Fleabag Part 2 - The Need To Be Known
Series 2 of Fleabag is what really propelled the show into this once in a lifetime event that holds such importance in modern culture. It became this phenomenon, I remember the amount of anticipation and expectation surrounding the show's return to be honestly quite overwhelming and although I hold a special place in my heart for the first series, this is undoubtedly an insane improvement and by far the superior series of television. What is even more fascinating is that Waller-Bridge didn't originally plan to make a second series, the first follows the story of her stage show and she didn't intend on moving on from that story. When you look at it like that, the first series is quite cold and dark, it ends on this reveal of really how dark Fleabag's life is and the small glimmer of hope in the ending is only a little light in the darkness that is her life. Series 2 is reflective, mature and one of the most introspective pieces of television I have ever seen, it is about growth and how Fleabag recovers from the mess she is left in at the end of the previous series. There's something so admirable about how this show learns to adapt and become its own biggest critic, there's a real relationship with how the show is crafted and how the characters change over time, at no point does it subscribe into its own hype instead it uses it to tell an elevating story about these character's lives. I find it to be refreshing and beautiful in every single way, we move from the story of a woman drenched in grief and regret into a story of a woman learning to love and move on from her own cynicism. You'll have to bear with me on this one, I have a lot to say.
Optimism is such an intimidating concept to write about, there's something so reliable and comforting about writing cynically about everything and looking at the world through these self-obsessed cynic eyes. To broadcast love and positivity is so much more difficult than broadcasting hate and dismissal, as a critic myself there's a constant attraction to putting on these glasses of critique and put things in a negative light. This series is all about optimism, about just going through life and enjoying it for what it is, there is nothing mature about being able to mock everything, instead, there's something so mature about excepting the bad and moving on. I think it would have been so easy to have this story be about Fleabag taking her life in her hands and fighting back at the world that has dealt her such a bad hand, but instead, Waller-Bridge chooses a more introspective change and a shift in perspective. We start a year after we last saw these characters, in a quick opening monologue Fleabag reveals she has been trying to fix herself as she turns down casual sex and tries to fix her health, it immediately brings us into the hands of a new Fleabag. I think this opening episode is one of my favourite's of the series due to how perfect it sets up and reintroduces this world, those simple words 'this is a love story' are so brilliant as they immediately subvert our expectation and set up the series perfectly. It isn't a story about breaking down, it is a story about building up, about exploring and learning but reaffirming who you are, letting people in and being let into other people. Not enough stories are as confident as this in how openly optimistic their message is with the exact same result as an incredibly pessimistic story. Anyone can write an emotional story like Ken Loach or Mike Leigh who write stories of people going through the worst, but not many people can write a story about growth like Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
Fleabag's family is still as chaotic as ever when we return to them, there is this wonderful energy to the opening dinner party as they all prove how little they have changed and how superficial and petty they tend to be. Now engaged, Dad and Godmother are even more dysfunctional, I adore Olivia Colman's performance and this might be my favourite episode for her, the way she tramples on Dad and spends half the time patronising everyone is hilarious. Martin and Claire are still together, now desperately trying to have a child and stay sober, to no success at all. Claire hasn't spoken to Fleabag since their confrontation a year ago, it's awkward and antagonistic between the two but in a way that isn't overplayed or unfixable. I love how Claire notices that Fleabag has matured and grown, she takes her a bit more seriously and even at one point has a confused outburst at why she is being so quiet. The entire dinner party has this air of chaos just bubbling under the surface, every character is almost baiting and waiting for what explosive thing Fleabag is going to do, you feel so sorry for her as she is trying to improve herself but their preconceptions of her almost cause her to become those very preconceptions. The miscarriage is a brutal scene, Claire is probably my favourite character and Sian Clifford pulls it off beautifully, it runs into Fleabag's actual explosion perfectly and one my favourite things is that admittedly you can not blame her. She punches Martin in a protective rage, it is out of sympathy for Claire and frustration at how he treats Claire, it isn't a selfish action at all and I can not blame her.
I've neglected to talk about the real focus of this series and that is Andrew Scott's Priest who is the star and catalyst for the series' arc and is one of my favourite inclusions. I love how out of nowhere and unexpected his introduction is, he just kind of arrives into the scene and his chaotic energy is enigmatic and fascinating, you kind of can never quite get a read on him in that first episode. The second episode is about the two of them edging closer, there is this brilliant set of expectations you are presented with, we know they are going to get together because Fleabag keeps winking at the camera, we know there's an attraction there but it is played off as a flirtatious performance from her. He's a really brilliant character because he constantly subverts your idea of him, the other people Fleabag has dated are almost caricatures, they are safe and predictable in their own messy way, the veneer never peeled back for any of them and they always turned out to be exactly what you thought they were. But with the priest there's something fascinatingly chaotic about him, he is clearly suffering from a damaged family, possibly alcoholic, impulsive and enigmatic in conversations and that is what entices Fleabag to him. They genuinely have such amazing chemistry due to the fact that they both share an unpredictable and impulsive life, they get on because they are chaotic and at odds yet friendly and compassionate to each other.
