Fleabag

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.