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Original poster

Does Fleabag get better?

130 replies

Keener · 25/03/2019 14:45

I'd seen so many glowing reviews of Fleabag that when season 2 started with a great cast I thought I should go back and give season 1 a go first, so I knew the backstory. I just watched the first episode of season 1 at the weekend with DH, and we both thought it was very one-note. It just seemed like bleak, navel-gazing Bridget Jones without the weightloss gags, and while I generally like bleak, I found it unengaging and one-dimensional. (My strongest impression was what a wonderfully clothes-horsey body P W-B has, and how nicely a trenchcoat sits on her. Which was probably not the intended impression.)

Does it develop, and should we persevere, or is this one of those shows where, like Game of Thrones, you should recognise that if you don't like it after half an hour, or while Sean Bean is still alive, it's not going to grow on you?

OP posts:

TheWildRumpyPumpus · 25/03/2019 15:41

The scene where Fleabag and her sister (Claire?) are the only ones at the feminist lecture shoving their hands in the air when the speaker asks who would trade five years off their lives for a perfect body just didn't work for me because the most obvious thing you notice first about P W-B is that she looks like a catwalk model, all gorgeous and angular and tall -- she already has the type of body that our society thinks is perfect, so it sanitised the whole thing for me. DH said it would have worked entirely differently with someone like a younger Joanna Scanlan in the lead.

Isn’t that the point?

MrPan · 25/03/2019 15:41

Tried watching it. After the first 20 mins we switched off.

Banal, simple, low-bar. Just awful, and yes quite the BJD angsty - def for those millennials who are easily pleased, think being crude is funny - always - and have only modest critical faculties.

Next!

dayswithaY · 25/03/2019 15:47

I think the point is you're not meant to like Fleabag (the character) and it's ok to be appalled by her actions but you go on the journey with her and the final episode explains everything. The second series is so different - much lighter and I don't remember her talking to camera quite so much in S1 but I love it. Stick with it as it's not like anything else on TV.

Interested in this thread?

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dayswithaY · 25/03/2019 15:50

I should add i thought Breaking Bad was the most boring show ever, couldn't understand the appeal, and I love Bryan Cranston.

Grace212 · 25/03/2019 15:50

I watched the first one recently and didn't like it

tbh I only tried it because of hearing about the Scotts - Andrew Scott and Kristin Scott Thomas. I did find it very stereotyped.

I liked the breaking of the fourth wall and I did laugh at a couple of things, but having read up more on what happens, I suspect for me it's just going to be Bridget Jones for modern day, with some really dismal stuff thrown in.

Fazackerley · 25/03/2019 15:51

I love Fleabag. Hated line of duty and thought breaking bad was ok for the first series then boring.

DustyMaiden · 25/03/2019 15:52

I feel the same as you. Love line of duty. I kept watching breaking bad as everyone said it was worth it, but it wasn’t. I just didn’t become attached to any of the characters, they had no redeeming features.

Grace212 · 25/03/2019 15:55

I'm really surprised by people saying it's new and innovative...

BikeRunSki · 25/03/2019 15:55

I didn’t get Fleabag when I first tried to watch it a year or 2 ago. I tried again recently, in the run up to season 2 and loved it.

Hugh Dennis has a fairly big part in the last episode of season 1.

Original poster

Keener · 25/03/2019 15:55

Explain the way you see that scene, WildRumpy?

For me, it just felt like all those Hollywood glossy films where, I don't know, Michelle Pfeiffer is cast as a plain waitress or something -- we're so used to seeing beautiful actresses cast as supposedly 'ordinary-looking' women that it just felt like more of the same, and a bit safe, I felt?

I need to go out, but will be back.

OP posts:

multivac · 25/03/2019 15:59

Banal, simple, low-bar. Just awful, and yes quite the BJD angsty - def for those millennials who are easily pleased, think being crude is funny - always - and have only modest critical faculties.

Perhaps you could recommend something more challenging, and worthy of our valuable time?

Sunonthepatio · 25/03/2019 16:01

Brilliant show.

