In 2013, there was a little one-woman show put on in England about a woman dealing with the death of her best friend, running a guinea pig cafe, and her crazy family. In 2016, that one-woman show grew into a small half hour comedy on the BBC and Amazon Prime. In 2019, that little show proceeded to beat out many perennial comedies for the Emmy for Best Outstanding Comedy. That little show is Fleabag. Written by and starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge (for whom my adoration is infinite), this show is, as stated before, about a woman trying to figure out her life while dealing with grief, her odd family, and her pension for having sex with the wrong men. But it’s not just that the show deals with all of this, it’s the subtlety and realness of it that makes it so brilliant. For starters, the fact that it’s taken from a play gives it a more theatrical feel. The cadence doesn’t feel like a TV show, and that format makes the dialogue feel more natural and conversational. Her relationship with her sister is one that every sister has: sometimes affectionate yet definitely still moments of contempt. Her constant breaking the fourth wall makes the audience feel more as if they’re in conversation with Fleabag instead of just observing her life. But where the show is most successful is in season 2 though using religious conventions as a frame for expressing discontent with life.
There’s one scene towards the back half of season 2 where Fleabag goes into the confessional booth with the Hot Priest, initially as a joke until it turns into a genuine, honest confessional, expressing her frustration with finding her life direction. “I just think I want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong — and I know that’s why people want people like you in their lives, because you just tell them how to do it,” is just a small fraction of the excellence of this scene and dialogue and the way the character Fleabag is able to connect with us on a deeper level even though the show’s a comedy. We’re all just trying to find out how we fit into the world, we’re all unsure as to what to do to fit in, and it scares many. It’s this moment that elevates the show (and what likely won Phoebe Waller-Bridge one of her three Emmys she won for the show). While it might sound a tad absurd, I promise that Fleabag is a show worth watching. The writing is superb, the acting is on another plane and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a television mind we all should be looking towards for future greatness (did you know she also created Killing Eve?! She’s a genius!).
And the Hot Priest doesn’t hurt either.
All images from giphy.com