Fleabag

I thought the new episode last night was just as good as the first series, maybe a few too many looks to the camera from Waller-Bridge but overall it was excellent

I'm a sucker for awkward family dark comedy scenes and I can't think of any other shows that do them better off the top of my head. Maybe Flowers

omg this is back on?

ahhhh

It was BBC2 last time around wasn't it.
Was surprised it was BBC1 when i couldn't find it. Said it was a BBC3 production but I think series 1 must have post dated that being a cable channel mustn't it?

Last night's episode on BBC1 was part of what they called a 'BBC3 takeover' on BBC1.

Also, it was my first brush with this series and I thought it was great.

really? I would have thought you would need to have seen the 1st series to fully understand what was going on.

I enjoyed the ep too.

It took three minutes to get who was who at the dinner table, after that it was guns blazing.

I actually thought the dinner scene in series 1 (ep 6) was better than this one.

I really loved that restaurant bathroom.

Yeah, this is as good as the first season! She's awful talented.

holy shit, tonight's episode and particularly the last scene. So much of it was great, Kristin Scott-Thomas! Fleeing the scene but checking out a hot guy as she fled was amaze. But that last scene! Veeeeery interesting!

Does anyone need any exclamation marks? I've got loads!

Wait, there's a new season?! In the US yet?

Oh, not until May.

coff coff tvchaosuk coff coff

Oh for sure I could watch it any number of places, but I have a backlog so might as well wait.

Yeah, this is as good as the first season!

Better. It's lighter on its feet, sharper.

It's relying less on the sex for shock/humour value

I was confused because I think she's performing her original stage version right now in New York

Glad she's got a potential love interest who actually feels worthy of her in the (unnamed?) priest (also KST I guess).

god this show would be a disaster with anyone but PW-B in the lead. ep 2.3 was a riot but it takes a real talent to pull off some of these asides and reaction shots without coming off like a complete prat

Last minute of episode 3 was strange, in a good way. Her breaking the 4th wall, him noticing her doing it, or being somehow absent, which just causes her to do it again...

Is the logical conclusion of this an episode completely directed at us? Would that work?

(It is 2am)

i guess my take was that she's talking to "god" (which is us) in those asides and he is somehow attuned to that, so her self-referential meta self which allows for everything to be taken ironically (and thus bearably) is threatened by him as an interloper... kinda like if someone could read your mind

It's relying less on the sex for shock/humour value

Yeah and it's really ramping up how horrible the family dynamic is. Her relationship with her sister is my favourite thing about the show.

I saw it more as he was the first person who actually paid genuine attention to her and so he noticed that she was tuning out; whether she's tuning out to an inner voice/her PTSD/running self-commentary/God is left neatly ambiguous. And yes, that definitely will have a huge impact on her, because she's used to operating in the totally-ignored-until-acts-out space

A friend thinks she’s talking to Boo (which I don’t think is a spoiler, put like that).

That was more or less my reading stet. A hint that perhaps her talking to the audience is in fact a symptom of the characters' bubbling under mental illness issues, or a coping mechanism, putting her at slight ironic remove from life.

xpost

Anyway, it was a very well done moment that could have been awful in less skilled hands.

In the early episodes I thought the asides were either a piss-take of Miranda or the result of a BBC editor insisting she Mirandafy it 10%. Either way*, it's interesting to she her subvert it.

(*or neither way)

i'd have thought it's an extrapolation of eye-rolling that cynical people do and it's about those kinds of people never really being present therefore the lived experience is always being turned around and made a version of itself for future consumption. it's also about being isolated and having to be yourself and the other you imagine being seen through the eyes of.

xp yeah me too, took me a while to get on board with them and all the lol sex wisecracks

I assumed the audience asides come straight from the stage show

They do and it's a more theatrical gesture than a televisual one since the audience is right there. Doing it on a TV show isn't that unusual but thinking but the shift makes it interesting, it goes from being you to ...who?

this is the best tv show of all time

I personally find the priest character a difficult to believe but have enough faith in FWB to think that he's supposed to be - or that he's not supposed to be but we'll find out later why is like he is and i'll suddenly believe in him.

On the other hand, Killing Eve was not believable, to me, in any way really (I saw two episodes). I do not want to be condescending, and apologies if it sounds so BUT I wonder If Martin McDonagh put her up to writing a serial killer thing which does not seem to be her register at all, based on the episodes I forced myself to finish.

People either loved or hated that, I know. the standard crit that it was "all over the place" is what I felt about it. So many things seemed like they were supposed to be funny but were not at all, for me.

I love the asides and the extremity of it all

I don't think Killing Eve was supposed to be "believable." I liked it for its stylishness, seductiveness and acting.

what's an unbelievable serial killer drama other than that, though?

I mean, what is it other than unbelievable? Reckless, gratuitous, pointless, dangerous? Ah, right, entertaining.

also, stylish, which it wasn't.

Sorry, I know I'm talking to myself here but and no offence is intended to anyone that liked it but... what's the intention in making a TV show about a female serial killer (which there are a notably small number of) and making it (allegedly) stylish and funny? FWB is a good writer but she had just started going out with a man that makes notably misjudged, but highly praised, serial killing/revenge "comedies" when she came out with KE.

a lot of notably's there.

Ugh, no, not the ‘woman takes on new partner’s interests by osmosis’ thing and BTW although she likes her job, Villanelle is better described as a contract killer.

how much were the books written in that tone? I haven't read them but got the impression they were 'irreverent' or what have you

No idea, but it’s worth remembering that until very recently, Luke Jennings was the Guardian’s very underemployed dance critic.

ug myself a bit of a hole there. ignore those posts, i was steaming.

dug

ohhh, I didn't know who she was dating. something new to look up.

although i've seen plenty of people in the performance writing/creating world partner off and whose work gets suddenly bad because both sides of the partnership start to agree with each other too much and privately clearly do so much more. that's what i was trying to get at, i think, but it's midsjudged up there. apologies.

xpost

i loved Killing Eve but actually just popped in here to say how wonderful this series of Fleabag is. It’s touching and funny and really really smart.

and the performances and script are better than ever.

I'm rewatching s1 - the idea that she's talking to Boo is tempting but doesn't actually make much sense. In the pilot she introduces us to a bunch of characters Boo would already have known.

what's the intention in making a TV show about a female serial killer (which there are a notably small number of) and making it (allegedly) stylish and funny

whatever the intention, it might as well be ascribed to Sally Woodward Gentle, who optioned the books and commissioned PWB to develop the adaptation. She's certainly gone for "stylish and funny" aproaches to serious and murdery material in the past.

I'm ashamed enough about those posts!

<3

fwiw, Villanelle seemed styled rather than stylish. the pink puffy dress etc. is just a costume designer's project that would have been reigned in by a competent director.

again, saw 2 episodes so that might be bollocks.

but with regard to the theatre/tv binary discussed upthread, costuming of that sort the kind of thing you can do in the theatre.

or in a Peter Greenaway film.

I've just caught up and this season is tremendous imo

Anyone still complaining about her poshness can STFU, tonight’s was INCREDIBLE.

When I heard they were making a second season I didn't think it was a good idea. The first season seemed like such a neat open-and-shut story that it would be a mistake to try to follow it up. I no longer understand why I thought that.

I feel like I could easily watch a hundred episodes tbh

i'm not sure i could take a hundred episodes of that. you tune in expecting 30 minutes of quirky comedy and then she does her little monologue...

she's too good for this creepy priest! it can't possibly end well, I just wanted her to get out.

^

I was so disappointed in the priest at the end. I know I should have seen it coming, but fuck off

oh i haven’t seen the latest ep yet. will stay off thread. but yes he was clearly creepy.

I was so disappointed in the priest at the end. I know I should have seen it coming, but fuck off

I was just relieved it wasn't worse, tbh.

YOU HAD 1 JOB

If that’s creepy, I want more creepiness in my life.

kneel

just started watching this. 3 eps in. enjoying it. i think i've spotted a plot point - she is the one who had sex with her friend's boyfriend, that provoked the suicide/manslaughter incident

Yeah that was covered in series one. I can't remember if he was Boo's boyfriend or just a guy she fancied

she's too good for this creepy priest! it can't possibly end well, I just wanted her to get out.

