Fleabag
Fleabag フリーバッグ
Discussed in the Journal
JournalThe Woman Who Holds Everything Is Not Fine. She Is Skilled.Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A woman who talks to the camera about sex, her dead best friend and a priest she should not want.
Fleabag, who is never given another name, is a young woman in London who talks to the camera: while other people are speaking, she turns and tells it what she really thinks. The guinea-pig café she opened with her best friend, Boo, has been failing since Boo died. She sleeps with men she does not much like, is refused a loan by the bank, and puts up with the disapproval of her successful, tightly wound sister, Claire. Their mother is dead, and their father has taken up with the sisters' godmother, an artist whose sweetness always has an edge; from her studio Fleabag steals a small sculpture of a woman's torso. At Claire's birthday party Claire's husband, Martin, drunk, tries to kiss Fleabag. When she tells her sister, Martin convinces Claire that it was the other way round, and Claire turns down a promotion in Finland to stay with him.
At the end of the first series the truth she has kept even from the camera comes out. Boo died when a pretend suicide attempt, meant to punish her unfaithful boyfriend, went wrong, and the woman he had slept with was Fleabag. Turned away by her father, she is close to taking her own life when the bank manager who refused her the loan happens to pass. He listens, and offers her another chance.
A year later the café is doing well. At a dinner to celebrate her father's engagement, Claire has a miscarriage; Fleabag claims it as her own so that her sister can hide it, and then goes for Martin. The Catholic priest who is to marry her father and the godmother becomes the first person to notice when she turns aside to the camera. They fall for each other. He wrestles with his vow of celibacy, and they sleep together. Claire, meanwhile, realises she is in love with Klare, a Finnish colleague.
On the wedding day Fleabag returns the sculpture, and the godmother tells her it was modelled on her mother. Claire tells Martin the truth about the miscarriage, asks him to leave her, and runs after Klare. At a bus stop the priest and Fleabag say that they love each other, but when she asks whether it is God, he tells her he has chosen God. They part kindly. She points out a fox to him, then walks away alone, and for the first time she leaves the audience behind at the bus stop.
Starring
Phoebe Waller-Bridgeas Fleabag
A young Londoner running a failing café, who uses sex and jokes to keep her grief at bay and talks straight to the camera.
Fleabag’s story
Fleabag has a failing café, a string of men and the camera she confides in. She is refused a loan, steals a sculpture from her godmother's studio, and hides, even from the camera, that Boo's boyfriend cheated with her. When Claire believes Martin over her and her father turns her away, she comes close to taking her own life, and the passing bank manager gives her another chance. A year later the café is thriving. She claims Claire's miscarriage as her own, fights Martin, and falls for the priest who is to marry her father, the first to catch her turning to the camera. They sleep together once. On the wedding day she returns the sculpture, learns it was modelled on her mother, sends Claire after Klare and hears the priest choose God. She walks away, leaving the camera behind.
Sian Cliffordas Claire
Fleabag's high-achieving older sister, tightly wound and unhappy in her marriage to Martin.
Claire’s story
Claire disapproves of most of what her younger sister does, and organises her own surprise party. At a silent retreat she learns that Fleabag stole their godmother's sculpture, and later steals it back for her. Offered a promotion in Finland, she hears from Fleabag that Martin tried to kiss her, believes Martin instead, turns the job down and stays. A year later she miscarries at their father's engagement dinner and will tell no one; Fleabag claims it, and the sisters take a cab to hospital. She falls for Klare, a Finnish colleague. On the wedding day she tells Martin the truth about the miscarriage and asks him to leave her, and, in tears at the priest's words about love and urged on by Fleabag, she goes after Klare at the airport.
Andrew Scottas The Priest
The Catholic priest due to marry Fleabag's father and godmother, who falls in love with her and is the first to notice her asides.
The Priest’s story
The priest meets Fleabag as a fellow smoker outside her father's engagement dinner. He gives her a Bible with passages marked, talks with her about celibacy, and begins to notice when she slips away to the camera. One night in his church, drunk, he hears her confession; they come close, and he stops. He tells her family he can no longer marry them and tells her to stay away from his church, then comes to see her, says his feelings are more than physical, and they sleep together. He marries her father and godmother after all, with a sermon on how painful love is and how much hope it takes. At the bus stop they say they love each other, and he tells her he has chosen God. They part kindly; she points out a fox, and he walks away.
Olivia Colmanas Godmother
The sisters' godmother, an artist who took up with their father soon after their mother's death and whose sweetness always has an edge.
Bill Patersonas Dad
The sisters' widowed father, who marries their godmother and turns Fleabag away when she most needs him.
Jenny Rainsfordas Boo
Fleabag's best friend and partner in the café, whose death, and Fleabag's part in it, haunts the first series.
Why it matters
Fleabag is about a woman who uses everything she has, sex, jokes and the camera itself, to avoid feeling one thing: her guilt over her friend's death. Phoebe Waller-Bridge first played her in a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013, and the series keeps the monologue's closeness by letting her speak straight to the audience, which makes every viewer an accomplice in her deflections. Its second series won Emmys for comedy series, lead actress and writing. What it says about female desire is unusually honest: sex here is appetite, distraction and sometimes self-punishment, and the one man who truly sees her is the one who cannot stay. When the priest notices her glancing at the lens, the device becomes the show's real question, what it costs to be seen, and in the last scene she walks away from the lens as well.