meanwhile, Cassie gets a text on her phone from "Bro Bro," asking to meet at her place first thing tomorrow.

She calls him and he immediately picks up, saying that nobody calls back from a text unless it's bad news. She tells him that they can't meet at her place, that somebody broke in. She says that it's okay and that nobody took anything. He asks if somebody really broke in and she promises that she wouldn't lie about something like that. They agree to meet at noon the next day at the aquarium. She then gets another text, this time from Buckley Ware, saying that he's thinking about her and they should get drunk again together sometime. She returns to the shredded papers with Max. They put them all together over food and drinks and Annie discovers them sleeping in the living room the next morning, the assembled papers all hanging together on a line. She admits to herself to being impressed. That morning, Cassie and Max assemble the papers, but nothing stands out immediately to Max except that Alex Sokolov was on the board of one of Lionfish's companies, Minute Jets. They discover that somebody else, "Mi," is also on the board, which could possibly be Miranda. They find some unusual flight activity and Cassie goes into another hallucination. She tells Alex that his mother had said these documents could make him look guilty. She asks if there's something about the weird flights that could have gotten him killed, but he doesn't think it likely. She says that based on the documents, she knows where the flights will be and he asks if she's really going to New Jersey today, given her brother's visit. She tells him time isn't on her side and she has to know what these people are doing. He calls her plan reckless and she says it's noted, but if things go according to plan, she should make it back in time for her dinner with her brother.

### An existential gift for little kids

Back in the real world, Cassie leaves the room, thanking Max for his help. She calls up Megan Briscoe, asking if she moonlights for Minute Jets, but Megan tells her she's with Jetset. She tells her that somebody called Nate flies with them all the time. Cassie does not seem thrilled by this, as Nate is the guy she blew off back at Seoul. Nevertheless, she thanks Megan for the info, saying she's glad they're back to normal. After the call ends, Megan asks her husband to go the car and then intercepts a package left by one of her shady associates. Cassie calls up Nate, who is working out at a gym, saying that she needs a favor, but it's a long story. He tells her he can't do one right now and that she still owes him an apology for her "180 in Seoul." She apologizes and he asks her to meet him once he's done at the gym. She tells him it doesn't need to be an in-person thing, asking if he moonlights for Minute Jets. She asks if he ever takes the main route and he agrees that he does, every day at 3. She asks if he can get her on the flight crew and he replies that it's a weird ask, but he could, but it depends on the reason. She says she can't tell him the reason and he shoots back that he won't jeopardize his gig for her. She tells him she can get him money that will make it worth his while.

Annie meets with a gray-haired woman who immediately lays into her, telling her that their firm has a policy to never approach their clients for favors. Annie starts to apologize to the woman, Diana, and she says that she would hate for this to fall on Annie's shoulders for nothing. Annie agrees that the issue was resolved. Diana tells Annie that she dropped her shield and she owes these people. She warns Annie that whatever they ask her to do will not be pleasant and she doesn't want to know about it. Cassie arrives at the aquarium, where she is warmly embraced by her two young nieces. She hugs her brother and his partner and they enjoy some time looking at the fish. Cassie wants to buy the girls a gift, but Davey tells Cassie that they're trying to teach the girls that they don't get something just because they want it. He tells them that the gift is the experience of being there together. Cassie calls it an existential gift for little kids and tweaks his chin, saying he's mean. She takes a message from Nate warning her the flight takes off at 3 and to not be late. She takes a call from Megan and they discuss some personal business, when Cassie suddenly realizes she has lost track of the girls. Megan doesn't help by discussing a girl named Daphne who got lost and was kidnapped. She starts having flashbacks and hyperventilating, but then finally finds the girls coming out of a play tunnel. She collects herself and the group moves on, her stopping to buy a couple of plush whales away from her brother's eyes. She sneaks them into their backpacks, calling it their secret. Davey talks with Cassie about the apartment break-in. She tells him that she's fine and that she's staying with Annie for now. She promises it's no big deal. He asks if she wants to come back to the hotel to kill time until dinner, but seeing that it's 2:07, she tells him she has to go to a "work thing." They agree they had fun and to see each other at dinner.