My feelings exactly

Anyone else think that this series is more of a drama than a comedy?

iirc S1 took a real turn around ep 4 where it was clear that it was aiming to be more ambitious than "just" a comedy. this season that ambition feels baked in from the beginning.

Just remembering the moment in the first ep of this season around the restaurant table where literally no one in her family had realised that Claire isn't a lawyer

Anyone else think that this series is more of a drama than a comedy?

i agree and i don't care. the first series was great, and this is even sharper.

I think the first series def tried harder to be a comedy (and succeeding). I'd say the new series is indeed drama, and that's great.

otoh I *literally* laugh out loud at this more than basically anything else that's on right now. her smashing the award within microseconds of handling it was sort of a hack gag but her performance and the editing completely sold it, for instance.

Yeah that was covered in series one. I can't remember if he was Boo's boyfriend or just a guy she fancied

― paolo, Wednesday, March 27, 2019 3:25 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh yeah sorry i was talking about the first series.

she does state that it was her boyfriend at one point

toh I *literally* laugh out loud at this more than basically anything else that's on right now. her smashing the award within microseconds of handling it was sort of a hack gag but her performance and the editing completely sold it, for instance.

My husband went, "Oh god, I can't, I can't, I'm sorry," and left the room when that happened.

I like the creepy priest.

Like he's not that creepy is he? His advances are welcome? I mean, he shouldn't be a priest, but that's a different matter.

It was creepy that he was turned on by her powerlessness and sorrow, and that he violated the sanctity of the Confessional to get off with her. I'm all in favour of priests having it away with consenting adult women, but don't make your move in the church, when she's just actually started responding to the priesty side of you.

Yeah I guess. I didn't read it as him doing that in a premeditated manner though.

this is an honest to goodness priest, not one of your protestant types?

I'm writing to the bbc

Xpost Trishy's description reminds me of the semi-romance Carmela had with Fr Phil in The Sopranos. Now that guy was certainly creepy!

the semi-romance Carmela had with Fr Phil in The Sopranos. Now that guy was certainly creepy!

Her calling him out on it is one of those scenes that has always stayed with me.

i was genuinely worried he was going to flop his priesty dick out or something - so was incredibly relieved when he didn't, which is sort of fucked up in itself

But yeah I hadn't considered the Fleabag scene as being Priesty not wanting to shag her until he felt he had some power over her. Good writing.

Twitter seems to be full of ladies who thought the whole thing was super erotic, so people's mileage obviously varies madly on this one.

Super erotic but super wrong

Like he's not that creepy is he?

Kneel.

It was her reaction to camera I found really amazing. A combination of “I got what I thought I wanted” and “I got totally let down on the thing I only just realised I really wanted” and “and he has fucked off too”

A lot of the creepy factor might be attributable to that slightly-too-long-eye-contact priest actor, who seemed at the season's start like he was well on his way to the first ever noncreepy role I've seen him in but then nope.

I couldn't really tell if it was "meant" to be creepy or hot or both but I'm confident she's got that covered

the whole parish sequence, starting with the distant echoes of "Jenny from the Block," was incredible

The priest is played by Moriarty? Yeah, nothing creepy about that guy.

very good, and niche, display name, tom

It was creepy that he was turned on by her powerlessness and sorrow, and that he violated the sanctity of the Confessional to get off with her.

She’d been googling sex, priests and celibacy - so she wasn’t exactly without agency and intentions (is this for the controversial opinions thread?)

And the ‘Kneel!’ may be been an innocent misunderstanding (was he asking her to call him Neil rather than ‘Father’?)

I thought the kneeling was going to be a prayer thing but the actuality was creepier, yes.

No direct personal knowledge of priests here, so I don't really know how i expect them to behave tbh.

was he asking her to call him Neil rather than ‘Father’?

lol I hadn't even thought of that double entendre!

omg

"just Neil"

The priest is also very obviously a high-functioning alcoholic which she doesn't appear to have clocked but is probably a big factor here. He is creepy but also kinda the only living character that actually gives a shit about her as a person, and I like the trick where he notices her every word/look to camera.

I'm hoping, and I think this will turn out to be the case, that there's never an explanation of "who" she's talking to.

I mean there's definitely an element of joined-the-church-to-get-away-from-something-awful-about-his-personality about him, and putting bottles on high shelves where you can't get to them later is not normal priesty behaviour.

I hadn’t thought of the Neil thing omg this changes everything.

There’s one moment in ep4 of then both swiftly looking at the camera (him a split second after her) that is exquisite.

i guess my take was that she's talking to "god" (which is us) in those asides

the "neil" note there is kinda brilliant too; i hope you're right

I groaned when he kept saying that, because I hope it's not that, because that's corny. I'd always rather Fleabag went creepy than corny.

putting bottles on high shelves where you can't get to them later is not normal priesty behaviour.

I originally thought he was doing this to hide them from Pamela, but you're right, he's clearly got a problem. Drinking M&S gin and tonics at 11am anywhere other than a train on the way to a hen weekend is not normal.

I find the priest's behaviour mega-creepy tbh

I mean there was the whole speech in the previous episode about how he gets women throwing themselves at him the whole time but it's never going to happen

then the "stop calling me 'father' like it doesn't turn you on just to say it" bit

and then manipulating her into an extremely vulnerable position and taking advantage of it

he's basically a PUA in priest's clothing

(which is kind of the ultimate version of 'peacocking' now that I think about it)

otm. all his little moves seem calculated to get a reaction from her right down to the winnie the pooh bit, it all feels horribly real

im a few episodes back (only seen the first episode of season 2) but was annoying me that a priest is going to marry a couple, neither of which is a practicing catholic? this doesn't happen

(if you're not practicing you have to at least pretend to, if one of the couple isn't catholic they have to go through a whole rigmarole)

I think PWB is Catholic?

Olivia Coleman's character seems to be a whole rigmarole kind of person. She would absolutely have them in church every week for a year in order to get in there.

the priest at the church my parents got married at refused to marry them at first because as my dad was a chilean refugee he was a "communist heretic". my grandad went round and intimidated him and it went ahead.

Sounds like he didn't understand how refugees work.

he was basically right about the communist bit

definitely like this show a lot as I'm anticipating watching the new episode that aired tonight (gmt)

More or less perfect this episode.

I haven't watched this week's but I don't find the priest creepy at all and now I'm concerned about myself a bit seeing as how everyone else did. I just thought that her finally opening up broke down all of his defenses etc. I don't know. He doesn't seem calculating to me in the slightest. She's been trying to fuck him since the night they met!

Twitter seems to be full of ladies who thought the whole thing was super erotic, so people's mileage obviously varies madly on this one.

― trishyb, Wednesday, March 27, 2019 3:03 PM (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This.

Yes, I went to Catholic school. Yes, I feel very conflicted about this. Whatever. This is the best show that's been on in a while.

I don't find him creepy overall, and this week's clinch was a lot more to my taste. It felt more like two quite damaged people meeting on equal terms. I really liked how unawkward the disposal of lawyer dude was. There was no "quick, hide, he can't see you" or not answering the door, or pretending to be sick or anything like that. She was more or less honest with the lawyer, and she let Father Nice-Neck hear the conversation. If I fancied Andrew Scott even a tiny bit, it would have been pretty hot.

I laughed out loud at Claire's haircut.

yeah I really liked how he was just like "oh, you want me to go? OK!" by the end

I was sure this episode would feature Gelman taking a header off a bridge

yeah I really liked how he was just like "oh, you want me to go? OK!" by the end

Right. It seemed like such a neat play on the "oh no, I'm here with my trousers down and the vicar is at the door!" style (Terry and June, Frasier). She's only got underwear on under her coat. The priest is in her living room. Her date is at the door. All resolved by actually just talking to each other, the way you always wish characters would on things like Curb Your Enthusiasm. Or maybe that's just me.

Claire's haircut was perfect (ly awful)

this was a fantastic episode.

i loved the reveal about the inspiration for claire's haircut being exactly what she got

If I fancied Andrew Scott even a tiny bit

I am trying this difficult thought experiment now and it really does make it a wholly different show!