The third episode might be my favourite of the whole show, it revolves around Fleabag helping Claire at an award ceremony for her work and kind of falls into a more classical format than previous episodes but manages to subvert it and get a lot of emotional weight into quite a simplistic story. The show has dabbled in feminism, mostly for one-off jokes about how Claire and Fleabag are 'bad feminists' but I always appreciated was the show's ability to show a woman's experience honestly without relying on the scapegoat of feminism. The highlight of this episode is the incredible performance from Kristin Scott Thomas and her gut-wrenching speech about how women are born into pain, how men create pain whilst women are tied to pain throughout their own life. I love how much of a mirror to Fleabag her character is, she understands and listens and it is one of the only instances (apart from scenes with Boo) where Fleabag gets an authentic friendly experience with someone. This causes Fleabag, who in a previous counselling session admitted she was lonely, to seek out that friendship properly with the people close in her life, this only brings bad from Claire who states 'we are not friends, we are sisters'. A damaging realisation that Fleabag needs to reach out to other people, the two sisters are too messy and within each other's lives to authentically share a relationship that is conventional friendship. So she instead buys some G and T's and turns to the first person who has offered friendship, The Priest.
If you are to ask most people what scene made Fleabag into the show it is regarded as I would guess most people would say the conversation between the Priest and Fleabag in this episode. It might be one of the bravest and boldest decisions from a writer that pays off wonderfully. The scene begins clearly hinting at the two characters having sex, it is intimate, awkward and on this verge of relaxed and tension that I can't quite put my finger on. They joke about religion and each other's quirks start to reveal themselves, they get closer and closer, the Priest reveals his irrational fear of foxes which is a brilliant quirk that is so authentic and hilarious. But then he breaks it by saying that they aren't going to have sex, but he would love to be her friend. It is a wonderful moment, such a genuine and kind moment that is such a mature and compassionate thing that Fleabag needs, only for her to look at us and immediately mock the notion. And in that split second he notices, he sees her go away and talk to us, it is this wonderful reveal that he sees right through her act and can see through her to us. It is such a simple effective way for showing how much Fleabag has let him in and it reaffirms that idea that we are an unhealthy audience for her, that when someone she genuinely shares a connection with notices her inability to escape her own cynicism. It is a brilliant moment, one that shows a step of maturity and excitement in Waller-Bridge's abilities as a writer.
I never expected religion to be such a prominent theme in Fleabag Series 2, it was something I honestly didn't expect the anarchic crude show to ever really address but the inclusion of religion or more accurately faith are some of my favourite thematic ideas in the whole show. I don't have an ounce of religious blood in my body, I've grown up sceptical and dismissive and as a society, we have transitioned to dismissing religion. It is so easy to mock religious ideas, so many comedians find comfort in being the enlightened atheist and it's true that there are so many holes in the ideas behind structural religion. But here Waller-Bridge takes a really modern perspective on religion and boils it down to the importance of personal faith. Faith isn't about the rules and the logic behind religion, you can poke fun at them all you want but it's about how you personally interpret these ideas into your own personal faith. The Preist is a beautiful example of someone who takes his own faith and makes into the positive guide in his life, he believes in something wonderful because the opposite is so cynical and needlessly pessimistic. His religion reminds him to be good and open, he doesn't perfectly follow the rules but he has this strong relationship with God and the ideals he builds are positive and reaffirming. When his faith is tested by Fleabag, he chooses faith because he realises that it is more important for him to be honest and open than throwing it away.
Episode 4 sways between Fleabag and the Priest becoming closer but it is intercut with scenes from her mother's funeral. Fleabag and her mother's relationship has always been the hidden backbone to the show, we have never really spent time getting to understand the impact and here we get to see how the true tragedy stems from how close Fleabag and Boo were. If I was to have any criticism of Series 2, I would say we didn't get enough time with Boo and that cathartic payoff but I think that is intentional as there is a tragedy in there that she can't avoid and the heartbreaking admittance is that she has got to move on, the person she can move on to is the Priest. In the confessional scene, we are met with this beautiful desperation from Fleabag, she feels broken and lost in her life and she needs guidance. She begs to be told what to do, what to think and what to feel because she is so overwhelmed by life's intricacies and so often chooses the wrong path. It is a clear comparison to religion, to the idea that orthodox religion offers that beautiful and attractive order to life, the set of rules that tells you what to do is comforting but restricting. The Priest sees and understands this feeling, he turned to religion and he turns to her as a way to help her. It's such an emotive and beautiful scene that comes crashing down into reality when the Priest is reminded of his faith and becomes ashamed for his actions, he picked his faith and it helped him before and he can't face abandoning it.
