Fleabag, along with its creator/lead actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge, was something I heard about long before I saw it. Because I read a lot of feminist pop-culture media, it was on my radar as an Important Show, and Waller-Bridge an Important Voice. The main reason I didn’t get to it sooner was the “so many shows, so little time” issue, but now having finally watched it, I can say it lives up to the hype.
Our protagonist, never named onscreen but listed in the credits as the titular Fleabag, is a young woman messily trying to hold it together after her life is upended by a tragedy. After the unexpected death of her best friend, Fleabag struggles to keep the cafĂ© they started together afloat on her own, sabotages her relationships while jumping into self-destructive sexual encounters, and keeps the world at arm’s length while simultaneously wanting to be let in.
This is the sort of show where it’s hard to really describe what it’s about in terms of plot. Instead, it’s about the characters, their inner struggles, and their relationships with one another. Fleabag is the one everyone holds up as being a mess, even as she badly insists she’s doing great, but no one else has it together all that well, either. Her sister Claire is a tightly-wound problem-solver who’s checked all the boxes on paper (thriving career, well-married) but who’s both personally and professionally unsatisfied, and her father has been struggling to relate to both girls after their mother died of cancer (and he got together with their godmother, which doesn’t help matters.) It makes sense that it’s so character-driven and delves so much into their psyches – Fleabag herself is constantly breaking the fourth wall to share an insight or a suggestive eyebrow-raise – since the story began its life as a one-woman play Waller-Bridge wrote and starred in before being it was adapted into a TV show.
The series is a lot of things. It’s outrageously funny, unapologetically filthy, and daringly vulnerable. Fleabag is just as likely to wreak havoc at a silent retreat, seethe as Claire derails Fleabag’s attempt to help her out for once at a clutch moment, or christen a sexual partner “Arsehole Guy” for more reasons than one. It’s easy to get drawn into the wreckage and root for Fleabag to get her life back on track. Because, despite a lot of cynicism and evasiveness, she is trying. It’s start-and-stop, but she wants to connect with people. She wants to be there for people. She doesn’t want to feel empty. It’s just so damn hard.
Also, I love how specific the humor and bizarre slice-of-life moments are. Whether it’s Fleabag’s horrified realization of how gorgeous she looks at her mother’s funeral or her father constantly buying Fleabag and Claire tickets to feminist lectures instead of spending time with them, the series frequently avoids tropes and instead goes for these incredibly-detailed nuggets you probably haven’t seen on TV before.
Obviously, Waller-Bridge’s performance as Fleabag is the biggest attraction here. In the center role, she’s by turns cheeky, infuriating, raunchy, defensive, and raw, and she holds your attention the whole time she’s onscreen. Sian Clifford hits every neurotically-precise note as Claire, and the show also features Bill Paterson (a Scottish Hey, It’s That Guy!, but I remember him best as the dad in The Crow Road) and Olivia Colman (now an Oscar winner, thanks to The Favourite) as Fleabag’s dad and godmother. Plus, I want to highlight Andrew Scott (Moriarty himself,) who joins the cast in the second season as a priest that Fleabag forms an unexpected connection with. As with the show’s surprising humor and offbeat plot points, I love how I can never expect what the Priest is going to say/do or how he and Fleabag are going to interact. While the character has no major traits in common with Moriarty, the connective tissue between the two is the unpredictable flair that Scott brings to his acting. Season 1 is excellent, but I’m even fonder of season 2 due to the scenes that he and Waller-Bridge share.
Warnings
Sexual content, violence, language (including the C-word,) drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements (including suicide and references to eating disorders.)
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