I liked Claire's haircut but it does make her look a bit like a pencil

Also PWB's expression when she said 'it looks French!' was just about perfect

Has there ever been a TV show with more anonymous main characters? As far as I know PWB herself, Olivia Colman, Hugh Dennis, the priest, PWB's dad and all of the guys she's been seeing are nameless

I'm assuming that Fleabag is a nickname for PWB in real life because it sounds like Phoebe

It is.

This episode was deliberately holding back on the looks to camera and it was really noticeable, especially in the second half.

Worth reiterating that the priest is literally the only character in the entire thing who listens to or is interested in her as a person on any level, which is why he can hear her breaking the fourth wall. Everyone else is just different varieties of talking about themselves, except possibly her dad so is so inarticulate and emotionally constipated you can't really tell.

Also PWB's expression when she said 'it looks French!' was just about perfect

her face there made me laugh so hard I had to go back and pause on it

x-post - YES

Show is kinda awesome, huh? I'm imagining america is gonna go apeshit over this when amazong drops it, presuming the respective pr depts do their job

fucking amazing episode. till now i was inclined to agree with this:

Anyone else think that this series is more of a drama than a comedy?

but this ep was solid lols.

i also have zero recollection of hugh dennis' character from the first series, but it didn't matter.

Took me a while to remember but think he worked at bank and turned her down for a loan or something

he was in the opening episode turning her down for a loan. then when claire and fleabag were at the silent retreat he was in the neighboring retreat for angry misogynist men and fleabag shared a smoke and a chat with him (he did most of the talking). then in the final episode fleabag was about to emulate boo and walk into the cycle lane and he stopped his car next to her. they went to her café where he ended up letting her begin again on the failed application. so he was in half of the episodes.

i just watched the first season in its entirety in the last 10 days so i remember it

yeah and the first scene he's in is extremely good.

that pheobe/fleabag thing never clicked with me.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47825572

According to PWB, s2 is the last :(

you know what i really like this show but sometimes this is the right approach

I guess we'll see after next week

I know it sucks when shows go on too long but sudden endings can bother me just as much (see also Please Like Me)

didn't PWB say s1 was the last too? i imagine she'll come back if she finds the right idea/they make the right offer. Or do something similar under a different name.

For murricans unaware, her show Crashing is on Netflix and is worth a peek.

this feels like a last series tho doesn’t it? i can completely see why she says that - there’s been a lot of vulnerability and hope in this series and either that ends badly or it ends well but either way it makes sense it’s the last.

Just caught up with mondays ep and I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't find the priest creepy after all, though who knows what will happen in the last episode. Also matt dc otm

that pheobe/fleabag thing never clicked with me.

― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Wednesday, April 3, 2019 5:26 PM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I still don't think they sound alike at all.

They probably did to 7 year old schoolgirls when she was first given the nickname.

... correction, it seems it was a family nickname.

maybe its my juvenile mentality but i worked that name thing out right away when I first saw the show

Ditto.

OK fine maybe I'm just dense but they still don't sound the same to me. Ppl used to call my friend Phoebe "fleabee" and that makes sense but bee and bag don't rhyme so I don't think it ever would have occurred to me.

Same here, it sounds far-fetched to me

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fleabag

Fleapit is more common I'd say, though that's generally used to describe cinemas. Or was.

she literally turns into a fleabag

I know that fleabag is a word! lol

In the US you hear it most commonly used wrt motels.

And Fleabee isn't, so if you were going to give someone called Phoebe a stupid nickname Fleabag would do the job.

I know, I know. I can see where it comes from I'm just saying that I don't think I would have made the connection on my own.

Also, I can't begin to understand how the middle classes operate but I know of middle class families where they all have stupid pet names for each other, and she is very very posh.

Great finale. The scenes with the dad were amazing, the way he managed to wring so much out of barely a single complete sentence.

That was great.

[spoilers duh!]

Surprised at no invocations of Boo, but otherwise great. LOVED the final shot.

me too. incredibly moving. i felt a real connection, it was so strange.

parasocial television

;_;

that was incredible.

That wave at the end.

So so good.

I want to go back to the dad because the social media chat is about pretty much everything else in the episode, but the scene where he's up in the loft talking about pretty much everything else than his own unresolved grief, and then when he's walking down the aisle and he can't let go of PWB because he can't let go of her mother, just slayed me. In his last scene he thanks her twice and it's clear that the second thank-you is for the mum. Just so much conveyed with a few lines that didn't get anywhere near what he was really thinking, that was brilliant.

He was really great. The whole thing was and I can't stop thinking about it. I hadn't thought of a couple things you just said. Think I need to watch it again tonight.

cant deny I was a little broken after watching the final episode.

Do we still think Godmother is vile y/n?

y

definitely

Horrible.

She's just profoundly selfish and not even humanised by the script, even Claire's husband came across better in the last episode.

Meanwhile

Is this a Pale Fire reference - gag about unreliable narrators - in Fleabag? pic.twitter.com/Dg1D2BAj9m

— Henry Hitchings (@henryhitchings) April 2, 2019

Explain? What does the graffiti say?

Charles Kinbote is the unreliable narrator in Vladimir Nabokov's novel Pale Fire.

God I haven’t read that in 20 years

xp They're saying it means "Kinbote" in ref to the character in "Pale Fire" but I'm not sure you'd pronounce that word "Kinbote" (I bear correction on that of course) - it may be that it's a double joke because it looks like Kinbote to people who read Roman script but doesn't actually spell it in Cyrillic?

*eyeball roll* all narrators are unreliable.

It say “stomach” in Russian fwiw

Thank you, SV, I knew you’d be along to clarify matters.

Gelman killed it in his last scene. That role was so perfectly suited to his talents.

I was so worried Claire was going to cave. Gelman is unbelievably odious in that part.

not going to link it here but his "iBrain" story from Comedy Bang Bang is one of my favorite pieces of comedy in the last ?? years

yknow I was going to be picky and say I could have done without the CGI fox, but now with the possible revelation of the Nabokov reference I'm wondering if it wasn't intentionally wobbly as a way to underline the "unreliable narrator" aspect? this is the level she's working at, that I even entertain this theory.

CGI, really? it didn't look like it to me.

certainly looked like it to me, and this Guardian sendoff agrees

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/08/farewell-fleabag-the-most-electrifying-devastating-tv-in-years

It was definitely CGI

damn Tories shot all the real ones I suppose

Apparently the graffiti also means 'life' in Bulgarian?

Which makes a bit more sense than 'stomach' in this context.

it was cg. it would be kind of shitty (not to mention not that profitable) if people kept trained foxes for their rare appearances in tv shows

very true

great show, great ending

A real fox perhaps, but just composited in? I mean, it wouldn't take me more than one night sitting in a sleeping bag outside my house to get that shot ;) Destination of 176 bus was a nod to their editor. Rather than, y'know, Penge.

not going to link it here but his "iBrain" story from Comedy Bang Bang is one of my favorite pieces of comedy in the last ?? years

bcz I remember the house I was moving into while listening, I’m saying this is just over nine years old (the radio version - Gelman had apparently been doing it live for a while). and Li’l Gary was on the episode too

omg I was just in Tesco thinking about this episode and I started tearing up again and a woman looked at me with some concern.

Surprised to read the 'creepy' talk on here after seemingly endless tweets about how hot and steamy it all was.

But..

How You Feel About Fleabag And The Hot Priest Says A Lot About You

https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/fleabag-season-2-hot-priest-relationship

no thanks.

just generally feel like sweary priests fit the same mould as down with the kids teachers; essentially suspicious.

this didn’t generally affect the excellence of the show, and i felt it most in ep one, but I... can’t remember what i was going i say. i did think the “it’s God isn’t it” but was surprisingly powerful.

There's something about the way in which this show invites us to cast judgement and is acutely aware it's doing that and actively playing with it, Claire's husbands - "I'm not a bad person, I just have a bad personality" speech underlined that. As does the fact that nearly everyone in her family considers Fleabag a selfish, narcissistic attention-seeker with only the viewer and the priest seeing different. I think that's probably why they went for a guy as creepy and unhinged looking rather than Sunday Evening BB2 Dreamy Priest 101.

There are hints of a contradictory and fucked up inner life going on with the priest that we never get to see, big red flags every time he mentions his brother for instance.

