Fleabag - Series 2 [split topic]

[phantom_power]

There's a thing on the Guardian website now saying it's a show by a posh girl for posh girls, which is why posh girls in the media loved it so much.

Being neither posh nor a girl the five minutes or so I watched on YouTube did very little for me.

That just seems like reverse snobbery to me. No-one says you can't like Chewing Gum if you aren't a black woman from a council estate. It is either funny or it isn't, relatable or not. Good comedy has both specificity and something universal at the same time.

I am neither posh nor a woman but thought Fleabag was brilliant and my wife and a lot of her friends, also not posh, thought it was one of the most honest and accurate representations of women on TV. The fact that she is posh doesn't really have any bearing on what makes the show good. It is the emotions and insecurities that drive her, and the other characters, actions that make the show funny and sad and compelling

[Icehaven]

That just seems like reverse snobbery to me. No-one says you can't like Chewing Gum if you aren't a black woman from a council estate. It is either funny or it isn't, relatable or not. Good comedy has both specificity and something universal at the same time.

I am neither posh nor a woman but thought Fleabag was brilliant and my wife and a lot of her friends, also not posh, thought it was one of the most honest and accurate representations of women on TV. The fact that she is posh doesn't really have any bearing on what makes the show good. It is the emotions and insecurities that drive her, and the other characters, actions that make the show funny and sad and compelling

Yeah agreed, since when do you have to be the same gender as the protagonist of something to enjoy it? Does seem to be an assumption that gets levelled more at stuff by women than by men I have to say, not always but often. Even leaving aside the gender thing there's loads of examples of comedy, say Red Dwarf and Father Ted to name a few, where not being able to directly relate to the character's lives and situations doesn't matter one jot. 

I read that article and I think behind the by-a-posh-girl for-posh-girls argument what she basically means is most of us don't (or assume we wouldn't) like posh people and quietly begrudge them their homes and lifestyles therefore making it difficult to like and sympathise with them when they're on TV. I haven't seen Fleabag but from the sounds of it the audience is supposed to be on her side and like her, generally anyway, so I guess it just depends how able or prepared you are to get past the poshness or not be bothered by it in the first place (which obviously a lot of people aren't.) Jack Whitehall's character in Fresh Meat worked so well largely because he was supposed to be a twat (most of the time anyway) that we're laughing at rather than with, often directly because of how his poshness made him behave in the regular world.

[neveragain]

Just on the audience being on her side issue, Fleabag's character isn't entirely sympathetic; she can be shallow, manipulative and is also a bit of a kleptomaniac. But she has a lot of emotional issues too and this sets it apart from the rather one-note show in which a posh woman has sex and is fabulous that these negative reviews make it out to be.

[phantom_power]

All of the characters are flawed but have something relatable. Even the most obnoxious character, the one played by Brett Gelman, has that great speech in the last episode where he admits he has a horrible personality but he also gets shit done and does love his wife and is in some respects a good person. He is just afflicted with being a bit of a cunt. I think a lot of people feel like that when they have done something the can be less than proud of.

Yes she is posh but the show is hardly a Sex And The City style lifestyle porn show. The character is posh because the creator/star is posh and it is based on a one-woman show based on her life. There is nothing in the show that says being posh is good, or bad for that matter, or anything. It would be the same show whatever class she was because it isn't really about that. It deals with the same neuroses and self-sabotaging behaviour that is classless. The poshness is just the surface.

[Better Midlands]

What's on second base.

Who's on first.

[Jockice]

That just seems like reverse snobbery to me. No-one says you can't like Chewing Gum if you aren't a black woman from a council estate. It is either funny or it isn't, relatable or not. Good comedy has both specificity and something universal at the same time.

I am neither posh nor a woman but thought Fleabag was brilliant and my wife and a lot of her friends, also not posh, thought it was one of the most honest and accurate representations of women on TV. The fact that she is posh doesn't really have any bearing on what makes the show good. It is the emotions and insecurities that drive her, and the other characters, actions that make the show funny and sad and compelling

Fair enough but I didn't write the article, just pointed it out. I've seen a few minutes of Fleabag on YouTube and didn't think it would be to my taste so haven't explored it any further. Other opinions are available.

I fucking hated Sex And The City though. Who was it who said it appeared to be about three prostitutes and their mother?

[neveragain]

Brian from Family Guy.

