After waiting four long years (almost as long as we had to wait for another Marina album–what is it with those U.K.-born women and letting so much time pass in between art projets?), the arrival of Fleabag‘s second and final season is, to be sure, not without its emotional gut punches, the precedent of which was set extremely high by season one. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s (the eponymous Fleabag) adroitness at pulling her audience along like puppets on the strings called misery, self-loathing and constant dissatisfaction are mastered as we open on one of the most awkward family dinners of all-TV time. It’s been a year (not four) since Fleabag has seen her sister, Claire (Sian Clifford), after Claire’s toadish alcoholic husband, Martin (Brett Gelman, also toadish and alcoholic on Love), turned the truth around on Fleabag to make it some like she was the one who tried to kiss him at her birthday party. “After what you did to your best friend,” Claire reasons, surely Martin must be the one telling the truth.
And yet the two are forced to reunite at yet another awkward family gathering celebrating the engagement of their father (Bill Paterson) to their heinous former godmother (Olivia Colman, proving her Oscar-winning chops yet again)–she still tries to lay claim to the title despite having swooped in on their father in his vulnerable widower state. As usual, their repressed dynamic as a family shines through, even if slightly mitigated by the presence of the Catholic priest (Andrew Scott) who will be presiding over Father and Godmother’s wedding ceremony. His unconventional ways–swearing, drinking and unabashedly confessing his loneliness despite having the church a.k.a. God to turn to for solace–do not immediately pique Fleabag’s interest that night. She has far bigger emotional fish to fry between walking in on Claire having a miscarriage in the restroom to claiming it as her own when she won’t share the news with everyone else at the table. Thus, when she won’t, Fleabag finds a way to, as Martin puts it, “make it about her” as usual by announcing the reason she’s acting weird is: “It’s just…I’ve had a bit of a miscarriage.” Stunning the table into silence, Martin, pretending to be on a sober jag to appease Claire (but having secretly downed some shots at the bar), soon “consoles” Fleabag with the assertion that it wasn’t meant to be in there, likening it to a fish jumping out of its bowl. This stings Claire more than it does Fleabag, who seems to apprehend the truth in his words, knowing full well that it was Fleabag who told the truth about the kiss between them a year ago, and not Martin.
In fact, many foreshadowings in season one reappear in the second, most especially ruminations about the value–or lack thereof–of a woman when her body is no longer deemed desirable. Particularly a woman who measures her entire worth by whether or not someone wants to fuck her. Elsewhere, there is also Claire’s now infamous haircut in episode five, in which she declares her new “chic” style to make her look “like a pencil.” The beginnings of this drastic change manifest in episode two of season one, in which Fleabag turns up at her doorstep unexpectedly in a move very out of character. She offers, “Nice haircut,” knowing Claire is sensitive to any perceived criticism based on imperfection (she has something of a more productive version of vanity than her sister, in that sense). Claire defensively caresses it and insists, “It’s better.” Her formerly long locks now shoulder-length, this “radical change” would be endlessly vanilla in comparison to what was to come.
But yes, more than anything, season two expounds upon the fears of Fleabag in season one and makes peace with them. This comes most notably in the form of Kristin Scott Thomas as Belinda, offering up one of the best celebrity cameos on television of late as a businesswoman in attendance at an awards ceremony Claire has organized honoring, what else, Women in Business. Belinda calls such “displays” a further degradation to women in that it only further puts a spotlight on the distinction–the separatism–of male and female genders. So no, she has no problem giving back the “award” (the embodiment of which is a running gag faithful viewers will appreciate), and also telling Fleabag that there is both freedom and sadness in a woman losing her looks as she ages. It all harkens back to the guy who fucked Fleabag up the arse in season one asking her, “What are you afraid of?” to which she replies, “I guess, losing the currency of youth.”
But Belinda breaks down the joys of women getting older after years spent worrying about it as follows:
Women are born with pain built in. It’s our physical destiny: period pains, sore boobs, childbirth, you know. We carry it within ourselves throughout our lives, men don’t. They have to seek it out, they invent all these gods and demons and things just so they can feel guilty about things, which is something we do very well on our own. And then they create wars so they can feel things and touch each other and when there aren’t any wars they can play rugby. We have it all going on in here inside, we have pain on a cycle for years and years and years and then just when you feel you are making peace with it all, what happens? The menopause comes, the fucking menopause comes, and it is the most wonderful fucking thing in the world. And yes, your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get fucking hot and no one cares, but then you’re free, no longer a slave, no longer a machine with parts. You’re just a person.
And, to be sure, while Fleabag is still the self-described apathetic, morally bankrupt woman she always was, her increasing closeness with The Hot Priest opens her up in ways she never thought possible. He even seems to notice when she’s constantly breaking the fourth wall and going “somewhere else” while they’re talking (a hyper-meta occurrence that possibly constitutes some sort of fifth wall).
His empathy and compassion for her lost, lonely state is in stark contrast to her on again, off again season one boyfriend, Harry (Hugh Skinner), who uttered such banalities as, “Don’t make me hate you, loving you is painful enough.”
This echoes something Fleabag’s father will later say to her just before he’s about to tie the knot–truly noose-like, in his case: “You’re the one who really knows how to love, that’s why you feel so much pain.” It’s a surprisingly astute comment coming from a man so ostensibly aloof and prone to stuffing emotion down into the depths of himself. This is precisely why he’s still illustriously “gifting” such things as a therapy session to Fleabag, who confesses to the shrink she has less than pure thoughts about The Hot Priest.
And yet, more than mere simple attraction, it is what The Hot Priest represents–getting God to want to fuck you–that likely holds the most cachet for Fleabag at first. This, the woman who jogged around in cemeteries in episode three of season one, prompting her sister to note, “It’s really inappropriate to jog around a graveyard.” “Why?” she asks with genuine curiosity. Claire returns, “Flaunting your life… God, I can’t wait to be old.” Fleabag retorts, “If it’s any consolation, you look older than you are.” The constant theme of validation through appearance, however, takes a new turn when religion gets involved, for it is technically Fleabag’s soul she has to tantalize The Hot Priest with. Which is hard to do when she’s shouting out things like, “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be such a feminist if my tits were bigger” at Quaker meetings. Yet her brutal candor and sense of being misplaced are what endears her to him further, culminating in a revelatory yet resigned moment in episode five when both finally surrender to what they know has been happening between them. Some things can’t be helped after all, like being born with a weird personality as is the case with Martin’s bassoon-playing son, Jake (Angus Imrie), who makes a number of comical appearances in this season, as opposed to his eerie and faceless one-time cameo in the bathroom with Claire in season one.
From getting checked out by a dog and reasoning, “I can’t go out with a dog” to taking pictures of her minge near the food at the cafe she works, Fleabag has progressed endlessly since her tumultuous grieving period in season one (mind you, her dead best friend, Boo [Jenny Rainsford], is still plenty in the mix with her haunting).
While some have lamented that Fleabag is stopping here, one can’t imagine a better character arc than transforming the woman who once said, “And sometimes I wish I didn’t even know that fucking existed. And that I know my body as it is now really is the only thing I have left, and when that gets old and unfuckable I may as well just kill it. Somehow there isn’t anything worse, than someone who doesn’t want to fuck me,” to the woman who now knows how to not define herself or her worth by whether or not a bloke “wants her body” (soul be damned). Maybe that’s getting older, or maybe it’s just the benefit of not being a Taurus ruled by Venus. We may never be entirely sure if Fleabag can call “fox in the hole!” (you’ll get that by the end of the season) on her histrionic personality disorder. But she’s come a long way from the girl who would “fuck anything.”
