Fleabag

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.

^

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!