[jfjnpxmy]

Just on the audience being on her side issue, Fleabag's character isn't entirely sympathetic; she can be shallow, manipulative and is also a bit of a kleptomaniac. But she has a lot of emotional issues too and this sets it apart from the rather one-note show in which a posh woman has sex and is fabulous that these negative reviews make it out to be.

That's what made the first series good telly. But that aspect was dropped pretty much entirely for series 2 and it became a wacky posh woman winning everything. Cafe's going fine, arsehole brother-in-law gets punted, sister and her make up and her sister tells her how awesome she is, dad inexplicably starts talking in complete sentences and providing emotional closure, saucy older lesbian tells her how brilliant she is, cunt mum-in-law gets humbled, hot priest shags the brain problems out of her, all is well, ra ra ra jolly hockey sticks.

[Jockice]

Brian from Family Guy.

I'll trust you on that one. I've never seen it. I thought it was a quote from a female though. Perhaps Dorothy Parker. Who hated her sister Sarah Jessica. Or indeed her other sister Sarah, who was in my year at secondary school.

[sevendaughters]

even the Guardian posh women piece called it undeniably a work of genius...I just think that's quite strong and not qualified by much.

[phantom_power]

That's what made the first series good telly. But that aspect was dropped pretty much entirely for series 2 and it became a wacky posh woman winning everything. Cafe's going fine, arsehole brother-in-law gets punted, sister and her make up and her sister tells her how awesome she is, dad inexplicably starts talking in complete sentences and providing emotional closure, saucy older lesbian tells her how brilliant she is, cunt mum-in-law gets humbled, hot priest shags the brain problems out of her, all is well, ra ra ra jolly hockey sticks.

That's a fairly simplistic and surface level view of what happens. She seems to be a bit more content and less self-destructive after the events of the first series so things start going her way. I wouldn't say she does a huge amount of "winning" there until the final episode and even the there is no real resounding victory. She is still alone but more content about that. Ultimately she does less bad things and therefore likes herself more, is less self destructive and so people like her more. It is a fairly character-based development rather than just making her super-successful or anything.

[BlodwynPig]

That's a fairly simplistic and surface level view of what happens. She seems to be a bit more content and less self-destructive after the events of the first series so things start going her way. I wouldn't say she does a huge amount of "winning" there until the final episode and even the there is no real resounding victory. She is still alone but more content about that. Ultimately she does less bad things and therefore likes herself more, is less self destructive and so people like her more. It is a fairly character-based development rather than just making her super-successful or anything.

Good for her.

[boxmatt]

[Virgo76]

That's what made the first series good telly. But that aspect was dropped pretty much entirely for series 2 and it became a wacky posh woman winning everything. Cafe's going fine, arsehole brother-in-law gets punted, sister and her make up and her sister tells her how awesome she is, dad inexplicably starts talking in complete sentences and providing emotional closure, saucy older lesbian tells her how brilliant she is, cunt mum-in-law gets humbled, hot priest shags the brain problems out of her, all is well, ra ra ra jolly hockey sticks.

She certainly doesn't "win everything" in series 2 at all. She gets punched in episode 1, her dad marries a total cow, she has an unsatisfactory relationship with a priest who seems to be bipolar. The ending is generally downbeat.

[BlodwynPig]

[Blinder Data]

After stopping halfway through S1 a while agi because I found it a bit annoying, I then powered through this. It is good, if not the genius everyone is saying it was. S2 was better, perhaps because the first series was still relying on/inspired by the original theatre show. Great performances from pretty much everyone, well-written dialogue, funny bits and bobs. Moving at times.

She will be ubiquitous from now on but if everything she does is as good as Fleabag I'm not too bothered.

[BlodwynPig]

After stopping halfway through S1 a while agi because I found it a bit annoying, I then powered through this. It is good, if not the genius everyone is saying it was. S2 was better, perhaps because the first series was still relying on/inspired by the original theatre show. Great performances from pretty much everyone, well-written dialogue, funny bits and bobs. Moving at times.

She will be ubiquitous from now on but if everything she does is as good as Fleabag I'm not too bothered.

Here, we must part ways. Safe journey onward, friend.

[olliebean]

Has anyone here actually seen the theatre show? Just wondering how it works as a one-person show. Does she act it out, or just do it as a monologue? Does she play all the characters, or just herself reacting to people the audience doesn't see and has to infer what they've said or done?

[neveragain]

I've not seen it but read the script. It's basically a monologue with voiceovers for other characters piping in for the odd conversation, although it does say you could do it with one person playing the different characters.

