Fleabag finale episode SPOILERS thread

[HotPriest]

Crack open a can of and join your fellow iPlayer stalkers here for discussion of the final episode of Fleabag. Spoilers totally allowed so no peaking if you haven't see the episode.

Hoping it's as good as we all want it to be. Should be live on iPlayer tomorrow about 9.30am

Well at the end of the day, it's art, not life. There isn't a single film or tv show that could withstand that level of scrutiny because the humans who created it are also flawed and complex and working within many different constraints. Having said that I think they did a bloody good job.

I loved their relationship until the final episode which started with him literally turned away from her and played out as him exulting in God even as they kissed for a final time and FB warring with accepting rejection as inevitable. Lovable but not as lovable as God. Likeable but not as likeable as her dsis according to her Dad. I thought HP was her equal, her ally at the engagement table and the man who kneeled with her and chose to love her. I felt disappointed in him ultimately.

Yes, that’s the point Ruffle - the writing, the acting, everything was sublime, but we’ve still ended up in a situation where half of Twitter regards HP as a manipulative abuser and the other as a relatable male version FB. From what I’ve seen from the interviews with Sian Clifford and Andrew Scott (no, not obsessed...), PWB was going for the latter interpretation but I found myself having quite a negative reaction to his behaviour in e6. I got a lot more bitter than sweet out of it.

Still the best thing I’ve seen for ages, though. Did anyone else see that a bunch of Twitter people in London have started Chatty Wednesdays to meet and talk about Fleabag (as a starter)?

ShowOfHands - YES. Exactly my feeling and interpretation of the finale, too.

Sadly, showofhands that's probably one of the most realistic things about the show. Those of us who are rejected by a parent will often unconsciously seek out romantic love from others who we know will also reject us.

Well Twitter never really was a place for consensus and deep analysis computer . Like MN it's the modern equivalent of Monty Python's 'Room for an Argument' a lot of the time. That's great about Chatty Wednesdays though

"Also Andrew Scott on the One Show (the depths to which I have sunk for love of FB!)"

This made me laugh out loud. With total sympathy.

I watched (with concern and horror) one of my friends have an affair with a married guy who was just never going to be available to her. I think she did it, in part, because she wasn't emotionally ready for a full-blown relationship with someone who was available, and she almost needed the rejection to be able to move on to a more healthy relationship. I really saw the FB/HP relationship like that on her side. It's a deeply unfashionable perspective, but I think dysfunctionality and failure can be constitutive - we need to fuck up sometimes to be able to do a bit of growing, to test something out so that we can go on to a fuller life afterwards in light of loss. It comes in different shades, too - the affair with Boo's boyfriend was a terrible, almost pathologically destructive thing to do and not at all therapeutic (quite the reverse), the affair with HP was about testing the waters of something more caring and committed.

I 'know' someone like Priest in RL which affected hy viewing of it.
But it was wonderful TV. I never watch TV but this was amazing.

Me too Stripey - definitely puts a different spin on things

I have that relationship with a parent and I find a lot of myself in Fleabag. Colleagues, friends, family etc have phoned and emailed to tell me there's a documentary about me on BBC3 and I find it an extraordinary compliment because I also see the women I love in FB and that's because PWB speaks to lived female experience. The difference is that my priest is my equal and my lifelong partner and it isn't cliched or romantic, it's a healthy considered choice and one free of shackles of patriarchy and misogyny and religious fervour and it's powerful and possible despite your parent rejecting you. And I wanted that for FB and expected that from HP. That's the root of my disappointment I think. I saw HP's choice as weakness. Or him as not being worthy despite dressing himself in a costume of worthiness. I love FB more for it though. She chose and survived vulnerability. HP chose the pleasure of vulnerability with none of the grit of deserving it.

In fact he took his pleasure and hers too. And he was careless with it.

I'm rambling but I'm trying to understand my reaction to all of episode 6. I wanted to love it as deeply as I loved every episode but can't yet.

Do you mean you're married to your (presumably anglican) priest ShowofHands? Because that's quite unusual and not going to happen for most people.

I see FB as still being at the start of her journey of self-acceptance. I think it will take more than one counselling session before she's ready to let in the kind of deserving equal love you describe.

Bwahahaha. No. Our relationship was a choice. Mine following rejection and his related to his career path which he had to leave.

I like the way we all bring our lived experience and perspective to it. Particularly my ongoing experience of religion and equality. My FB is not your FB but she's everybody's FB. It's a clever thing indeed.