Yes, and the battle with alcoholism. The alternative didn’t need to be “dreamy priest”, but the instability in his personality did introduce an element of danger to the uncertainty as to his motivations. that uncertainty most obviously coalesced around “kneel” - which because of that chaos had multiple possible meanings. that was brilliant.

Last time I went to Italy there were sexy priest calendars onsale all over the place, it's a definite thing.

indeed. i remember seeing them in Rome! Here we go.

poor Father Albert has no stand-out qualities.

he has a name!

It's no Lovely Girls competition.

#4 - Father Angelic - is the guy you see everywhere. He's the kind of sexy priest you could take home to meet your parents.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/apr/10/how-should-we-feel-about-andrew-scott-priest-fleabag

i think that's a misreading. i don't think PWB wants us to think the priest is a horrible man. he's clearly a flawed man, but the show wants you to care about their star-crossed love

yeah individual moments came across as potentially crossing over into dark territory but purposely never went all the way

yeah they're all flawed at times horrible people but all of them were shown as redeemable by the end other than the odious godmother.

there's def a bit of cancel-culture mania in the air that means that any bit of tv featuring a cis het man behaving badly (angrily, lustily, controlling, sexually creepy) has the pop culture writers writing about how he's awful and the (fictional) woman and real female viewers should shun him, as if the majority of cis het men don't act like one of those types of things at least on occasion

I've enjoyed the series but that last episode stank of Richard Curtis to me.

everyone on that show is kinda awful except for boo and the chatty guy at the cafe, the priest is by far the least awful of the crew

the old chatty guy in the cafe used to be in Juliet Bravo! He was the social worker husband of Inspector Darbley.

can we get a series next of just Tales Of Boo? Definitely some damage behind those big boo eyes.

i really didn't like boo. manic-pixie-dead-friend

Ouch!

i mean just going by the name boo is too squee cuddlestein mountain to start with

Yeah, for me the appeal of a reBOOt would be to learn that what we've seen has been largely FB's imaginary-friend version of a much realer character.

fetter otm and jiv otm about boo

though boo is totally the kind of name fleabag's friend would have.

as disappointing, or more, than cute priest's torrid church smooches was for me the way he just lazily shambled away from everything. during the ceremony he talked a real good game about love, soaking up every millimetre of pwb's attention, kissing her when he wanted, then just.. ok welp.

on the other hand i thought it utterly out of character for claire to run to the airport for cla(i)re. and it sort of undermined her startling confession of love for pwb!

I didn't really see a contradiction there

This was so good (and so short, argh). I want to rewatch it all again right away.

After catching up on this thread: I don't find Moriarty physically appealing at all but he was very charming and hot in Fleabag. They had great chemistry together. I had assumed he was a high functioning alcoholic from the first episode when he kept pouring wine into their glasses and the tequila and I assumed she knew this too, especially from the first G&T break. I thought the asides basically crossed over to emphasize how kindred they were and not that she was speaking to God or Boo.

A very mild Guardian backlash, after innumerable articles about 'genius' status:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/20/fleabag-posh-girl-television

I kind of agree (as trailed on the controversial opinions thread) - though because of the quality, not really a problem imo until the last episode - which went full Richard Curtis.

that's the second accusation of going "full Richard Curtis." because of a speech and an offscreen airport dash, presumably? seems a bit harsh.

I am very jealous of PWB's hair. My hair would never be able to look like that. It ends up looking Ramona Quimby or "french".

Speaking as a non-posh boy from a functional non-posh family, I found Fleabag pretty relatable.

That said, I'm up for a good deconstruction of Fleabag from that angle, but this wasn't it. Calling it "an unexamined fact" that the "Godmother gets to actually be an artist without also having to take on a telesales side hustle" seems super blind to the huge implied contempt for that character?

Watched series 2 in one sitting. not sure I'm as enamoured of the conclusion as everyone else. There were a lot of comments out there about it being brought to a completely satisfying conclusion, I think the actress who plays Claire said it was 'poetry'...eh. It does bring everyone other than Fleabag herself's story to a satisfying conclusion, I suppose, but the stuff with the priest was messy, and I didn't feel that it came to any conclusion whatsoever in the end, nor did I think she'd found any kind of peace or respite. Is that just me?

just finished the first season of this remarkable show don't worry i'm shielding my eyes from all of the posts above this one

s2 is just as amazing

It’s better!!!

Def! You're in for a treat Brad.

i think s2 cemented it in my top 10 shows all time

I WAS ALL ABOUT THE PRIEST CONFESSIONAL SCENE

"wrong" sure but it was hot af

welp i finished it and i'd love to share my thoughts but i can't stop crying

frankly i do not understand any of the complaints

i loved how s1 had such a snappy pace on the surface but dealt out the deeper character stuff slowly.

but s2 just has me so giddily spun.
and homo ii otm: confessional was where it’s AT

the priest was so hot

RIGHT

aghast @ talk upthread of Hot Priest being “creepy”

ilxors have stones for eyes do u not see
Andrew Scott was the best thing about Sherlock & part of that is acting but also he’s hot

and cheeky!

anyway :D

frankly i do not understand any of the complaints

What complaints? I don't think, in the annals of television, there's ever been a series which has received as little criticism.

I thought the priest was hot, the confessional scene was the peak of s2 (and disappointed by the rise of the ilx new puritanism). But Idisliked the final episode a lot. Still complaining about it.

tom i was referring to the complaints in this thread

Yeah, I didn't understand the complaints either really. Maybe another actor couldn't have pulled it off but that wasn't what happened.

Although I kind of thought this piece from a real priest was nice, how he concentrated on the professionalism.

https://religionnews.com/2019/05/29/the-priest-in-fleabag-is-not-cool/

that article otfm!!

the priest felt v close to home for me which is what made me so angry with him. you could see it all coming a mile off, and while she clearly wanted him to Be A Naughty Priest for her, he could tell she was vulnerable and acted irresponsibly & selfishly while using all the trappings and glamour of his supposedly v responsible & selfless position. it's how he let himself be turned into her fantasy that was seedy. he and fleabag were similar & equal enough personally, & while its understandable for her to blur that connection with his pastoral, even divine role, using that role to get what he wanted was a betrayal of himself as a priest. she gets to play a helpless lost soul (which you could see as a kind of dishonest betrayal of herself) seeking his guidance, offering herself up to him (vulnerability is hot, sure). he has to dirty the distinction, if it ever really existed, between his personal desires and his religious calling; he has to corrupt himself (which is arguably hot in a fallen angel way but much darker). it goes some way to pointing towards an inherent problem with the notion of the clergy. if it were just hot it wldn't be so good: it's also deeply compromised & dishonest & unstable

yes, otm

am i wrong to think that in the finale a few of the characters were picking up that they were trapped in a fictional structure? ex. the godmother's "i always just call you darling," martin's speech about being born with a shitty personality

if you were so inclined you could also fold the resistance to and ultimate embrace of the "running to the airport" cliche into that I think

yes i was absolutely thinking that too

also every use of the statue throughout both seasons was exquisite, it's kind of a delayed payoff machine

They made the statue bigger in series 2.

ogmor i dont disagree but it was still v v hot, fuckedup-ness and all (and i wonder why i am single?)

it was v hot, it was a v recognizable portrayal of two people falling in love with each other but which circumstance and individual weakness inevitably subvert

which, hey, gotta say that resembles... all of my relationships

i continue to read the mugging to the camera, the priest's recognition of that and additional moments of existential clarity and terror as an awareness of audience/author as god

the priest interfering with the fourth wall breaking was a really great way of depicting the intensity and intimacy of their connection too

I concluded she looks like Bran Stark warging to other characters when she does it. everyone else was too polite to mention it.

no one in this show is polite

Everyone is too self-involved to notice!
Priest is more open & perceptive & genuinely interested in Fleabag

I fully expected a hookup with the priest as soon as he was introduced but the way it happened had me mumbling "oh noooo"

The character was real enough to me that I wanted him to both be able to be a good priest and have this fling, but somehow compartmentalize the two aspects of their relationship. That it felt like a real violation.. that's good storytelling!

I haven't heard anyone say much about the story arc with the banker, but it might be my favorite subplot. Started as kind of a cheap set-up, and ends with something that wasn't telegraphed from the start.

