'Fleabag' Is Utter Genius, and Not Just For Posh Girls

Early 2019 was when I'd begun hearing distinctively loud chatter here and there of 'The Priest', and I'd fatefully ignored what sounded like another addition to the Conjuring universe.

Imagine my shock when I'd discovered what they were really talking about was a BBC sitcom. To further this surprise, 'The Priest' was allegedly handsome and earnest, and fighting against my knee-jerk reaction based on childhood experiences at a Catholic school, to irreverently call bullshit, I channeled this into my desire to locate the source and see for myself.

So, I began asking about, gauging a reaction that was met with a chorus of 'Oh, don't! It's amazing!' in such a way that made me slightly confused as to which rock I'd been living under to have not heard about this show until it had finished. I'd also heard quite a few rumblings of how honestly heartbreaking and sexually frustrated the show was, but that it could not have ended any other way. This to me, amongst all other things, was the selling point; rarely will I ever watch a show that hasn't run it's course, and so knowing that Fleabag was done and dusted, it couldn't get any better or worse...I was in.

Just like that, I'd wolfed down the first series in a night, myself agreeing with it's achievement of critical acclaim and fan praising for it's ability to propel us into a grid of real, sexual honesty, emotional, observational drama and quick-witted comedy.

Only more recently had I heard of the outbursts of BBC watchers claiming Pheobe Waller-Bridge had written a show 'just for posh girls' but here's why it's so much more than that, and why it doesn't have to be a criticism.

It is much more about these posh girls, as much as it is for other women. This is merely a representation of a sub-section of women, and yet under the veil of the middle-classes, a demograph represented as having it 'all together', we are allowed to have a stand-point of familiarality to divulge ourselves in an unfamiliar representation of grief, human relationships, and the state of the world. It's so realistically undramatic and comedic that it's rather quite jarring, and it is so rich in dry-humour that whilst it isn't for everyone, there is crude sexuality to it that is perhaps 'unexpected' if it truly was 'just for posh girls'.

When I started watching, it became quickly apparent to me that the real star of the show was not this one 'posh girl' in particular, as fantastic and loveable as Pheobe Waller-Bridge's and her 'Fleabag' is, but the entire palette of characters who even if not always likeable, were unwaveringly relatable.

Yes, the step-mum is a bitch, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't project myself onto the small moments of genuine care and attentiveness that rear it's head through her unpleasantness. The dad is emotionally starved and doesn't know how to properly interact with his daughters, but I'll be damned if it's not tangible that still feeling the ripples of grief, he feels he needs to be loved. Claire and her simply awful husband are also not exempt from this,

The Priest is dissappointingly pious but I can't sit here and say he's not me when I've rejected the people in my life for other priorities, and he's also all of the people that have rejected me for the same reasons. But, the difference is that with Fleabag whilst we can project ourselves onto her, we don't. She is relatable, yes, but in a way in which we are distinctly different than her; we are not encouraged to align with her as ourselves, but as a friend. A troubled, self-destructive, beautiful friend.

This is quite unexpected in an era of television where we are presented with protagonists that are, by some extension of the imagination, us. We have good guys who parade our own idealised heroisms and and bad guys who manifest the ugly parts of ourselves that come along with a psychoanalytical observations of our psyche, but always have a sometimes small positive feature that provide us with hope that we can always be redeemed.

That being said, Fleabag doesn’t immunise itself from cliche, reserving it for special moments; "the only person I'd run through an airport for is you" the subversion of this as a romance film into that of familial love between two sisters who've never really seen eye to eye from episode 1 is gut-wrenching.

And listen, I love the Priest as much as the next girl, but this relationship takes precedence even in the closing frames, also cliche for it's coming-of-age-esque bus sequence in which the tear-flooding "It'll pass" hits us like a wet fish. This is because it's a marked difference between her Romeo & Juliet, love relationship with the priest that wasn't allowed to grow, her familial relationship with Claire that can never end, and friendship with us, her other metaphorical sister, that doesn't need to go on.

We feel like two old friends parting in the night, that crucial point in a friendship's end where you realise you need to grow up and move on, only aided by Waller-Bridge's gorgeous performance of Fleabag's inner childish naivety as she looks back. It's like we both know that we will never meet again as whilst the friendship was vital and fun whilst it lasted, her lacerating honesty throughout the series assures us that this doesn't mark the end of the Fleabag we know, infact she will carry on the way she is, but we don't need to see anymore.

This, to me, doesn't seem like something exclusive to a particular social class. To me, this is for women.

Overall rating: 9/10