In the first episode, Fleabag-as-narrator initially presents as a woman in control of her own story, the type of cosmopolitan best friend you might grab a raucous, profanity-laden brunch with, then go home and secretly worry about. Sure, she goofs up: she beds some subpar candidates thanks to a voracious sexual appetite, gets into passive-aggressive cold wars with her godmother (Colman), and consistently vexes her control-freak sister Claire (Sian Clifford), even smacking her in the face when confusing her attempt of a hug for an attack. But with her curlicued bob and knowing smirk, she flicks her eyes toward the camera to confide in us directly, sometimes to contextualize the situation at hand, but more often to tell a dirty joke, express some level of disgust, or share something intimate she can’t manage to utter to the actual people in her life. In other cases, she whips us from one scene to the next, the editing sometimes slicing a joke off mid-punchline or carrying with it a tint of the surreal. While these moves may ostensibly be read as televisual “errors,” they work to suggest that Fleabag’s agency expands beyond the parameters of her life on screen – but also, maybe, that we’re not getting the full picture of who she is or what she’s done.
Eventually, the mistakes Fleabag makes and their ripple effects accumulate in a way that hints at something else: maybe these aren’t all “honest” mistakes after all. Indeed, there’s something darker lurking underneath this compulsion for theatrics, a masochistic streak meant to scratch the itch that tells her she’s a “greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist.” A wickedly funny early scene finds Fleabag getting caught masturbating to a speech by then-President Obama (God, how I miss the before times) by her sensitive yet doofy boyfriend, Harry (Hugh Skinner). It leads to their not-so-funny breakup (even after Fleabag proudly informs us, “He’ll be back”), and when he asks if what she really wants is to be alone, it’s one of the few instances Fleabag doesn’t make a droll aside; in fact, she doesn’t say anything at all.
However, it’s not until the season finale that we learn the most significant source of her pain. Throughout the season, tender flashbacks depict Fleabag sharing laughs and bona fide intimacy with best friend Boo (Jenny Rainsford), whom Fleabag has informed us died by suicide, albeit an accidental one – another grim miscalculation. Her grief over Boo’s death is palpable, yet Claire is the one who reveals why it’s sent Fleabag into a debilitating spiral of shame and self-destruction when she brutally alleges that Fleabag sleeping with Boo’s partner was the catalyst for her death. It’s Fleabag’s greatest and most horrifically permanent mistake, and in confirming her worst suspicions of herself, it recontextualizes all we’ve seen thus far. As the camera narrows in on Fleabag from all sides, she can’t even escape judgment from her new fourth-wall confidants.
Fleabag’s fateful mistake – brought on by the grief over her mother’s death, an unhealthy obsession with sex, and a laundry list of other possible afflictions – is the type of reveal that could be some viewers’ final straw (Tony Soprano and Walter White could murder a small village without losing a single fanboy, of course, but being the “other woman” is plain unforgivable!). And while Fleabag the character leaves the interaction shattered and aimless, Fleabag the show knows exactly where to go from here: shortly after Claire’s confrontation, a chance encounter with the first episode’s bank manager, of all people, finds him and Fleabag sitting together in her and Boo’s café. With mascara streaming down her face, she unloads all her misdeeds onto him: “I fuck everything,” she says, the double entendre too severe to find funny in the moment. He leaves, returns from his car with her rejected loan application, and decides to redo their botched interview. Why? Because, as he says, “People make mistakes”.
Even after its stellar second season (and the slew of Emmys and BAFTAs it’s garnered), this scene remains the legacy of Fleabag to me: ambiguous, painful, yet ultimately merciful. For as complicated a character as Waller-Bridge made Fleabag to be, it takes a simple act of grace from a stranger to remind her, and us, that while some mistakes can’t be undone, it’s all a part of being hilariously, tragically human.