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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2019 10:03:30 GMT
The following destroyed me: I thought 'lucky escape for him'. This series seemed to forget the first series punchline - that her best friend and two other people died in an accident because her friend was so broken over her boyfriend's cheating. He was cheating on her wth Fleabag. I thought that might come up in the confession scene but instead the big 'confession' was the miscarriage. That whole first series guilt thing - what happened to it? It's like those deaths never happened and the only problematic death in her life is her mother and the unconditional love that she presumably got from her. Of course you did, as you've mentioned before, you don't like and can't relate to the character. Personally, I don't think the series did forget the death of Boo. It was referred to numerous times and was a fundamental factor that led to the way the character developed over both series. It's always there, hanging over her. |
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Post by crowblack on Apr 11, 2019 10:39:36 GMT
It's always there, hanging over her. I didn't feel it. All the fuss over this series seems to have been that the priest character is 'abusive' and I felt like I was watching an entirely different programme. With the first series, people kept saying, wait till the revelation in the last episode and it all falls into place. Well, a bit. And then in this series it's like it never happened - a couple of flashes but that's it. I thought maybe the talking to camera stuff would have a pay off, that this is her friend, that the priest sees it's her friend when he notices it but no, that never happened. The camera is us, not Boo or Boo/us. The big death is her mother, not the betrayed best friend and the other two collateral damage deaths. As for the 'abusive' priest (Guardian article etc), how? She's an attractive young woman used to successful pullling (she even hits it off with the mega business woman her sister and everyone else is in awe of - well of course she does!) who hits on the one man she can't have - without destroying his life, his calling - and stalks him, a relationship built on her lie about a miscarriage. She nearly gets him too, but her love rival in this case is god. Lucky escape! |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2019 12:19:33 GMT
As for the 'abusive' priest (Guardian article etc), how? She's an attractive young woman used to successful pullling (she even hits it off with the mega business woman her sister and everyone else is in awe of - well of course she does!) who hits on the one man she can't have - without destroying his life, his calling - and stalks him, a relationship built on her lie about a miscarriage. She nearly gets him too, but her love rival in this case is god. Lucky escape! I think you missed out "she's an attractive young vulnerable woman..." which is where I think that he was "abusive" no matter how nice he might have been. He was a priest after all so shouldn't be sleeping with anyone, whether they hit on him or not. I wonder whether people would view it differently had he not been played by Andrew Scott. I think it's just another layer of genius on the part of the show to have cast him in it. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2019 12:30:42 GMT
I read an interesting take today, which was if she’s an atheist, how could their relationship be an abuse of power?
Like many things about this show, I am going to ponder that for a good long while.
I thought this show was utterly devastating, layered, brilliant and nuanced.
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Post by crowblack on Apr 11, 2019 13:21:14 GMT
In some Twitter thread on this I called her 'troubled'. Is she any more vulnerable than any other character in the programme? From what we know of him, he must be from a more difficult background than hers, with a brother who is a paedophile, and who is seeking some sort of solace in religion (and drink). She's an atheist so that aspect of a priest's power doesn't figure - I read this series being pitched in the media as Fleabag vs God and I don't think that happened, except in the sense that for the priest it became a tug of war for his affections. He's a man who is sexually off limits and is being employed by her posh parents - in Brideshead terms he's "someone of (step)mummy's" so in a sense there's also that competitive aspect that she's taking a prized someone away from the stepmother. He tries to rebuff her and she keeps pursuing him. That whole kneel/Neil thing - he's trying to keep her distant, professional, call me Father not by the intimacy of his real name. When he does break and say it, she hears 'kneel' and thinks it's a bit Fifty Shades. |
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Post by kathryn on Apr 11, 2019 13:45:54 GMT
