SummaryBased on the play by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the BBC3 comedy series focuses on an angry, self-loathing 20-something nicknamed Fleabag who struggles with running her cafe and the memory of the death of her best friend.
SummaryBased on the play by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the BBC3 comedy series focuses on an angry, self-loathing 20-something nicknamed Fleabag who struggles with running her cafe and the memory of the death of her best friend.
It is, in short, an immaculately scripted (by Waller-Bridge) and performed (by everyone) half-hour – certainly up there with the best of the first series, and probably up with the best of TV comedy-drama entire.
Waller-Bridge has a bracing willingness to let entire scenes play out just to build to one absurd joke at the end, and she proves adept at giving characters and moments the touch of specificity that makes them feel real and human.
Once set in play, each of these [belated-coming-of-age tropes] devices gets turned inside out--quickly (each episode is 30 minutes) and surreptitiously (the action, like Fleabag’s life, jumps from scene to scene), but with a clear eye for truth that often becomes, like all good comedy, quite devastating.
Each of Fleabag’s six episodes is a tightly-composed variation on her character’s wild, bad-girl humor, and her personal (especially sexual) and professional frustration.
É tão... sei lá, por que você tá me olhando?.. Linda e inteligente e perspicaz e de partir o coração! A segunda temporada é a melhor coisa que existe. O que é a cena na mesa do restaurante?!
I loved both seasons the first time around, so I recently re-watched it. This time, I was struck by the opportunities for greatness that were lost by failing to follow through on the troubling issues it raises.
One would be her failure to even consider changing her behavior after it cost her a friend. It haunts her, but not enough to hesitate before having sex with every guy she encounters, with not a thought about other people their coupling might affect. So of course her guilt rings hollow.
Another opportunity comes in Season 2 (which is far better than 1). Never a question about why a priest has to "choose" in the first place. Why? Any intelligent person who follows the requirements of priesthood in that particular church (it isn't required in other ones) would question it - especially if the stakes are high for them personally, and love is in play.
No, we just get winks. Sometimes we need more than that. Going a tad deeper doesn't mean truncating the humor. Ms. Waller-Bridge is such a fine writer; I'm sure she could pull it off. Season 3, maybe?
This would have worked SO much better as a movie. There's simply not enough there for it to be stretched out into a series and no one wants to watch such a depressing and awkward show every day after working all day. Shows can certainly have some depressing and awkward moments, but this show is very one-note.
On the upside, the acting is rather good.
It's another hugely overrated TV comedy about a self-absorbed, navel-gazing, tortured, neurotic lower middle class woman with assumptions of artistic grandeurs. You can't help to notice that all-too-familiar British fake modesty lurking in the soul of our protagonist.
The asides cast at the audience feel forced and belie any attempt at a genuine artistic motivation since
real cinematographic artist will convey feelings without resorting to words. What we are left is a comedian trying to make us laugh at her own **** if no one had done this before. Maybe those young presumptuous artists should watch Woody Allen or just simply do bad stand-up. YAWN