The evolution between the two series was really well done, in a way I haven't seen in many shows. When you think of Fleabag as the point of view character, the shallower characterization of nearly everyone else in the first season echoes her own perceptions as she's stuck at a higher level of, let's say fucked-upness, and season two immediately sets a different baseline. As viewers we're seeing things about people that she's noticing, and she's operating at a more functional level than her family in a lot of ways.

i couldn't watch s1 cos the other characters were so completely stupid. i just had to stop.

started a rewatch of s1 cuz id forgotten it -- the dude who plays harry's performance when she "surprises" him in the shower in ep2 is fucking amazing

harry genuinely one of my favorite characters

a lot of it is in that performance

the shower surprise scene was so good

it made me wonder what else she'd done to harry any time he started to get too close

he plays a similarly sweet, baffled character in W1A

the sex scene w/them where she ends up just masturbating and flinching when he touches her is amazing

There's lots of stuff, characters, situations in S1 that just are not believable even within the world she's created (I know this is a bugbear of mine, as Tracer might remember with regard to Motherland) but the guy with the teeth, the extremely handsome boyfriend, for example, are barely characters and are not believable. The worst example was at the Sexhibition where the stepmother makes her be a waitress with a tray full of glasses of champagne. Just not believable as a situation. That could never happen.

In S2 the outrageous elements were things you could believe could happen. That's only a minor reason why it worked but it did help.

Ha I do and I agree with all that but doesn't she again get pressed into service at a party in a similar way in S2? Sorry brain = sieve, I'm struggling to remember exactly. The church fair?

The stepmother making her serve drinks at the exhibit seemed totally believable! She was already a "server" at her cafe and it's one of those jobs that people assume you do for free for friends and family.

s2 i think she was volunteering at the church fair and she caters and serves at her sister's company event.

yeah i mean i don't care for realism too much, a drama that has a world with its own internal logic is fine, but s1 was so deeply stupid and underwritten in almost every character/plot except a few fleabag monologues. ultimately she suffered as a character without any other meaningful characters to bounce off or be realised through, just felt a waste of time. i can see why this show is popular and i suspect i might like s2 more based on speaking to friends but a huge amount of s1 seemed to be people cheering for an easy lunge at a zeitgeist that tells them things they already believed beforehand via a couple of stick figures and gif memes posing as television.

Godmother was a totally believable bitchy aspirant stepmother. I could imagine her doing the same thing my grandfather’s second wife did when we lost him two weeks before the family Christmas he always meticulously planned: sneakily taking all the presents he’d bought for his kids and grandkids back to the shops.

I found her character totally delightful and believable.

I need to rewatch the first season, I didn't realize it's been almost 3 years since it came out.

Teeth guy was the only thing I ever found to be a bit much

holy shit suzy that’s dreadful

the announcement, staging & reveal of the portrait she painted of Fleabag & her sister for the wedding was *chef’s kiss*

yup. I've accidentally taken some photos of my sons like that last weekend which has been cracking me up

Teeth guy was great, and asking for him (or the hot sex guy) to be more of a character might be the dumbest criticism of this show

Actually that's changed my mind. I hadn't realised it was great.

The dumbest criticism of the show is surely mine: in 10 years time we’re going to be faintly embarrassed to look back and have read so much into what’s regarded as a quaint, but entertaining, curio.

My cousin (who has inoperable cancer) loved both series and asked me ‘will there be a third?’

I was just about to hit send on a reply along the lines of ‘PWB says no but in a few years, if the right idea presents itself, maybe?’ but stopped myself for obvious reasons.

Actually that's changed my mind. I hadn't realised it was great.

right?

Teeth guy was great, and asking for him (or the hot sex guy) to be more of a character might be the dumbest criticism of this show

― abcfsk, Friday, June 7, 2019 12:17 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep, i agree, i think he's mostly justified by his final scene in the show, where he betrays the slightest self-awareness and then immediately tries to kill her guinea pig

the hot sex guy totally exists in reality imo

also realism is boring etc

yeah i mean i don't care for realism too much, a drama that has a world with its own internal logic is fine, but s1 was so deeply stupid and underwritten in almost every character/plot except a few fleabag monologues. ultimately she suffered as a character without any other meaningful characters to bounce off or be realised through, just felt a waste of time. i can see why this show is popular and i suspect i might like s2 more based on speaking to friends but a huge amount of s1 seemed to be people cheering for an easy lunge at a zeitgeist that tells them things they already believed beforehand via a couple of stick figures and gif memes posing as television.

― FernandoHierro, Thursday, June 6, 2019 3:36 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feels like this is a criticism of thinkpieces about the show and not the show itself but there's so much distance in this post it's hard to tell

hard to have coherent, strong opinions about a show you didn't watch.

i watched maybe four episodes of s1. it is possible for someone to not like something you like. possible and okay. i expected to like the show but i didn't. isn't that why we're here?

the last ep of season one is p crucial

i mean i generally agree that season two blows season one away but i like the way season one gradually reveals itself as a feedback loop of grief

realism is not what I'm asking for, plausibility is.

my only serious gripe, albeit a small one, is the total absence of Boo from the finale

reiterating my own point here, but I think the shallow characterization in the first season seems more intentional when you think of the point of view character being an unreliable narrator

at no point does she really take notice of anything other than surface impressions of most people and some characters are ridiculous because it's her version of them -- the hamster teeth guy is a dead giveaway because she's thinking of him as "that guy with the ridiculous teeth" so it's portrayed exactly that way

also the bit about him being a documentarian takes on a new dimension when you realize PWB's now-ex-husband makes documentaries

We finally gave s2 a watch over these past three days. Excellent of course. Without divulging details, our appreciations were a little different for numerous reasons; let's just say my own family's dynamics are not like Fleabag's and leave it at that.

The evolution between the two series was really well done, in a way I haven't seen in many shows.

This same thought struck me quite a bit this morning. It would have been easy to essentially rerun s1 in terms of everyone being exactly as they were or were seen as, since so many shows do, and in the same way that the season/show ended in a way that's not like s1's ending, the characters are all distinctly changed one way or another. Arguably Olivia Colman's is the exception but it's almost more like the mask finally drops more clearly in her case.

Olivia Colman's a complete joy, even when playing a total pill

he plays a similarly sweet, baffled character in W1A

and The Windsors.

Whuh:

The series has been remade for French television by Jeanne Herry. Titled Mouche (French for 'fly', the insect), it started airing on 3 June 2019 on pay channel Canal+. Mouche is a close remake, though set in Paris with Camille Cottin in the starring role.

And yes there's a trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqEACcnn3Ko

I finally got around to watching Season 2, and it was hilarious, and had a ton of great moments. One thing that bugs me about it, though, is the insane narcissism of PWB (or at least her character in the show). Other than being responsible (to some degree) for Boo's death, her problems seem to be that she is too funny, too beautiful, and more hip than everyone else, according to everyone in the show. Makes it a little hard to connect with her struggles when they read like the answer to the interview question "what is your worst fault?"

That's one of the reasons I don't rate it so highly, I think.

Still, better than Crashing where she writes herself as Magical Pixie Girlfriend who is so irresistible to her ex he dumps his fiancée for her.

y’all, what

y'all, what OTM

yeah, don't really get that

you don't? every character is constantly asking her not to make it all about her.

@aldo thought you were talking about Pete Holmes' show and got very confused for a minute.

you don't? every character is constantly asking her not to make it all about her.

― Lil' Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, June 18, 2019 3:21 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

her problems seem to be that she is too funny, too beautiful, and more hip than everyone else, according to everyone in the show

I didn't feel that way but I do get it.

Brad: Examples are how Fleabag's sister gets mad because she came up with a great joke, or how her mother's funeral was tough because everyone was telling her how beautiful she was.

oh yeah, I forgot that bit.

"her mother's funeral was tough because everyone was telling her how beautiful she was" <---definitely the behavior/perception of a healthy/well-adjusted person and trustworthy narrator

Are you saying she made that bit up? It didn't seem to me that the show was trying to (on top of all of its other clever storytelling devices) portray her as an unreliable narrator of the story. She is definitely an unreliable narrator in her asides to the audience, but I figured that we were supposed to trust that the things which happen on-screen actually happened.

considering her most private feelings are reserved for her mother's memory, it seems defensible to argue that maybe she's choosing to redirect what her funeral was like. but I'd need a rewatch to assess this idea.