It's always there, hanging over her. I didn't feel it. All the fuss over this series seems to have been that the priest character is 'abusive' and I felt like I was watching an entirely different programme...... As for the 'abusive' priest (Guardian article etc), how? She's an attractive young woman used to successful pullling (she even hits it off with the mega business woman her sister and everyone else is in awe of - well of course she does!) who hits on the one man she can't have - without destroying his life, his calling - and stalks him, a relationship built on her lie about a miscarriage. She nearly gets him too, but her love rival in this case is god. Lucky escape! Plenty of people don't see the priest as 'abusive'. (See the many drooling on Twitter over him!) The genius of the show is that it's a lot more complex than that. All the characters are complex - the priest clearly has his own complexes and problems, and in many ways the two of them are using each other to work through their issues. |
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Post by kathryn on Apr 11, 2019 13:56:08 GMT
I read an interesting take today, which was if she’s an atheist, how could their relationship be an abuse of power? Like many things about this show, I am going to ponder that for a good long while. I thought this show was utterly devastating, layered, brilliant and nuanced. It's a power exchange, not a power abuse. Echoed in that scene where Claire kneels down - supposedly submissively, and he surely wants to capture her in that contradiction, that he won't do what she wants unless she follows his instruction - and then tells her husband to leave in the most forceful tone she has used all series. There's an odd, contradictory, power in vulnerability. The priest actually makes himself vulnerable when he admits that he wants to sleep with Fleabag. He stops being this paternalistic figure who is counselling her and becomes someone who needs counselling. And Fleabag gains something from that exchange. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2019 14:00:02 GMT
In some Twitter thread on this I called her 'troubled'. Is she any more vulnerable than any other character in the programme? From what we know of him, he must be from a more difficult background than hers, with a brother who is a paedophile, and who is seeking some sort of solace in religion (and drink). She's an atheist so that aspect of a priest's power doesn't figure - I read this series being pitched in the media as Fleabag vs God and I don't think that happened, except in the sense that for the priest it became a tug of war for his affections. He's a man who is sexually off limits and is being employed by her posh parents - in Brideshead terms he's "someone of (step)mummy's" so in a sense there's also that competitive aspect that she's taking a prized someone away from the stepmother. He tries to rebuff her and she keeps pursuing him. That whole kneel/Neil thing - he's trying to keep her distant, professional, call me Father not by the intimacy of his real name. When he does break and say it, she hears 'kneel' and thinks it's a bit Fifty Shades. Haha! Let me just brush that chip off your shoulder a moment and then I'm done. |
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Post by MrsCondomine on Apr 11, 2019 14:16:52 GMT
What I really loved about this series was that it never asked you to like the characters. They caused death, pain, indifference or hatred in themselves or others, and frequently used other people to try and cover over their own broken parts temporarily. No one got a clean cathartic ending. No one got 100% happiness, even if they thought they'd done something to earn it.
Yet it was still compulsive watching.
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Post by crowblack on Apr 11, 2019 14:21:55 GMT
Let me just brush that chip off your shoulder How would you describe them, these people with enormous houses, art retrospectives, country house wellness retreats, guinea pig cafes that apparently run themselves, sisters who can dither about taking million pound salary jobs? Their social circle and world appears to be even less socially diverse than that depicted in the BBC's Howards End, and that's set 100 years before! |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2019 14:24:05 GMT
Let me just brush that chip off your shoulder How would you describe them, these people with enormous houses, art retrospectives, country house wellness retreats, guinea pig cafes that apparently run themselves, sisters who can dither about taking million pound salary jobs? Their social circle and world appears to be even less socially diverse than that depicted in the BBC's Howards End, and that's set 100 years before! Oh I don't know, perhaps simply "her parents"? |
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Fleabag
Apr 11, 2019 14:33:05 GMT
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Post by Backdrifter on Apr 11, 2019 14:33:05 GMT
Dearie me.