The penultimate episode is a return to a sort of order, Fleabag is back making stupid decisions, Claire is in a crisis in her marriage and The Priest is having an even worse crisis. It opens with a sequence as Fleabag goes on a date with the awful lawyer character, I love how we return to her detachment of life through us, she makes jokes about his misogyny and controlling personality and yet still sleeps with him. It's this regression for her that is almost uncomfortable to watch, she's clearly mortified and ashamed about what happened and is struggling to come to terms with the damage she may have caused. That final scene where they give in and sleep together in this explosion of honesty, the more they talk the more they grow in each other's eyes and when they finally sleep together she wants to stay in the moment and turns us away.
The finale is just downright something else, it's not explosive or full of the chaos that Series 1's finale had, it is quiet and more introspective and utterly heartbreaking. There isn't anything that satisfying here, there are moments that we have been waiting for but a lot of it is accepting and mature. The big expectation is some break down to the inevitable disaster that is Dad and Godmother's wedding, but the big surprise is that it all goes well and if anything Fleabag gets closer to her Dad because of it. I love that scene in the attic, that is about how personalities may clash and people may not work perfectly all the time and that is just a part of life. Bill Patterson is just so good in this role, there's something about his quite reserved awkwardness that is humbling and deeply empathetic. The Priest sums love up better than I could do, he talks about the fact none of it ever seems to quite make sense and how it can make you do stupid things and confuse it for other things. We see the cathartic breakup of Claire and Martin, the cathartic admitting that maybe there is some hope between Godmother and Fleabag, She gets her peace with just about everyone, in a throwaway line Claire shows how much she loves her "the only person I'd run through an airport for is you" and her Dad gets to finally share a cigarette and truly admit that he does love and care for her.
It's an emotional story because it's so positive, these characters deserve this ending and I really appreciate how much time we spend with giving them goodbyes that are honest and emotional. After all this, we are left with Fleabag and the Priest at a bus stop. We already know what is going to happen here, the Priest's speech basically confirmed it and the crack in Waller-Bridge's voice as she realises "it's God isn't it" just breaks my heart in two. He chooses faith because that is healthy, the now-iconic response to "I love you": "It'll pass" rings true and is essentially what the series is all about. Growth and rehabilitation are so important, they have an intense love for each other but it isn't meant to be at all, it isn't a satisfying end for this couple but it is a satisfying end for these characters. As he chooses faith and walks away, followed by a fox, she is left there clutching the statue for herself and takes one last look at us. I remember barely being able to see this scene because of the tears in my eyes, the cathartic end we all knew was needed but none of us wanted, the shaking of the head is an admittance that its time to move on. She matures and waves goodbye to us, our last image of her is as she walks into the distance and smiles, acknowledging us one last time before moving.
Fleabag's relationship with the fourth wall is one of my favourite uses of this technique ever, it is so quintessential to my love for this show and there is so much to really appreciate by how Waller-Bridge utilises this technique. Series 2 is all about Fleabag learning to leave us behind, to stop hiding from real life through performance and to authentically appreciate every moment. It takes a true genuine relationship for her to really come to terms with how special and important experiencing life is. It's such a mature direction for the show to go in, there is a comfort and break in how Fleabag builds a relationship with us through quipping at her own life, yet it becomes painfully obvious that she isn't taking her own life seriously. The moment the Priest notices her acknowledge the audience is so special because it using a high concept meta device to show a simple idea of Fleabag opening herself up to another person. The finale brings up these complex emotions, you don't realise how attached to these character's you are after only 12 episodes, the ending is this inevitable goodbye, one that is important and mature but honestly, this series is so good it broke my heart to say goodbye.
This show came at an important time in my life, being trapped at home during one of the scariest and biggest global events of my life made me value the brimming optimism that seeps through Fleabag. I feel a bit overwhelmed and burnt out on the angst and anger present in so much content these days, it's far too easy and safe especially with the amount of anger and angst that is present in the world today. It was refreshing to have a show about maturity, about enjoying and valuing life for everything it's worth. The show is hilarious, it's full of these over the top characters that are a treat to watch but the little glimmers of positivity and human connection made Fleabag a show I really needed. It's been a tough few months, to say the least, and I've found comfort in taking life a bit more seriously, valuing the people around me and thinking about how connected I am to what is happening. All I can say is thank you Phoebe Waller-Bridge, you created something really special.
Thanks for reading.