I think it's pretty clear we're seeing everything from her perspective - her asides to the audience don't happen like Shakespearean soliloquies, they are right in the action, so it seems when she turns back to the action she is acting her life out for the audience. And everyone in her orbit is a sort of caricature, an essence of how she sees them.

Well then forget I said she was narcissistic!

Don't let me ruin Ferris Bueller for you all, but he's a little self absorbed too.

Zelda otm

To be clear, I still loved the show! To those rushing to defend PWB - don’t worry - she clearly understands how funny and beautiful she is.

her mother's funeral was tough because everyone was telling her how beautiful she was.

When I watched it first, II got the impression it was that everyone was telling her how beautiful she looked on that particular day, as if she normally looked like shite, but now, on this day when she is suffering more than she ever has before, she suddenly looks beautiful. It was like the opposite of everyone telling you that you look tired, as if you can do anything about that, or it's supposed to help. But I agree that it could also be that this is the only thing people said to her that she remembers. Which does confirm her narcissism, but not in a way I have a problem with.

The first season she also has a moment where she's walking down the street and telling the camera how amazing she looks and how the next person who walks by will definitely make a pass at her, and they don't, and it comes across as self-deprecating and endearing but underneath is clearly some fairly standard narcissism bordering on delusional!

my "ya'll, what otm" was that this was a primary facet of her character that leads to a lot of her "struggles". I only get annoyed with narcissistic characters if they aren't entertaining and attractive.

xpost I loved the funeral beautiful comments.

having gone to a few funerals lately, the bit where she actually looks great at a funeral was really painful

people saying you look well, especially if you’re part of the deceased’s immediate family, is this nicety people lean back on. you probably look stressed, maybe tear-stained, and broken

actually looking great to the extent people are clarifying that they’re not just using the funeral script... oh god

that is to say, painful in a great way as far as the script goes!

the number one best thing about this series is that the mother never shows up in flashback being played by lindsay duncan or fn tilda swinton

hahaha

lol

feel like she woulda played her own mother in that scenario

just watched Crashing. boy that was....actually kind of terrible for the most part!

Why is it all men in this thread who said Priest was creepy? I didnt read him that way at all.

I wasnt a fan of s1 - I found it hard to get past how hateful everyone was, esp the stepmother and Claires husband (ugh, his angry smug face and that beard make my skin crawl).

S2 turned it all upside down. As she says in the very first line "this is a love story". And it was. Not just about her and the Priest, but about her and her sister, her and her dad, her and the memory of her mum.

Why is it all men in this thread who said Priest was creepy?

ilxor altar boy crew assemble

ouch.

there was a lively debate regarding the creepiness, many disagreed with the thesis, it was mostly men because ilx is mostly men

Most of the disagreers were women. I just thought it was curious.

“Inadvisably / extremely fuckable” is Andrew Scott’s wheelhouse.

let the record show i’ve never said he was creepy

He was too lost and befuddled to be creepy.

Yeah, not creepy at all (maybe people project his other charachters on this one).

Hated Season 1 (only made it halfway) but have really enjoyed the first 2 episodes of Season 2.

Why is it all men in this thread who said Priest was creepy? I didnt read him that way at all.

Not all men.

Although, I didn't think he was creepy all the time. Just the time he got so turned on by her crying in the other side of the confession box that he lost control of himself. That was creepy.

hum. yeah ok, if you consider the ethics of his position, that was definitely out of line...

I read it as weakness rather than pre-meditated creep though.

Yeah same, on both their parts. Dont get me wrong, I'm with Mandee on this - what they were doing was Wrong (hes a priest, sex for him is basically Cheating on God). But it was hawt, and he had a real charm. I loved it every time he saw through her asides.

Which reminds me: is the idea she was talking to god? At one point at the end I thought maybe it was her mother, given she glanced down at the T&A statue, then back up/out to the audience with a sad smile.

you wait till you can hire the electric scooters. menace.

/Why is it all men in this thread who said Priest was creepy? I didnt read him that way at all./

Not all men.

Although, I didn't think he was creepy all the time. Just the time he got so turned on by her crying in the other side of the confession box that he lost control of himself. That was creepy.

that “moral trust hocked cheaply” bit may be where a specifically *male* envy comes in potentially making unfair judgments - to Trayce’s thought. to what extent that drives or taints the more general observations i made above, i’m not sure. not much is my immediate feeling.

Wow I love this show. I hoovered the first season on a flight and immediately subscribed to the appropriate service so I could watch it again with my boyfriend when I got home.

I cannot think of any “best actress” who I would compulsively watch anything in which she appears but Olivia Coleman is it.

Her speech about “the show is not about sex... it’s about power” was so chillingly perfect that I gasped and paused and massaged my temples for a couple minutes

Also Moriarty is extremely hot, he could wreck my fourth wall any time

I was taken aback at the moment in s2 when something actually happens between them because there's a formulaic way that unravels in drama/comedy and there's something I can't put my finger on about how this show broke that convention. As if the plot resolved how they didn't need to hook up, and then dropped it immediately after?

I am just now watching this and the opening to s1e2 is incredible

Just you wait for the s2 premiere.

v disappointed she signed with amazon.

the backlash begins here!

enh all the major streaming giants are varying degrees of evil. netflix is doing all they can to tamp down creatives' pay rates for example

every entertainment company since the dawn of man has done whatever it can to reduce the amount it pays talent, I'm not sure that's here or there?

if ISIS offered same-day delivery & streamed a snappy comedy abt millennials ppl wld shrug "eh, all countries are borne of violence"

Why wouldn’t she sign with the commercial company that picked up Fleabag first?

Sure, after all she doesn't have to worry about them slashing her health care benefits.

I don’t use Amazon fwiw.

But even the BBC is helping revitalise the Nazis, not sure what she could do to stay "pure" in today's tv environment.

also,

'You Know That Feeling When You Waste Time at Work Using an "AI" to Translate the Faces of Various Noh Masks on Phoebe Waller-Bridge?'
(an art project in honour of @robpalkwriter) pic.twitter.com/otZ7NAsmfN

— Caustic Cover Critic (@Unwise_Trousers) October 3, 2019

amazon isn't impure, it's a toxic and endlessly exploitative authoritarian monopoly which has destroyed tens of thousands of businesses, created and profited from unregulated markets, and reduced working standards, all in service of a much-exaggerated and often hugely inefficient convenience to the customer.

you can also watch the show on IFC in the United States, I guess

she's hosting snl this weekend btw.

every entertainment company since the dawn of man has done whatever it can to reduce the amount it pays talent, I'm not sure that's here or there?

yes, netflix is just breaking new ground in how to do it in their particular industry

her SNL hosting is at least as objectionable as working with amazon tbh

blah

amazon isn't impure, it's a toxic and endlessly exploitative authoritarian monopoly which has destroyed tens of thousands of businesses, created and profited from unregulated markets, and reduced working standards, all in service of a much-exaggerated and often hugely inefficient convenience to the customer.

― ogmor, Thursday, October 3, 2019 1:39 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm. streaming services are all varying degrees of evil but prime is 1) varying degrees of evil 2) attached to a more evil apparatus

season 2 of fleabag is a masterpiece so like, whatever

we're *all* attached to the apparatus via AWS if nothing else, it seems silly to attack artists for getting paid. fight the real enemy imo

fight the real enemy imo

SNL

yes.

fight the real enemy imo

― Simon H., Thursday, October 3, 2019 8:05 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

how

Speaking of a backlash..

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/aug/29/fleabag-stage-theatre-show-phoebe-waller-bridge

lol, that piece is very dumb.
i saw the televised performance; it was good but served as proof of how skilled she and her team are at translating her vision to a larger audience. The show is a definite quantum leap forward.

there's one subtextual bit of that piece about how we write characters that are horrible people, and whether past depictions differ from the more contemporary due to our tolerances of what we allow in our fiction. 2013 still seems relatively contemporary, but from a writer working in cultural commentary I can see where there's some blanket changing of the rules that is in no way evenly distributed among people who have never read a thinkpiece

re: the show, I'm still on s1 but the slow revelation of what happened and why everyone keeps asking if she's okay is fantastic

how

lots of competing theories on this but pretty sure "tut-tutting creatives for signing with the incorrect godless conglomerate" can be safely ruled out

Which of the three millennial women describing how they felt about this work by a millennial woman would you say was the dumbest, Ulysses?

