A Love Letter to FLEABAG

Described as raunchy, provocative and tormenting, Fleabag does in two seasons what Girls couldn’t achieve in six.

Fleabag begins with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s title character breaking the fourth wall to “speak” to the viewer about her frustrating mundane life and the various intricacies that come with friendship, sex, and being a struggling 20 something woman with a family that refuses to understand you.

Fleabag is multi-dimensional, and not just because she breaks the fourth wall. She is deeply flawed, thought-provoking, and above all, relatable.

Shows like Insecure, The Bold Type, Sex and the City and so forth, tackle femininity and offer unique perspectives on womanhood. Each of these shows follow the lives of different women dealing with different cultural obstacles, but there is one common theme: self discovery.

Though these shows are brilliantly unique in their own ways, Fleabag is the most successful at this, because self discovery is the furthest thing the name character is looking for. Fleabag isn’t so much about coming into your own, yet the sad realism of not even caring if you do. Fleabag is in no way looking for a revelation or even a reason to change. Throughout the first season, you recognize Fleabag is depressed and self medicating with sex and self-deprecation, but the viewer does not realize until mid season that Fleabag is indeed punishing herself over the death of her friend. 

Fleabag’s first season follows flashbacks of Fleabag and her friend, Boo, working in the cafe that they co-own. Boo finds out the man she is in love with cheated on her, and decides to do something radical to make him feel bad. She comes up with the not-so-brilliant plan to step off into the bike lane, hoping only to wound herself enough to land a bed in the hospital for her male interest to visit her ailing side. She underestimates how fast the biker will be, gets thrown off into traffic, and subsequently dies. You soon come to learn Fleabag is the woman he cheats on her with and the heightened self hate makes all the more sense.

All of this information is given to us by Fleabag. Whether Boo only meant to hurt herself a little, or was so truly traumatized by the infidelity that she intended to kill herself remains blurry, because it is unclear to Fleabag. The ambiguity of the circumstances centers completely around Fleabag’s perspective of these situations, and knowing she sees things in a severely dramatic way makes her an unreliable narrator.

In my 25 years of enjoying television, never have I been so deeply and intrinsically affected as I have by Fleabag. Fleabag forces you to fall in love with Phoebe’s character, even if she hates herself. You forgive her for what she did to Boo, even though she doesn’t forgive herself. You learn to care for her, because even though you’ve never slept with your best friend’s boyfriend which results in her “accidental” death, you relate to her. 

In season two, it starts with Fleabag joining her dysfunctional family in a restaurant to celebrate the wedding of her widower father and his betrothed, her incorrigible godmother. They are joined by Fleabag’s sister, her sister’s husband and a - rather attractive - priest who will be performing the nuptials. Feeling like the black sheep, Fleabag breaks the fourth wall once again to inform the viewer that no one at the table has asked her a question in the last 45 minutes.

“So what do you do?”

The Priest breaks her internal countdown in perfect timing, which begets the question of whether he notices he discomfort and acts as a catalyst for their relationship. Fleabag doesn’t acknowledge it in the moment, but she feels seen.

Falling in love with a priest can only be described as self-inflicted punishment. Nevertheless, Fleabag begins this venture to sleep with the Priest, thus attempting to continue to self-medicate through sex. Fleabag doesn’t inherently believe in God, so getting the Priest to test the fidelity of his vows is not only something she wants sexually, she sees it as a challenge and “eff you” to the man upstairs.

But this priest is no saint. In fact, he is a foul-mouthed, recovering sex addict whose new addiction is Fleabag. With the Priest attempting to convert her to Catholicism (undoubtedly to prevent them from falling for each other) and Fleabag trying to get him to break his vow, the second season gives Fleabag an even deeper layer: religion.

Fleabag eventually wins this challenge and has sex with the Priest. Moments before in a fight to resist the urge, the Priest offers friendship and friendship only to Fleabag. She breaks the fourth wall again, and he yells at her to stop.

This scene is the final confirmation that he indeed sees her in a way that no one else does. Why is the Priest the only one that notices Fleabag breaking the proverbial fourth wall and speaking to us? Is it because he is the only one that truly sees her?

By this point, we know she uses the fourth wall breaks as a coping mechanism to display her various feelings of annoyance, excitement and yes, guilt. In the first instance, he asks her where she “goes” when she breaks the fourth wall. In a shared moment earlier in the season, the Priest tells Fleabag a story about a fox that follows him around. In the last scene of the show, Fleabag sees the fox and points off in the direction the Priest went. Her seeing his fox and him seeing her fourth wall breaks are perfectly intentional examples of them being intertwined in a way that can never be changed.

In all the shows I’ve ever watched, I’ve always felt like the ending is never enough. Maybe there were too many loose ends or plot holes that never got resolved. Maybe the character changed in such a deep-rooted and odd way, that completely ruined the progression of the story. 

Fleabag is none of that. 

The twist of knowing that throughout the first season, Fleabag is struggling with the death of her best friend only to find out she was the cause of it, is truly harrowing. Fleabag falling in love with a priest in the second season, and him being the only person that gets her, yet the only person she can never have is harmoniously unsettling. Fleabag adds so many layers to the story and the character herself, demanding you to feel all the feels.

But the ending? The ending of Fleabag hurts so good. On a bench, Fleabag admits her love for the Priest, already knowing that between the possibility of being with her or being with God, he will choose God. 

“I love you.”

“It’ll pass.” 

As he walks away, he pauses and turns to her, jokingly saying that he will see her in church Sunday. They share a laugh, and he adds that she will never be allowed in his church again. 

After a beat, he tells her he loves her too.

On one hand, the ending leaves you with the beautifully harsh reality that even though he loves her too, his love for God transcends his human desires, so Fleabag will likely never be with him again. This heartbreak and realization that as messy and complicated as she is, someone can love her, is the inciting point that leads Fleabag to the resolution of not needing to “talk” to the viewer anymore. The camera goes to follow her, and she waves it away. 

Life isn’t always pretty. Sometimes it's messy and upsetting and there’s no one to blame but yourself. There are so many different depictions and opinions on what the ending of Fleabag meant to Fleabag. Personally, I believe being loved and rejected by the Priest is a wake up call for her. I don’t imagine the next day she woke up and magically everything was right in the world. I also don’t believe she went home and wallowed in the bed, soaking up the heartbreak. I don’t even believe she forgives herself for what she did to Boo.

I choose to believe a new version of herself was unleashed. I like to think the same old mundane, boring things of everyday life continue to happen, but now Fleabag understands them. Being loved by the Priest, opened the door to her loving herself. 

“It’ll pass.” It still hasn’t.