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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:
haverhill · 25/03/2019 16:28

I loved it. It was clever, dark, tender and weird - my kind of telly.

BertrandRussell · 25/03/2019 16:30

I can’t help thinking that anyone dismissing the series must be missing the point.

YouSayRisottoIsayRisotto · 25/03/2019 16:32

People slating it who have seen 5 minutes of it are making themselves look silly.

It's like when someone links an article on here and someone just posts 'god, I didn't even bother to read to the end". Yea, how very clever you are with your inability to get through 3 paragraphs. We're becoming a generation with 0 attention span.

If someone doesn't explode in the first five minutes, well, why bother?

Who needs pace, timing and a set up?

Interested in this thread?

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TV
ForalltheSaints · 25/03/2019 16:32

I watched the first couple of episodes of the first series as I met PWB when she was in a play about 10 years ago. I was disappointed, though I think she would have been a good Dr Who. I agree with the comments about anal sex incidentally.

And yes she is a very attractive woman!

YouSayRisottoIsayRisotto · 25/03/2019 16:34

And don't stick with it. If you don't immediately warm to her you probably won't get it.
Really disagree with that. I gave it the time because it seemed like it had possibility but I wasn't keen on the character for the first few episodes

Sunonthepatio · 25/03/2019 16:35

Dramatists show all kinds of things on the screen. It doesn't actually mean that they accept them. That is an accurate portrayal of the kind of environment that 30 something women are in. It isn't her job to make over obvious political comments on it. The author is showing someone who feels unhappy snd empty, and who is using sex to deaden it.

BertrandRussell · 25/03/2019 16:35

I think people are missing fhe point about the anal sex too!

BertrandRussell · 25/03/2019 16:36

You’re not supposed to like her!

MsTSwift · 25/03/2019 16:36

We both loved it. But if you don’t like the first episode I wouldn’t proceed it won’t “get better” just continues in the same vein that’s what it is. Which is fine by us

ScrambledSmegs · 25/03/2019 16:37

I've finally watched all of series 1, after really disliking the first couple of episodes when it was first on BBC 3. I actually came to like it - she's a mess but you can see why now.

I'm not massively keen on the crude sexual stuff but it's important in context, I get that now. Sometimes I think I'm way too old and prudish, but I like myself that way so there Grin

BartonHollow · 25/03/2019 16:57

I struggled initially especially with episode 1, I binged watched it all in one sitting in the end. Definite grower.

Grace212 · 25/03/2019 17:14

" 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."

this is a tough call as it came up in some script study I was doing before I actually watched it - so some of the "reveal" stuff was known to me.

I find there's a huge amount of high quality TV on - which is terrific, but it means that if something doesn't appeal to me instantly, I move on.

Between the TBW stack and the TBR stack, it's a wonder I have any time to MN! Wink

Pengrin · 25/03/2019 17:18

I didn’t immediately warm to her and it took a few episodes playing in the background before it moved to the foreground Grin

By the end of season 1 I loved it and I’m loving season 2 even more, it’s just brilliant.

Theworldisfullofgs · 25/03/2019 17:20

Think season two is much better

Original poster
Keener · 25/03/2019 17:30

"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."

OK, well, will give it some more time. It's a risky strategy, though -- I'm a novelist, and I'm well aware that if my first chapter or two is entirely uncharacteristic of the novel that follows, I will potentially alienate and shed readers, who are often not going to hang about trusting that I know what I'm doing. Grin

OP posts:
MargotMoon · 25/03/2019 17:34

Isn't part of the point of S1 that you don't like her? And that you don't often get shows with flawed characters that are women bang in the centre? Look at what a mixed-up character Don Draper was - really rounded, with loads of flaws and redeeming qualities. Women aren't given that level of depth and what I liked about this was the last episode making you re-evaluate everything.

And the first episode of S2 was a masterpiece imo - a perfect standalone piece of comedy on the art of being passive-aggressive Grin

SunnySomer · 25/03/2019 17:34

The anal sex bit is important. I watched series 1 in real time and the start of episode 1 rather appalled me - I thought it demonstrated that I was too old and prudish to fit the bbc3 demographic. But as I watched the rest in subsequent weeks I realised how clever it was.
Fleabag isn’t having any lovely sex at all, she’s having degrading sex because she’s damaged. That’s why she can so disengage and talk through the fourth wall while she’s having it, too.
That’s also why it’s ratger lovely that the priest likes her for her, not for her availability. It think it’s excellent writing

MargotMoon · 25/03/2019 17:39

@Keener What are you watching it on btw? This thread is making me want to revisit S1, and it doesn't seem to be on iplayer

Barbarafromblackpool · 25/03/2019 17:45

Love it. One of the best things I’ve seen recently. The other two shows I really enjoyed were Flowers; cried like a baby at the end of both series, and The End of the Fucking World. Brilliant.

Original poster
Keener · 25/03/2019 17:49

I thought it was iPlayer we watched it on, Margot..?

And can I say, it wasn't 'not liking' Fleabag herself that was problematic for me. I don't need to like her, and I adore fictional black comedies crammed with ghastly characters am currently rereading Hilary Mantel's incredible novel, Beyond Black, which is the blackest of black comedies and which I recommend from the bottom of my heart if only for the Princess Diana scene I just found something lacking in the first episode that will perhaps emerge in the next, at least from what some of you suggest.

OP posts:
MargotMoon · 25/03/2019 18:09

Found it - on Amazon Prime

Sammysquiz · 25/03/2019 18:41

def for those millennials who are easily pleased, think being crude is funny - always - and have only modest critical faculties.

Christ, what an insulting and patronising comment!

OP - I didn’t like the first episode either, but it’s definitely worth sticking with. I love Olivia Colman’s character especially, such beautifully acted passive aggression!

Ragnarthe · 25/03/2019 19:41

I really enjoyed series one and the new series is also good so far.
As for Fleabag being very attractive, she doesn't really see that. She thinks she is worthless and at the end of the series we find out why.

YouSayRisottoIsayRisotto · 25/03/2019 19:44

Am i just a wrongun then because I liked her at the end ? Grin

FloatingthroughSpace · 25/03/2019 20:11

God I wish I wasn't a psychologist. It's so bloody obvious why she doesn't like herself after episode 3. Sigh.