Perspective TV's Big Advantage - FLEABAG Deep Dive

So you're a cool priest, are you? A cool priest? Yeah. No, I'm a big reader with no friends. Are you a cool person? I'm a pretty normal person. A normal person? Yeah, a normal person. What makes you a normal person? Well, I don't believe in God. I love it when he does that. This is the second season of Fleabag, the BBC series from writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge that everybody in the U.S. just watches on Amazon. Fleabag is based on Waller-Bridge's one-woman theater show and follows its main character, also named Fleabag, so intently that she often will turn and speak to us directly through the lens of the camera. I'm happy you found a way to deflect from your pitiful, self-sabotaging, ego-driven, masturbatory, I cannot believe how well this is coming out, pawing, insidious, insidious, overwhelming mediocrity, only to finally figure out that at your very core, you are a weakie. Damn! The first season was a cult hit in 2016 that focused on our main character dealing with both the losses of her best friend and her mother, but season two covers way more thematic ground. There's grief, but also spirituality and religion, temptation, forgiveness, sibling relationships, redemption, feminism, and the show even finds time to comment on its first season. And all of this in the season's incredibly short two-and-a-half-hour runtime. Fleabag does this by diving deeper into what makes its first season and television at large so interesting, exploring perspective. Now, in order to talk about this, I'm going to need to spoil the second season of Fleabag, so if you want to avoid that, feel free to check out my spoiler-free video on the first season. The link for that video is in the description. To varying degrees, every great television show is a character study, inserting us directly into that character's mind, and Fleabag is very upfront about this through the show's use of breaking the fourth wall. She, um, she, don't say it, she, she actually, uh, just don't say it, she actually orgasmed when she finished it, just said it. In season one, this tool was used to teach us about Fleabag. We saw the world from her point of view in a way that drew attention away from what the narrator told us to who the narrator is. Each time she broke the fourth wall, she also broke into a new dimension of her character. But what separates Fleabag from other shows is how it uses that perspective. Jesus. Now, in season two, with that tool being established, and with us knowing a bit about Fleabag, the show is able to point that perspective outward and take on way more ideas. Whether Fleabag likes it or not, we see her now. And that means we get to learn about her relationship with the world in a more truthful and honest way. Of course, this unique perspective is used to great comedic effect, but it's also used to really dive into the nuance of the season's central idea. This is a love story. We've seen Fleabag lust after people, and even the rare dog before, but in this season, everything changes when she meets the hot priest. The priest is quite hot. So hot. It's not just that he's hot and unavailable. They have real chemistry, and he challenges her in ways that she's never been challenged before. I like that you believe in a meaningless existence. And you're good for me. You make me question my faith. And? I've never felt closer to God. Most importantly for this discussion, though, he can see her looking at us. At the camera. What was that? What? This isn't just a clever way to tell us that the hot priest is different or more in-tune with the universe. It's indicative of how he can see her for who she truly is. Our perspective from Fleabag's shoulder shines a spotlight on the duality of what variety critic Sonia Saraya neatly sums up as well. Throughout both seasons, our existence on Fleabag's shoulder has grown uncomfortable at times. In the first season, it was when we learned things about her that she would have rather kept hidden. But this season, it's because we serve as her conscience, a mirror in which she sees herself. Sure, we're a sounding board for her best quips, but we're also the people who have seen her at her most vulnerable. We, as an audience, make it very difficult for her to hide from herself. For the most part, she's been able to keep that relationship with us hidden. For example, when we follow Fleabag to therapy earlier in the season, the therapist nails her on pretty much everything, from her coping mechanisms, to her relationship with her mother, to her priestly desires. Catholic? Yes. A good one? Yes. Looks good in the... Yes. I understand. But even she can't see Fleabag peeking at us. Oh, so you do have someone to talk to. Yeah. The same is true for the priest, at first. Fleabag tells us she fancies him while he's sitting right there, but once they get to know each other and their relationship evolves beyond lust into something more, he's able to catch her whenever she tries to glance at us. In fact, he's the only one who still sees her in the moments that she steals away from the world. Oh my god, we're gonna have sex. For ****'s sake! Stop this! This changes everything about their scenes together in a very tangible way. In the second half of the season, scenes with the priest and