I’m completely in tune with your thoughts in this, ShowOfHands. I’m also finding that the end just didn’t sit as well with me as it seems to have with others - it’s tidy, but it feels to me like an (incredibly rare) misstep.

I also am in a very satisfying, very long term relationship that started from the kind of situation that I suspect lots of people would sagely say never leads to anything good or healthy because I shouldn’t have been “ready.” By ready, read: contentedly single, no messy baggage, utterly sorted. I had more baggage than a package holiday flight when I met someone with whom the sexual chemistry was off the chart, but twenty five years later we’re still solidly together.

As you say, we all bring our pasts to bear on our interpretation. I saw the chemistry and mutual wavelength and thought, “Ah. They have got something quite profound there, right when they both really need it.” So finding that the priest didn’t really need it and decided so quickly that he’d just got a bit carried away feels quite off to me.

Yes I agree ComputerSaysMo . That did feel wrong, that he would make such a huge decision over a few hours while conducting a wedding, how would he have had time to think even ? Surely falling in love with someone would warrant a bit of thought , taking time to mull over all the options. It isn’t as though all Christians have to be celibate, or even all religious leaders. That was the only wrong note to me, in such a perfect series.

"I loved their relationship until the final episode which started with him literally turned away from her"

As a major Scotty fan, I wouldn't be surprised if that was to show off his recent workouts. Watched him on the One Show and was like - wow, look at those guns! not a euphemism.

Did you see he said he can't wait to give PWB a hug...aw. Actually I think PWB might need to gird herself, when she gets back to London she'll probably have people trying to hug her in the street!

looked up some interviews on Youtube - hilarious story about her and Meryl Streep.

Currently in Chichester Cathedral, the chaplain's just reading out the Lord's prayer. Not doing it for me. It needs that gorgeous Irish brogue!

Sister are you MNing during a service?

I love love love Chichester. I would like to get there soon and would particularly like to see Shadowlands. Can't work out how to do an economical day trip from London though. If you know any train fare secrets, please share!!

I genuinely hope that they could still make a go of their relationship, they love each other, they were both crying.
we can decide what happened in my opinion , write our own endings, but Fleabag was ok in the end, she knew what love was, Hope

Shhhh! No, luckily no service. Just a random Lords Prayer over the loud speaker!
I drove down from South East London I'm afraid but if you can drive to Croydon which is zone 5 a day return costs £30. Coach is always an option? That'll be much cheaper.

Could you imagine the final/ penultimate scene in S2Ep5 where the roles were reversed? So, she says, “We’re going to have sex aren’t we?” And he says, “Yes.” Particularly given his unequivocal reasoning up to that point that they can’t? I think the power dynamics are so well toyed with here.

(I do appreciate the inherent power imbalance that comes just by default of his sex and profession, I’m just saying, the way it’s all presented with all its faults and glorious caveats is excellent.)

Sister actually I just looked it up and I seem to have caught that elusive moment!! The moment where the stars align, the hares are boxing, the hot priests are STEAMING and there are 3 cheap seats on the train you want!!!

have also posted in Chat though - to check re possible strikes. I have googled but there was a note about London Underground strikes this week to - something to do with their pay deal running out - I don't want to book a theatre ticket and find it's a nightmare to get there!

love love love Chichester. Would like to live there one day.

Tinko I'm another one who doesn't see the priest in a position of power. This is Fleabag. She's an atheist. She cares as much about the priest factor as I do.

"kneel" was obviously interesting but that's been talked about the cast in interviews I think...it wasn't meant to be the power kick I thought he was trying. Unless they're just telling us that because now the Priest is a social media entity, lol.

I don’t buy into ‘kneel’ as a power trip either. She already made it clear when sober and completely with her wits about her that she liked him - why wait until she’s at her most vulnerable to strike? She was begging for authority and someone to be decisive and perhaps his historic default reaction to that is rooted in sex, as it is for so many, and he made an error of judgment.

That did feel wrong, that he would make such a huge decision over a few hours while conducting a wedding, how would he have had time to think even ?

But equally difficult to see how he would be able to reach the decision to leave the priesthood in the space of a day either. He said his life would be fucked if he fell in love with Fleabag, and his last sentence is that he loves her too.

Difficult to see how the series could conclude without some kind of ending, but I don't think it is all neatly tied up - but then whose life is ever all neatly tied up?

Rosa she is an atheist but she's also in a state of grief for both her mother and best friend. She went to the church to pray. Grief does strange things to us.