Cassie arrives on the plane five minutes before it takes off. She asks Nate what he wants her to do, to make drinks. He tells her to just do the pre-flight and she's good to go, saying everyone's already there. He gestures to indicate that all of the seats are empty, saying he doesn't know how they stay in business and he doesn't want to, so he sees all eight passengers and if anyone asks, she sees them too. "Okay, great," she agrees. The flight takes off and she goes into a hallucination with Alex, asking where all the people are for her to eavesdrop on. He tells her to relax and dance with him and they'll see what happens when they land. He plays a song for her, one she hates, and she tells him she's on one of his planes, doing something illegal. He asks why it has to be illegal and she replies that they surely aren't picking up crates of lobsters. "I'm a guy you met once. Why am I so important?" he asks. She tells him she's not going to say she's falling in love with him because he's dead and that would be insane. She moves to kiss him, but then an announcement comes on, startling her out of the hallucination. Nate tells her he's taking the plane down and to buckle up.

Miranda Croft enters a room, startled to see Victor sitting in a chair there. She startles and curses him and he laughs, saying he has dinner plans and was about to leave, but things worked out. She calls it a nice surprise. "Bangkok," he says, telling her she messed up and he pays her to make sure such things don't become a headache. She tells him she didn't want to bother him with the details and she's already fixing it. He asks if she got back what Alex took and found out who "this woman" works for and what she knows. He says that while she's been busy *not* cleaning things up, things have become complicated, that Janet Sokolov is threatening to freeze their remaining cash. He asks just what she has that can help and she speaks of Cassandra Bowden, saying she's not buying her story about simply being a flight attendant. "And does she have my personal property?" asks Victor. Miranda admits that she doesn't know... yet. He tells her that it's not her problem anymore, that she's on the way back to London. She pleads for him not to sideline her, that it's her problem to fix, but he tells her he already has a contingency plan in place. He tells her he'll be unhappy if he ever sees her near Cassie again. He warns her not to make this one of her obsessions and to just get to London. He leaves, telling her to "travel safe." Meanwhile, Cassie's flight lands. She looks outside and sees some men unloading some containers. She asks Nate what's in them, but he tells her they pay them not to care and she pays him not to care why she really wanted to be on this flight. She pulls out an envelope and hands it to him, continuing to spy on the containers. He exits the plane and enters a room, so she leaves the plane too and opens up one of the containers. She sees something with a security number inside, when suddenly Nate approaches her from behind. He asks if she wants to finish what they started in Seoul and she tells him that he scared her. He moves for a kiss, but she fends him off. He tells her to relax, saying she shouldn't have gotten off the plane. She tells him she has dinner reservations at 8 and intends to be early. She asks him to get back in the cockpit so they can leave.

### The dead-cat guy

They both get back on the plane and she looks up the number she saw, which comes back as a M297-BA battery pack, which is designed to operate in tough conditions and is used in rocket launchers. In her office, Annie asks a woman where they are with the MTA footage and she tells her that they said they wouldn't be able to pull it without raising red flags. "Great," Annie replies, "I'm gonna need a different answer than that." She takes a call from Cassie, who tells her that there was nobody on the plane and that she thinks she might know what Alex was doing that got him killed. She tells Annie what she found, but Annie claims a terrible connection, not wanting to hear any of it and says to call her when she gets on the ground. Back on Megan's place, her husband tells her to do him a favor and not use eBay anymore with his laptop. He says it's gotten ridiculously slow and probably has a virus. "Maybe you should speak to your son about that, Bill," she suggests. She tells him she saw him watching highly graphic porn on it. Bill is dubious, saying that his son isn't even old enough to know what that is. Megan replies that he's 15 and surely has been watching porn for at least five years now and if it wasn't him, then somebody else left the browser open on the porno site. He shouts for his son, Eli, walking away, and Megan breathes a sigh of relief.

Cassie meets Davey at the restaurant, saying he's a few minutes late. She asks him where Rick and the girls are and he says they're back at the hotel. She asks why, if everything is okay, and he pulls out one of the plush whales. She asks if he's mad that she bought a gift for her nieces. He asks if he heard her tell them no and she replies that she didn't think it was that big of a deal. He shakes his head and she says he's overreacting, that her co-worker lets her kid ride on the front of her car when it's hot out. She says it's just a stuffed animal and he counters that it's a secret she asked his kids to keep from him. He says that she and their father had their secret codes and friendship that made them feel special. He says that making his kids like him less won't make them love her more. She replies that he's making her that bad guy and it's sad because she felt close to him today. He tells he shows up drunk and Dad pulled the same stuff. She replies she wasn't drunk and he throws this in her face all the time, so she's immune to it. He asks if she was drunk at the aquarium. She shouts that everyone's drunk to him. A man comes up, saying he's going to have to ask them to keep their voices down or they can go outside. They agree they're done. He walks away. She shouts after him, and pursues him, asking if he's really just going to walk away in the middle of a conversation. They argue some more about his issues with their father, and he asks how he was supposed to feel when their father called her the son he never had. He accuses her of rewriting their past and she asks if she rewrote the part where he left when he was 18, leaving her with nobody. He says she's got that right, that he got out of there as fast as he could. She tells him she doesn't remember it and he says he hoped he'd remember things the way they really were. He gets into a cab, saying maybe he was just lying to himself.