Fleabag have fewer edits in them, and more and more, they're handheld. Without being able to turn to us as a dimension-breaking outlet, Fleabag is forced into moving either closer to the priest in intimacy, or away, and deeper into her curated version of herself. Whereas Fleabag used to watch the show with us as much as she was in it, now a barrier has come between us, and weirdly, that barrier actually lets us see her even more honestly. Not unlike the anonymity of the confession chamber she finds herself in. And I'm ashamed of not knowing what I'm... What you want? It's okay not to know what you want. No, I know what I want. I know exactly what I want. Right now. What's that? It's bad. And when that encounter is interrupted by an act of God, or faulty nails, and Fleabag is feeling the rejection, she immediately turns to her two crutches for hiding from herself. Sex, and us. You know that feeling when the hot misogynist who might not be a misogynist is turning up at your house for the second time in 48 hours to give you nine orgasms you don't want just to do something to get your head out of the fact that the only person you want to see in the world is the priest that you... This scene echoes the exact way that we met Fleabag back in her first scene, witty, but ultimately sad, alone, and grieving, trying desperately to be seen, but never quite comfortable enough to show us who she really is. Her relationship with the priest has given her a taste of what it feels like to actually be seen, and when they finally bone, she ditches the camera. She doesn't want us to see this part, because it's real intimacy. She can't be apart from something like this that's real, to see and be seen as she truly is, not as she's performing. Of course, her love with the priest is not the only love in her life. Fleabag's relationship with her mother, while largely unspoken, hung heavy over the first season, and we finally see a glimpse of it in a flashback to her funeral. Again, the horror of being seen rears its head when Fleabag can't help that she looks amazing, as uncomfortable as it is to be recognized for it over and over again. Oh, what the hell, you look incredible. Gosh, you look gorgeous. Darling, you look wonderful. You look glorious. God, you look well. Have you had your eyebrows done? There, at the funeral, she has a genuine conversation with her usually quiet father, who reveals to her that while he loved her mother, he didn't always like her, a thought that he repeats and directs at Fleabag in the finale. I love you, but I'm not sure that I like you all the time. Likewise, Fleabag's relationship with her sister is a different kind of love, something her sister rejects as friendship. We're not friends. We are sisters. But then admits later, the only person I'd run through an airport for is you. As it turns out, love is a more complicated emotion than universal praise. Who knew? This idea of truly understanding and truly being understood, and the need-slash-horror of being seen, that's summed up perfectly by our priest in his homily. Love is awful. It's awful. It's painful. It's frightening. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself. It's all any of us want, and it's hell when we get there. So no wonder it's something we don't want to do on our own. When the priest leaves Fleabag at the end of the season, she also turns away from the camera for a final time, leaving us, in the mask she's put up to protect herself, behind. She doesn't need us to see who she wants us to see anymore. It's a rich and full character arc that TV is especially great at bringing to us. I think it's easy to look at Fleabag and think of it as a movie, and most people who find it on Amazon will probably knock it out in a Saturday afternoon, but I think television's big advantage over film is that it often brings us into a character's mind and gets us to understand them more deeply. Usually this is done with huge swaths of time, for seasons on end, until we know what a character is going to do before they do. It's that time that makes television so uniquely suited to exploring the depths of a character and finding nuance in emotion. And even though Fleabag is the length of a movie, it's able to do what TV does so well by focusing so intently and creatively on perspective. The best stories put their audiences in positions that echo the themes of the story. And that's exactly what Fleabag does. It tells a story about needing to be seen, and the horror of being seen for who you truly are, while giving us that same experience, creating an intimate relationship with Fleabag, coming to a deep understanding of her, and then pulling that back away. That idea of truly seeing is what Fleabag is all about, both for her and for us. Which brings us back to the end of the series. The fox represents the demons that haunt the priest, consistently showing up whenever his celibacy has been tested, and keeping him honest with his devotion to God. For Fleabag, we've served the same purpose, and when she leaves us behind, it's because she no longer needs us. She's finally gained the perspective, to be honest, with herself. So for this one, it's a breakdown of how Phoebe Waller-Bridge blends comedy and drama so well. You can also check out my podcast Couch Taters, and read my blog down here. Thanks!