Fleabag is coming back! series 2

[HoraceCope]

And with Andrew Scott,
he is great
as is Olivia Colman

I have a feeling it mainly appeals to those of us with dysfunctional backgrounds. If i had a great relationship with my family of origin I'm not sure I'd appreciate the dynamics as much.

Totally agree on that - if you usually think through things and try and avoid bad decisions fleabag would be hard to relate to - you do at times get desperate for her to make better decisions

On a slightly different tangent I reckon her real name is Phoebe and Fleabag is a childhood nickname, made up by her sister.. Pure speculation though!

shiver i completely agree. I've been thinking that for a while as it sounds exactly like the kind of childhood nickname you can never quite shake off. At least she's putting it to good use!

Fleabag is PEB’s real childhood nickname, I read somewhere.

FWIW, I had an extremely functional upbringing and relationships with my family, and still adore the show! I think for me it’s more about the quality of the writing (and acting), the dark humour and the FEMALENESS of it all!! I bloody love it.

Ah, yes, that makes sense that it was PWB's real life childhood nickname..

I think it's very funny. The enormous arsehole comment in the very first episode? How can you not laugh at that? It's the best opening to a comedy ever. Just perfect.

I think my family and DHs families are reasonably functional but we both love it, it's so witty and sharp but is traditional enough to have a series story arch and resolution.

Honestly, if you don’t find the ‘enormous arsehole’ line or the wanking over Obama funny in the first ten minutes of episode 1 then I think the tone of it may not be for you.

FWIW I have a textbook stable background and functional family and I think it is some of the best writing I have seen on television.

Wow, all the 'very stable' types are really coming out of the closet now. Who knew mumsnet had so many of you?!

It takes a few episodes to begin to understand what the show is really about. It's not like anything else I've seen.

I have a family background and current family situation so stable my friends tell anecdotes about me at parties I’m not at. I think Fleabag is the best TV programme ever written.

Wow, all the 'very stable' types are really coming out of the closet now. Who knew mumsnet had so many of you?!

I did say reasonably functional. But from the outside FB's background is solidly MC and stable, we're seeing inside her head. Most people won't know about all the bad choices and why Boo committed suicide and will just see her successful cafe and Clare is married with a successful career. It's all very stately homes.

It is good. It's different and I like different.

I'm not sure many people in the restaurant were fooled by the facade! In fact a lot of characters in the show seem specifically drawn in by the dysfunction of the nuclear family being so apparent. (Godmother, HP, Harry, horrible husband etc)

It's not as though any particular class has the monopoly on misery or making an arse of oneself in public.

Watched S1 again with dh and he got a phonecall and was distracted during the I’VE BEEN STUNG BY A WASP episode which I was howling at first time

So pleased to find this thread with such thought provoking stuff in it. Fleabag immediately grabbed me from S1E1 and I come from quite a bit of dysfunction (just to check in with my stats).

I also found the 'kneel' scene erotic but unsettling. Not convinced by 'Neil' as kneeling is exactly what a priest would ask her to do at that point - perhaps it was more about the dynamic between them that his usual instruction was rendered in such a sexual way?

I want Fleabag to feel better. The pain in her sparks off the screen in every scene. The programme, and this thread too, is making me think hard about how ingrained the trope of romantic redemption is. I've always been very pro-Frozen because the love is between the sisters, and friends. Yet apparently as a grown adult I think sex is the answer. Hmmm.

KST's speech in the last episode was actually the 'sex' she needs. Buckets of that sort of thing, and some solid friends. Not sexy priests.

Regardless of what FB needs, and having thought about all the moral and ethical issues, I am afraid that I have to conclude that I would very much like to see some more sexy priest in the next 2 episodes.

I just have to put my own needs first.

I wondered if the kneel scene was about him finding her vulnerability and submitting the cause of the temptation? Or was it saying something about the fact she was being real?

Yes. Fleabag needs more Belindas in her life - women who are over themselves, who know what they think but also know how to go along to get along, who like themselves and are unapologetic about what they want. (Fuck it, I need more Belindas in my life.) I think the Belinda scene also nailed why so many people are gripped by Fleabag and why she can make Clare feel like a failure - her balls-out recklessness and refusal to do what she's supposed to are exhilarating. Every time I watch her drop that whole tray of champagne glasses at the sexhibition a tiny part of me exults. It's wrong, I'd never do it, it's not going to get her what she wants, but God, don't you understand why she's doing it, and doesn't a part of you just fucking love it.

It's so true - shows how deep disneyfied ideals of romance run in most women raised before the pre-frozen era.

We know that deep, meaningful friendship is what she needs, and sex is something she can get anywhere but we're still rooting for her to end up with her 'soulmate' - someone who will make her 'whole'.

In reality when most people have this kind of fatalistic attraction to someone it's actually coming from a place of pain - the person is there to repeat the wounds of childhood rather than heal them.

am I the only one rooting for Fleabag to decide to stay single?!

The rational side of me is

If it has a happy ending, I think she will.

I would be happy with that outcome as episode 4, I did think, oh hear we go again. OTOH, are we saying that damaged people can’t learn to make successful relationship choices? She can learn she just doesn’t seem to be there yet, however tempting Scott is!

Or even here!