SoHotADragonRetired · 25/03/2019 16:02

Keener, it's definitely part of that scene that both Fleabag and Claire are thin and fairly objectively beautiful women. The "point", as it were, is that a) they do genuinely love each other, but they're also both terribly damaged and insecure, and they connect through their brokenness even as they compete over their looks b) they are the only women there naked enough to state the socially unacceptable. (Everyone knows that you're not "supposed" to value your own looks.)

It's not a big Sending A Message moment, it's a dark laugh as much as anything rather than some sort of trite statement about society and feminism and Look What It Does To Us.

howmanybiscuits · 25/03/2019 16:06

Banal, simple, low-bar. Just awful, and yes quite the BJD angsty - def for those millennials who are easily pleased, think being crude is funny - always - and have only modest critical faculties.

You haven't actually watched it by your own admission though, have you? You watched 20 minutes, decided you knew what it was about and turned it off.

One of the joys of Fleabag is you don't know where it's taking you. It's nuanced and takes time to develop. It presents itself as something that could be pretty shallow, in the first 20 minutes, I guess. But it really isn't. It doesn't follow well worn paths.

BertrandRussell · 25/03/2019 16:07

“she already has the type of body that our society thinks is perfect”

That is the point, surely?

SoHotADragonRetired · 25/03/2019 16:10

Thinking about it a bit more, keener (I'm off work sick and have nothing else to do!) that scene is really all about family dysfunction and damage. To Fleabag and Claire it's obvious that you would give up life to be more attractive because that's what their environment's bred into them. Their relationship is basically their shared damage.

aprarl · 25/03/2019 16:10

Haha, I always love sneery, snobby superior posts like that. I can picture the exact type of wanker writing them.

anniehm · 25/03/2019 16:12

Same here! Watched 1-3 of season 1 yesterday and was very underwhelmed. Dh said it was great, I'm thinking it's more she's good on the eye, and it's kind of a make fantasy thing.

SoHotADragonRetired · 25/03/2019 16:16

I'm thinking it's more she's good on the eye, and it's kind of a make fantasy thing.

Fwiw I really don't think this is the case. I've done a very little bit of media analysis and to me PW-B brings a very distinctly female sensibility to both Fleabag and Killing Eve. It's very much not a male gaze.

PW-B is a beautiful woman, no question, but as discussed above I think that's part of the "point" of her character.

RisingLikeAPhoenix · 25/03/2019 16:17

I watched episodes 1- 3 of series 2 and really enjoyed it - so decided to watch series 1. I couldn’t get past the first episode - I may be a complete prude but I hated the ‘normalisation’ of anal sex. I went on a child protection course recently and it was commented on how many young women are being injured and being left with life long difficulties as a result of anal sex. I do not want to see it portrayed in this fashion on TV.

howmanybiscuits · 25/03/2019 16:19

I'm really surprised by people saying it's new and innovative

I'm really surprised by all the people who - by their own admission have only seen the first episode / a few minutes and feel they know enough to judge the whole series!

Fleabag absolutely is innovative. It starts off looking like it's simply a comedy - but the characters develop as does the story. It's clever and nuanced and doesn't go where you expect it to.

But, if you've only seen one episode you'll have no idea of this!

It's so refreshing to see human beings with depth on screen and well worn tropes torn up. The writing and observation of people that underpins it are razor sharp in my opinion.

Stick with it. I loved it from the start so I can't comment to say it "gets better" - but I can say the show you think it is at the end if the first series is very likely not the one you think it is at the end of the first episode.

BertrandRussell · 25/03/2019 16:23

“I'm thinking it's more she's good on the eye, and it's kind of a make fantasy thing.”
Gosh- I fon’t see it like that at all!

Fazackerley · 25/03/2019 16:23

I've watched 50 years of telly and I think it's very innovative. What is it influenced by do you think?

Fazackerley · 25/03/2019 16:24

It blew my mind when I realised people judged it because of her looks. I'm glad I didn't.

Fazackerley · 25/03/2019 16:25

And don't stick with it. If you don't immediately warm to her you probably won't get it.

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