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Post by crowblack on Apr 11, 2019 14:38:39 GMT
Oh I don't know, perhaps simply "her parents"? The point is he's a sort of employee. This series depicts a 21st C version of the sort of families you see in Jane Austen, E M Forster etc. where the vicar / cleric character is some outsider invited 'up' into their social circle for a while to do a job for them. When Fleabag's attentions become so intense that the priest feels he has to make his excuses to her parents, Fleabag expects the stepmother to explode with fury and primes the audience for it. Instead - shock - she's polite, and defers the fury till after he's gone. That scene says a lot about power relations in that class. In the average household, it's inconceivable that a vicar would ever be the victim of a tirade of anger. |
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Post by kathryn on Apr 11, 2019 14:43:32 GMT
Surely that says more about the godmother - who is thoroughly, deliciously, awful to everyone (god I love Olivia Colman!) - than class?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2019 14:55:36 GMT
Oh I don't know, perhaps simply "her parents"? The point is he's a sort of employee. This series depicts a 21st C version of the sort of families you see in Jane Austen, E M Forster etc. where the vicar / cleric character is some outsider invited 'up' into their social circle for a while to do a job for them. When Fleabag's attentions become so intense that the priest feels he has to make his excuses to her parents, Fleabag expects the stepmother to explode with fury and primes the audience for it. Instead - shock - she's polite, and defers the fury till after he's gone. That scene says a lot about power relations in that class. In the average household, it's inconceivable that a vicar would ever be the victim of a tirade of anger. I'm sure if the priest one was expecting to carry out the wedding ceremony suddenly pulled out the day before, there would be a tirade of anger, "posh" or not. But point nicely deflected anyway. |
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Post by crowblack on Apr 11, 2019 14:59:19 GMT
Well, it reminded me of some things I've seen from people I know in Hampstead, Dulwich etc., but not the way people I know round here, or in my (back then) less well-heeled part of London interacted. |
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Fleabag
Apr 11, 2019 15:39:08 GMT
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Post by alece10 on Apr 11, 2019 15:39:08 GMT
I'll start getting my coat as I type this but I found the series all a bit rubbish to be honest. Found it mildly entertaining but wouldn't want to see it again.
Now Dinnerladies on the other hand.......
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Post by vabbian on Apr 13, 2019 6:19:56 GMT
get yOUR HANDS OFF MY MISCARRIAGE
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Post by nick on Apr 13, 2019 8:50:48 GMT
There's so much to love. I enjoy how she confounds normal dramatic convention. It's set up over 2 series for the father to run away from the wedding but instead he gets his foot caught and it turns out that he's actually in love and wants to get married. And that feels right.
And the message of love being so difficult and messy. How you can love difficult people. "The only person I'd rush to an airport for, is you"
Oh and this series she runs a SUCCESSFUL guinea pig cafe partly because of "chatty Tuesdays". She's the grown up one in this series and everyone else has the problems.
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Post by Mr Snow on Apr 13, 2019 22:09:28 GMT
Nick it's only April and your post is already favourite for the Annual Spoiller Spiller, raspberry award.
Any chance you might like to edit the above?
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Fleabag
Apr 13, 2019 22:47:40 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2019 22:47:40 GMT
You only get a 45 minute window to edit your own posts, best refer this one to a mod.
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Post by Jonnyboy on Apr 13, 2019 23:05:58 GMT
I’ve just seen the last episode and I need consoling. I can’t even think of the last few moments. They’re too upsetting.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2019 9:26:16 GMT
I’ve just seen the last episode and I need consoling. I can’t even think of the last few moments. They’re too upsetting. crying with you. Big hug. But i felt the ending was very hopeful. I think there might be a season 1 ‘story of redemption’, season 2 ‘story of salvation’ theme. She is saved by his love and by loving him. |
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Post by MrsCondomine on Apr 16, 2019 9:34:12 GMT
Rewatching it again.
"Are you pissed off or are you doing a poo?" is my new favourite line ever.
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Post by david on Apr 21, 2019 22:11:03 GMT
Just binged watched S2 today. An absolutely fantastic piece of drama both in its writing and acting. Hopefully a third series is lined up.
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