[Edmonds]

Bit late to this one, but I loved this show, overall. Very tightly written and well acted by all.

My main irritations were the Gervasian one word to-camera pieces, which Harry and Paul masterfully lampooned back in the day. I couldn't watch her do it and not hear him.

Also, that priest was a real cunt, wasn't he? She finally opened up to somebody who meant something to her only to have him sexually exploit that. It took any sense of meaning or poignancy from whatever happened next, I just didn't give a shit after that point.

[olliebean]

My main irritations were the Gervasian one word to-camera pieces, which Harry and Paul masterfully lampooned back in the day. I couldn't watch her do it and not hear him.

Fuck, I'd forgotten Farage was in that. Ruins the end of the sketch, especially with hindsight.

[the science eel]

Was Farage just seen as some sort of harmless eccentric ten years ago or something? I can't see they'd include him otherwise.

[neveragain]

The joke, as self-defeating as it may be, was that Farage is a shit guest star (compared to those Gervais managed to ensnare). I doubt either of them agree with his politics.

[olliebean]

Should've got Ann Widdecombe.

[Norton Canes]

Caught up with season two over the last couple of weeks. Generally much better than series one, mainly I think because the humour spring more naturally from the characters than from contrived situations such as the silent retreat and the Sexhibition. The first episode, at the restaurant, was about the best, coming across like a more extreme denouement of a Mike Leigh film. I really liked the high hit-rate of incidental one-liners and sight gags in this series, such as the tight trousers reveal at the wedding.

However it wasn't without its mis-fires, the most glaring being the priest. Obviously the Catholic church provides a rich seam of humour with everything from guilt complexes and abstinence to elaborately embroidered cassocks but it all seemed a bit artificial, like PW-B had just thought, oh, what's got a great potential for laughs, yeah, priests, plenty of material there - and sex! Still, she's excused her indulgence since we also got those brilliant incidences of vulpephobia.

Oh and the glances to camera, though they were an integral part of the first series, really got tiresome here. If it hadn't been for the meta-stuff with the priest noticing them I'd have been more than happy for them to have been ditched.

One thing I've got to say to people who've been put off this show by previews and trailers, or the fact that the Guardian has gone wobbly over it - ignore all that, it's a complex and finely-scripted show that can't be reduced to these simple extracts. You may not like all of it (or it at all) but as well as being ostensibly a sit-com it's also an excellently structured drama populated by well-drawn characters, and can be watched on that level too. 

[Urinal Cake]

I've watched the first two episodes is S1. It's alright. But it's mainly a drama.

There are brown people in it. Like the customer she tries to hit on using a cucumber. I thought was one of the funnier 'jokes' due to her clumsy porn addled brain.

I think it's aware of how white and rich the protagonist is since she steals a bunch of shit and everybody (so far) let's her get away with it due to her privelege.

The fourth wall breaking is this generation's laugh track. I'm looking at you so this is funny. In a lot of shite (Fleabag so far) it's done lazily but thinking through why Stew Lee and others get away with it it's because they subvert the set-up and punchline dynamic in some way.

I feel like it probably gets better dramatically but not comedically. So can't really be bothered.

[ZoyzaSorris]

Ive watched it all now. Its fine. Preferred series 2 too because less reliance on 'tee hee this is funny cos its rude', and I have a very well developed puerile sense of humour, could talk about anuses all day long, but it felt like being rude was basically all series 1 had, until towards the end I reinterpreted it not as a comedy but just as a depiction of a nervous breakdown, which made a lot more sense. Total lack of any sympathetic characters at all (except perhaps the poor guy with the big teeth) didnt help.

Overall, it was totally disposable and ok. Well-made fluff. Cant understand all the fuss is all.

[backdrifter]

Total lack of any sympathetic characters at all

Clare? Other Clare? Her boyfriend from s1?

[Norton Canes]

The bank manager? The guinea pig?

[Wet Blanket]

I binged watched these the other day, and also preferred the second series to the first. Like others I'm not convinced it's quite deserving of all the hoohah. I would argue that the excellent performances and likeable characters (and I would argue that they are for the most part likeable) make up for a certain degree or ropeyness in the actual scripting. There's a lot of useful coincidence goes on. 'Oh Hugh Dennis just happened to be passing by again'. It doesn't have the depth of US equivalents like Broad City or Girls.

Apart from all the shagging and f-bombs it's only a kick up the arse from Richard Curtis territory, but it's an agreeable watch all the same.

I've only seen the first episode of Killing Eve but that seemed miles better.