1 day ago
1
In Flight ★★★½
The first instalment of this six-part British crime thriller sets out to batter the audience, not only into submission but also out of their willingness to latch onto any skerrick of hope.
It’s a brutal yet thoughtful opening gambit, which begins like an impressionistic memory or a hazy recap from a previous episode you haven’t seen: English flight attendant Jo Conran (Katherine Kelly) finds herself in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, where her estranged 19-year-old son, Sonny (Harry Cadby), has been arrested for the murder of a young local man after a bar fight.
Katherine Kelly puts on a showcase performance in this new British crime thriller.Credit:
“I didn’t do anything,” protests the wan Sonny, who definitely doesn’t look like he’ll survive this remake of Banged Up Abroad. Single mother Jo diligently hires a lawyer and endures the media attention, but the real crisis is the appearance of the utterly menacing Cormac Kelleher (Stuart Martin). A fixer for an anonymous drug syndicate, he coolly explains that Jo, who flies constantly and is mostly ignored by British customs, must smuggle heroin for his employers or Sonny will be murdered in jail. Cormac demonstrates his ability to do so with horrifying ease.
Loading
Creators Adam Randall (Slow Horses) and Mike Walden (Concordia) are interested in the psychology of resilience. Jo doesn’t appear to have a hope against the always-lurking Cormac, but she has no choice but to find a way out. A weekly smuggling run, even with the specially made suitcase and instructions Cormac provided, means the odds are against her lasting the 15 years Sonny is facing. Every sniffer dog, their husky panting echoing in her ears, could mean her arrest and her son losing his life.
Kelly has done fine work in Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack and the like, but this is a showcase performance and she carries the series. Her Jo is a realist, accepting that she has to co-operate, but she takes the blackmail and death threats personally. She’s smart and resourceful, even with discovery constantly hanging over her. Her resistance isn’t always heroic. Does she involve her married ex-boyfriend Dom Delaney (Ashley Thomas), a customs officer, with good intentions or cruel expediency? What cost – or who – is acceptable to keep Sonny safe?
Flight attendant Jo Conran is blackmailed into smuggling heroin to protect her teenage son Sonny (Harry Cadby).Credit: SBS On Demand
As with SBS On Demand’s Code of Silence, the 2025 British crime thriller about a deaf woman whose lip-reading skills get her entangled in a police investigation, In Flight focuses on the kind of character traditionally left on the storytelling margins. Bending Jo is a task Cormac is meant to simply tick off. “This is your life now,” he tells her, “make peace with it.” But her defiance and subterfuge are genuine, and decidedly vengeful. Jo and Dom start following Cormac, piecing together his shadowy life, and you realise that in another dimension she would have made a dogged investigator.
The narrative keeps adding telling details and small insights. The depiction of Jo and her fellow flight attendants, a de facto travelling clan, skips past the usual clichés. Jo puts on a welcoming face as she works first class – she’s no “coach roach” – and the ability to perform is something that she calls on when facing Cormac or a random customs check. The circumstances always butt up against the implausible, but the visceral emotions ground the storytelling even as it tests your stamina. Jo and Sonny’s relationship changes, but Jo also learns to leverage the power she has as a valuable courier.
It’s not just a high school chemistry teacher who can break bad.
In Flight premieres on SBS and SBS On Demand at 9.15pm on January 8.
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
Most Viewed in Culture
Loading