And when did you stop beating your three dumb millennial wives?

There isn't anything else in the article though - it's just a roundtable of three women discussing the play (and the TV series, and how things have changed in the last 6 years).

forks said that (I infer, from reading half of it) the structure and content of the Guardian piece were fruitless and unenlightening about the performed text. He did not say anything about the intelligences of the participants, nor about how their gender or age relate to their intelligence, nor that their age & gender should qualify one’s apprehension of their personal reactions.

(I’ve read smart things written by at least two of the participants. As a conversation in the bar, after a show, between folks who know each other, nobody comes off as fundamentally dipshitted. As a ‘printed’ article reflecting on the original play and how its context has altered since first production, it’s at best an 1/8th-arsed aide-mémoire toward writing up a roundtable.)

The structure is literally them talking - the content is literally them talking (I assume cleaned up in the usual ways, I'll grant it's not just tape recorder audio) - there isn't a distance between "this article is dumb" and "the participants are dumb".

Thread's taken an odd turn tbh.

Fair.

roundtables are inherently dumb no matter the participants

*King Arthur pauses, sadly deletes half-written post*

lol

smart people say dumb things all the time, particularly in round tables

I didn’t think anything they said was particularly dumb, but the central theme of the conversation took a route through examining how an intentionally offensive character monologue from 2013 was offensive in unintentional ways in 2019 and that didn’t feel fruitful.

Tbf that Guardian round table is extremely bad

I thought the discussion of how it feels like a cash-in, and how the intimacy of the original experience was lost (my immediate mental comparison was a "band plays their classic album in full" tour), was interesting.

That was the only good point, the rest is garbled and inane. The show is far more complex and interesting than the commentators were giving it credit for

Lol at DJP's post, yes to Brad's "round tables are bad" assessment, and yes exactly to mh's comments

I was laughing at this line:

I’ve just been at the Edinburgh fringe, where I saw 50 more exciting shows.

I mean, it might be gauche to drop names in a roundtable like this, but if other shows are worth going to and would hold appeal for this audience, NAME SOME!
That kind of phrasing -- and the following admission that the Waller-Bridge's show is probably pulling traffic to the West End that may not usually attend -- is recognition that the audience might not be fringe festival-goers and it comes off as "well, they're not REAL theater fans.."

Anyone who goes to 50+ comedy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe needs locked up, for their own safety.

I've had Nathan Barley on the mind lately and I immediately went to the scene where the presumably sympathetic character is trying to escape "cool" writing and get a job with a traditional journalism outfit and is trying to pitch a review of his favorite wines and all he comes up with is "French, Spanish..... South French.."

And agreed, people who like binging things at festival shows and people who will go to a one-off incredibly popular theater event have some overlap, but it's not the same demographic!

i kinda thought the Guardian group-chat piece was obviously banal on the face of it and that it didn't require much more explanation but, since you explicitly called me out on it Andrew, I'll co-sign sic (tho i did read the whole thing!) and fgti's assessments above.

That article trafficked in concern trolling ("There are several fat jokes. I was sitting next to a large guy, who was laughing, but I wondered how he felt"), poor frame-of-reference ("It was like MTV Unplugged"), faux-naiveté that self negates itself in the same paragraph ("The monologue is solid but nothing hugely special. And the staging is incredibly ordinary... when you think how many plays are struggling for a stage, it feels slightly unfair when the same thing gets done again. But then, has there ever been a one-woman show in the West End that has been so financially viable? ") and just generally added nothing to the conversation beyond coming up with some real bizarre talking points ("Also what complicates that moment is that Waller-Bridge has the perfect body" <- according to who?). I guess the big takeaway is that Waller-Bridge seems to be "cashing in" on her and her work's popularity by staging a play lots of people want to see? Isn't that how commerce works?

And yes to the suggestion that round tables are generally terrible reflections of writers' capabilities; they're mostly good for fast turnaround and for paying writers partial wages for more words. I'm unfamiliar with the work of all three off the participants in that piece and wouldn't label them as "dumb"; I put the blame more at the foot of the Guardian. It's manufactured backlash clickbait and not well edited.

Since you seem to be implying that I feel otherwise AF, I'll state the obvious here and note that while many millennials can and do write well (about fellow millennials and other topics too!), not ALL millennials can and do write well (about fellow millennials etc) and that being a millennial does not necessarily impart some meaningful insight to the whole of your generation's actions.

tbh there's probably a comedy vein that could be mined about woke millennials cautiously analyzing their surroundings and entertainment media for the correct sympathies and signs while dropping clunkers like "has the perfect body"

Dear Woke People

tbh my own brain has been poisoned by The Discourse which results in a condition where you're unable to have normal conversations where you've internalized new cultural norms and you're in a state of intellectual disrepair constantly hoping you're saying the right things

Well, yeah, the panellists seemed to be, at times, not criticizing the show on its own merits, or engaging with the complexity of its characters, but dissecting whether or not the play/show lived up to their own view of the discourse.

Stating that "a woman taking advantage" (Snapes) might've been written differently post-#MeToo displayed a real lack-of-awareness about the thesis of the show? The show is about people taking advantage, including (especially) Fleabag?

I read it again to make sure that I wasn't wrong that it was a really bad round table, and I'm not wrong. I wanted to scream: she is supposed to be fallible. Did you miss the part where she accidentally kills her best friend by fucking around too much. Did you see the part where her best friend was the only healthy relationship in her life.

Maybe the show is way more simple than I made it out to be, but I don't think it is? I think it's a really complicated and critical show?

And to answer the question "when has there ever been a one-woman show on the London West End that has been so financially viable" like you've seen 50 shows at Edinburgh Fringe but you've never heard of Shirley Valentine?

I didn't watch the first season until recently, and most of the good analyses I read-- in particular, the Kathryn VanArendonk piece for Vulture-- were about the second season. I didn't read any good analyses of the first season, which, to me, had a lot to unpack. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

The problem with any discussion about something that's very popular and already critically acclaimed, let alone a stage show that spawned a successful television series, is the inherent premise that whatever you're watching is good. So you're stuck with tangents about whether it's of its time, or if it holds up after a beloved descendant television program.

The unstated premise I was left with is that the stage show is, in fact, good. People enjoyed it. The large man (!) laughed.

hah, I posted that before your comment, fgti, but it's another angle on the same thing! season two reviews are viewing season one through season two glasses

Season two is generally considered better because it's written for TV - season one landed well because even a well-regarded Fringe show isn't going to be seen by nearly as many people as a TV show in a decent slot - I don't think I've seen anyone saying "I saw the stage show and the first season was better" - which is an obvious angle to send some appropriate people to look at the stage show and discuss it.

I remember this review at the time, which is more straightforward and less thinkpiecey:
https://www.villagevoice.com/2016/09/23/fleabag-is-the-egocentric-comedy-heroine-of-your-dreamsnightmares/

well if you count the televised National Theater as "seeing the stage show," I saw the stage show and the first season was better! Like way better!

Good write-up!

