In the first episode, Fleabag-as-narrator initially presents as awoman in control of her own story, the type of cosmopolitan best friend you might grab araucous, profanity-laden brunch with, then go home and secretly worry about. Sure, she goofs up: she beds some subpar candidates thanks to avoracious sexual appetite, gets into passive-aggressive cold wars with her godmother (Colman), and consistently vexes her control-freak sister Claire (Sian Clifford), even smacking her in the face when confusing her attempt of ahug for an attack. But with her curlicued bob and knowing smirk, she flicks her eyes toward the camera to confide in us directly, sometimes to contextualize the situation at hand, but more often to tell adirty joke, express some level of disgust, or share something intimate she can’t manage to utter to the actual people in her life. In other cases, she whips us from one scene to the next, the editing sometimes slicing ajoke off mid-punchline or carrying with it atint of the surreal. While these moves may ostensibly be read as televisual “errors,” they work to suggest that Fleabag’s agency expands beyond the parameters of her life on screen – but also, maybe, that we’re not getting the full picture of who she is or what she’sdone.
Eventually, the mistakes Fleabag makes and their ripple effects accumulate in away that hints at something else: maybe these aren’t all “honest” mistakes after all. Indeed, there’s something darker lurking underneath this compulsion for theatrics, amasochistic streak meant to scratch the itch that tells her she’s a “greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself afeminist.” Awickedly funny early scene finds Fleabag getting caught masturbating to aspeech by then-President Obama (God, how Imiss the before times) by her sensitive yet doofy boyfriend, Harry (Hugh Skinner). It leads to their not-so-funny breakup (even after Fleabag proudly informs us, “He’ll be back”), and when he asks if what she really wants is to be alone, it’s one of the few instances Fleabag doesn’t make adroll aside; in fact, she doesn’t say anything atall.
However, it’s not until the season finale that we learn the most significant source of her pain. Throughout the season, tender flashbacks depict Fleabag sharing laughs and bona fide intimacy with best friend Boo (Jenny Rainsford), whom Fleabag has informed us died by suicide, albeit an accidental one – another grim miscalculation. Her grief over Boo’s death is palpable, yet Claire is the one who reveals why it’s sent Fleabag into adebilitating spiral of shame and self-destruction when she brutally alleges that Fleabag sleeping with Boo’s partner was the catalyst for her death. It’s Fleabag’s greatest and most horrifically permanent mistake, and in confirming her worst suspicions of herself, it recontextualizes all we’ve seen thus far. As the camera narrows in on Fleabag from all sides, she can’t even escape judgment from her new fourth-wall confidants.
Fleabag’s fateful mistake – brought on by the grief over her mother’s death, an unhealthy obsession with sex, and alaundry list of other possible afflictions – is the type of reveal that could be some viewers’ final straw (Tony Soprano and Walter White could murder asmall village without losing asingle fanboy, of course, but being the “other woman” is plain unforgivable!). And while Fleabag the character leaves the interaction shattered and aimless,Fleabag the show knows exactly where to go from here: shortly after Claire’s confrontation, achance encounter with the first episode’s bank manager, of all people, finds him and Fleabag sitting together in her and Boo’s café. With mascara streaming down her face, she unloads all her misdeeds onto him: “I fuck everything,” she says, the double entendre too severe to find funny in the moment. He leaves, returns from his car with her rejected loan application, and decides to redo their botched interview. Why? Because, as he says, “People make mistakes”.
Even after its stellar second season (and the slew of Emmys and BAFTAs it’s garnered), this scene remains the legacy ofFleabagto me: ambiguous, painful, yet ultimately merciful. For as complicated acharacter as Waller-Bridge made Fleabag to be, it takes asimple act of grace from astranger to remind her, and us, that while some mistakes can’t be undone, it’s all apart of being hilariously, tragically human.