She goes into a flashback in which she's in an egg-and-spoon race with Davey. Her father knocked Davey down, telling him "let your sister win." Cassie talks to Alex, saying this isn't how it was, that she won the race and she and her father had fun together. "This doesn't look like fun," comments Alex and she says it's not how it went down. He asks why it's there in her head if that's so. She insists that it's not what happened. Back in the real-world, she places a call to Annie, but sobs when it just goes to her voicemail. She calls Shane, but he refuses the call, sending her to his voicemail as well. Aggravated, she hangs up the phone, goes over Buckley Ware's place and knocks on his door. He smiles widely and she kisses him intensely. Meanwhile, Miranda Croft visits Sabrina Oznowich. She asks what she's doing there, telling her she didn't say anything, then backpedals, saying that she did, but she was drunk. Miranda says that it's alright, that she only stopped by for a "chat" about the woman she met with. She says she brought her cupcakes to share. Sabrina tells her it's not a good time, but she enters the apartment anyway. Cassie finishes having sex with Buckley and grabs herself a drink. He comes up behind her, startling her, and she asks if he's serious, if this is what it's like to date an actor. He asks if they're dating and she says it's a nice try, but they're not. She points out his stuffed animals and she asks what that's about. He mentions that she has a thing for animals too, and he says he's always been obsessed with animals and can't even watch a movie where a dog gets hurt. "Same," agrees Cassie. He says he wishes he could have pets in his apartments, that he took in all the stray cats as a kid. He tells her there was a giant oak tree in his family's front yard and one day he came home and someone had hung all the cats from a limb. Cassie is shocked, asking who would do that.

She slips into a hallucination in which she and Alex are watching Buckley talking on a television screen. "How do you rebound from me to him?" he asks. She says that maybe it's not about him, asking if he can imagine a world where everything's not about him. She says he's jealous but he counters that she's mad at her brother and trying to drown it out with "dead-cat guy." She turns off the TV, saying that the dead-cat guy doesn't have his name all over a Jersey to Maine smuggling conspiracy. He says she doesn't know that's what was happening, but she counters that it sure looks like it. He asks how he's supposed to know. "Ask, Sabrina," he suggests. Cassie nods, saying that maybe she'll talk now that she has all this new info. Back in reality, she tells Buckley that she just remembered she has to see Sabrina. He says he shouldn't have told her the story and she agrees that while the story was horrible, it's not why she's leaving. She apologizes and kisses him, saying she'll text him. She takes a train and heads to Sabrina's place, knocking on the door. She pleads with her to open the door. A man tells her to keep it down, but she leaves, shouting at him to call the cops and tell them to come right now. She calls 911, but it is too late. Sabrina's dead body falls on the ground outside, right next to her. Her jaw drops in shock.

## Cast

### Starring

* Kaley Cuoco as Cassandra "Cassie" Bowden

* Michiel Huisman as Alex Sokolov
* Zosia Mamet as Annie Mouradian
* T.R. Knight as Davey Bowden
* Michelle Gomez as Miranda Croft
* Colin Woodell as Buckley Ware
* Merle Dandridge as Kim Hammond (credit only)
* Griffin Matthews as Shane Evans
* Nolan Gerard Funk as Van White (credit only)

and

* Rosie Perez as Megan Briscoe

### Guest starring

* Deniz Akdeniz as Max
* Ritchie Coster as Victor
* Isha Blaaker as Nate
* Jason Jones as Hank Bowden
* Stephanie Koenig as Sabrina
* Terry Serpico as William "Bill" Briscoe
* Audrey Grace Marshall as Young Cassandra Bowden
* Owen Asztalos as Young Davey Bowden
* David Iacono as Eli Briscoe
* William DeMeritt as Rick Green

and

* Bebe Neuwirth as Diana Carlisle

### Co-starring

* Alyssa Cheatham as Eve Bowden-Green
* Samsara Yett as Maya Bowden-Green
* Sherin Shetty as Jennifer
* Barbara Kingsley as Mrs. Hassler
* Dave Maulbeck as Angry Neighbor
* Caitlin Cisco as Waitress
* Matt. W. Cody as Maitre'd
* Amelia Windom as 911 Operator
* Bruce Baek as Hak Oh'Seong
* Mary Jo Mecca as Assistant
* Teresa Meza as Transit Cop #1
* Ryan Scott Thomas as Transit Cop #2