I'm very, very curious about Fleabag's relationship to promiscuous sex. The "best sex of Fleabag's life" scene-- the 55 year old man pounding her while she gazes at the camera-- was shocking to me; mostly because I was sitting there wondering how important, in this scenario, was "the gaze of the audience"? How much of sexuality, to the promiscuous among our ranks, is performative? Idk I have so many questions

if i remember correctly, the punchline to that joke in the theatrical version (and maybe the series? it's been awhile) is the older guy moaning "YOU'RE SO YOUNG, YOU'RE SO YOUNG" which plays to the heart of fleabag's deeply self-doubting sense of intrinsic worth as object and maybe little else. Being desired, by anyone, gives her meaning; being objectified allows her to dodge questions of personal worth because objects don't cause pain or feel pain or need to prove anything. the looks to the "audience" in the series (and literally, to the audience in the play) certainly do play with that dynamic and also with her sense of "performing" for something bigger and more moral than fleabag to give meaning to her life... or that was some of my take at least.

being "young" isn't something fleabag has earned, it's something she's rapidly losing and she's not getting anything in exchange. forcing power to kowtow to that brief lacuna of desirability is clearly more of a turn on than the sex itself for her. we see a lot more of that with the priest where - initially especially - the turn on is in the taboo as much as it is the person. not to spoil, but it's clear to both parties that she's unlikely to stay if he leaves the cloth and that's part of what the ending of s2 is about

I wasn't sure if he was saying "YOU'RE SO YOUNG" or "YOU'RE SO GOOD", or both. And what you're saying tracks with her statement that she LOVES picking up men, but derives less pleasure from the physical act itself as she does from the psychology of it.

I felt there was a startlingly clever mirror to Fleabag's relationship to sexuality in Godmother's sexhibition. Godmother is essentially doing the same thing as Fleabag has been doing the entire series-- performing sex publicly-- but Godmother's audience is the art community, where Fleabag's audience is the viewer. Godmother's sexhibition felt very much in-the-same-vein as Fleabag's initial disclosure (it's not actually about the physical act of sex itself), and then Godmother perfectly criticizes Fleabag, and the entire show in general: "this show is not about sex. It's about power."

Godmother's attempt to use sexuality to install herself as matriarch in Fleabag's family is successful; in contrast, Fleabag's attempt to exist freely, liberated, promiscuously, sexually-- all the while asking herself (or her father) "am I a good feminist?"-- backfires, and directly results in the suicide of her best friend. (The scenes between Fleabag and Boo called to mind something my sibling is often says: "Friendship is the highest form of romance." More recently, they've started replacing "friendship" with "communism" but ymmv I guess.)

A later revelation occurs in Fleabag's conversation with Kristen Scott Thomas's character. Fleabag attempts to exert her power in seducing this older lesbian, but the lesbian wins out-- and imparts to Fleabag an important "lesson" about getting older, and I paraphrase, "after menopause, all that shit stops mattering, and you are free to be who you truly are. A woman in business." Is this a lesson? Or is this another maguffin? The lesbian is suggesting replacing one structure of capital (sexual promiscuity) with another (business), is this meant to be ironic? Or is this meant to actually "teach" Fleabag to find pursuits toward self-worth outside of her sexuality?

(Part of the reason I fell in love with this show is that I oftentimes feel like a Harry in a world of Fleabags. I'm just out here trying to understand promiscuous sexuality and how it works for those who engage in it.)

it works better the less you analyze it (in personal encounters, not in the context of a show about a character that starts off promiscuous) because of the fear your prospective partner might be sexually promiscuous for a reason that turns you off

which, I guess the show covered in the context of the very attractive man who talks about how small her breasts are during sex, among other proclivities

he's handsome, we'll try not to think too much about the rest

The lesbian is suggesting replacing one structure of capital (sexual promiscuity) with another (business), is this meant to be ironic? Or is this meant to actually "teach" Fleabag to find pursuits toward self-worth outside of her sexuality?

Godmother's attempt to use sexuality to install herself as matriarch in Fleabag's family is successful

Wow yeah I forgot about that detail. I forget about so many aspects of this show when I think about it! I had forgotten about "fucked me up the arse" dude

Also I adored the "people are shit" "yes.. but they're also all we've got" moment, directed a little too on-the-nose but the sentiment was nice

works better in the play thru waller-bridge's interp of the guy, imo.

incredible show -- the number of great elements to it is difficult to narrow down, w/obvious accolades going to PWB, but everyone is great. Colman's warmth barely covering her controlling nature and skillful manner of cutting nimbly where it hurts the most is a tricky performance to pull off, the trick being that the only people who see it are the ones she wants to show it to, while everyone else remains charmed and understandably so (if you view it from the perspective of those who don't know her well). A perfect depiction of charisma and false warmth towards others used to keep oneself at the center of attention. Sian Clifford, whom I'm not familiar w/, is this character we're maybe invited to expect to dislike but she's really so likable despite her flaws and short-temperedness w/Fleabag, since we see her through the latter's eyes and despite their falling-out at the end of S1 they just love each other so much and the empathy for the character is so deep. a lesser show would have (and lesser shows have, habitually) created characters exactly like this who are set up to be villains of sorts. not remotely the case here.

also i don't buy the whole premise that PWB's character is presented as this beautiful and funny and hip person, i think the key point there is she's full of so much self-loathing and depression that she can't get past it to see what others do see in her, those moments exist to highlight glimpses into the frailty of everyone else and their own self-image issues coupled w/her own perception of herself being wrong. i mean of course certainly FB spends more time in the series making errors in judgement and being insulted by the people she loves (or being fucked w/by the cruel significant others of those she loves) than she spends it getting compliments.

a lot of the show reminded me of some of the Arnaud Desplechin films i've seen. Kings and Queen, in particularly. just w/regards to certain elements of emotional brutality coming to the fore. it's been a long time since i've seen that one, so i'm not sure how much that comp holds water tbh.

i didn't think the priest was too creepy, i think it was a fairly even-keeled depiction of a flawed man of the cloth caught between two places. he seems like maybe he used to be a male version of FB and has found some solace in this new life and thru no fault of her own she tempts him back into it, and he can't go all the way with leaving it in the end. i thought the depiction was sympathetic enough. i'm saying this w/my perception clouded as the son of a guy who left a seminary to pursue a nun who left the convent and it didn't work in the end so idk.

Fleabag claiming her sister's miscarriage as her own in the first ep of season two is her Jesus moment imo

nice post omar, agree with nearly all of it - esp the description of what Colman / PWB pull off with her character

still bothers me that a catholic priest in full regalia was officiating at a civil wedding in their back garden

Haha, yes.

Agreed, especially regarding her sister and their relationship (also lol the whole haircut issue !).

Finished season two yesterday. It's really amazing, but also quite complex and bittersweet. I loved Martin's big speech as an example of everything you shouldn't say, all 'it's not my fault! I can't help it! you just have to deal with me!' I still haven't really figured out what I thought of the very end, but it seemed to me that both fleabag and hot alcoholic priest decided to keep on working on themselves.

there is exactly one completely horrible person in the series and it's Martin

He was too awful to my taste, at times it really made Claire seem bad as well. He was being so awful to her sister!

Godmother is giving him some serious competition there IMO

most definitely

she's at least consciously and sometimes maliciously bad, and Martin is just a flailing douchebag

Also, the way Gelman delivered that speech was so unexpectedly great; this blubbering pile of terrified vulnerability that still manages to be completely unbearable while being self-aware about how unbearable he is. When I was watching it, I had a very strong "I identify with and wholly reject this" reaction.

Otm. I completely get the feeling. Why does my girlfriend keep getting annoyed that I never do anything I promise her that I'll do, I'm bad at remembering stuff, it's not my fault, she should write it down to me, including specific instructions, it's not my fault!

It's kinda male privilege in the extreme. Or in another way, he's at step one of the twelve step program, and has just decided it's easier to stop there.

I think I'd feel horrible rewatching just for that monologue, but now that you mention it, it's really is *chef kiss* bad

I kept wondering if the part was written with Gelman in mind. I can't imagine anyone else in the role.

Yeah, he really goes for that energy. I kinda hated him in Lemon, though.

His greatest work remains 1,000 Cats.

as per colbert interview, apparently gelman's agent was directly contacted by Amazon's casting people for the part and flew out to the UK the next day for filming.

anyways, my gelman love is always based around his work in Eagleheart which should've gotten him an honorary Tony and/or Pulitzer

Gelman is so good at being an asshole I kind of just assume he is one.

i totally just misremembered The Walking Dead and thought Gelman also played Gregory. Totally different actor.

I’m rarely shocked by anything on a show but when Fleabag shoved her godmother back against the wall in s1 ep5 it was really something. Not even a satisfying moment and just this really raw and believable thing. It also set up the moment of her punching Martin at dinner, since by now it was very much in character, and much later in terms of general show tone made the moment where Martin grabs her by the (cashmere) sweater in an aggressive threatening moment genuinely frightening.

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!