fleabag

Just finished Fleabag today. Here are jumbled thoughts that will be clarified soon:

• Fleabag chooses herself. If she had chosen the priest, 1. the priest would have compromised his beliefs, 2. she would have reattached herself to him. Not that she wasn’t doing well before she met him–she had gotten her cafe together and had tried “everything,” which seemed to work. But if they ended up together, he would have still been some remnant of the person who would tell her what to do. She didn’t need that, or any semblance of it. She just needed herself.

• Some people are just meant to help you grow. The priest was the one person who could see through her and really understand her. Who was really curious about her. Who was actually a real person. And I wanted so badly for them to end up together but she’s in a position where she’s learned from him. She’s grown through this experience. And if anything, he was in her way of peace (hence the toast at the church). She was in process of healing with Boo and her sister with the prayer, and he was a catalyst to really opening up about what she’s afraid of.

• The audience is a character. The asides pull us in. We become her closest confidante. But we are also her escape. Her disassociations. We become her crutch to escape uncomfortable experiences, and it’s why she doesn’t need us at the end. It’s why she started not needing us when she was with the priest and her sister. When she begins to connect with the people in her life and actually be present, she needs that escape less and less.

• She wanted someone to tell her what to do. This ties into 1 and 2, but the way it’s shot makes it seem like the priest is going to be that person. But not only can he not be, because he’s his own person with things he’s working through, but she also already knows what to do. The therapist and the priest can tell–she know’s what she’s going to do. She already knows. Even if she doesn’t think she knows, she knows. And she ends up knowing. She just steps into it and stops avoiding it.

• Fleabag, in the beginning, is in the trenches. She’s in the lowest of lows, and she feels it. She self-sabotages. She even tries to pull a Boo. But it’s the people around her, the people who–even when she feels like the worst, most morally corrupt person–still love her and want to give her a chance. Because we’re human. She’s human. We make mistakes. But we fight. And even when she pushes back opportunity after opportunity, she knows when she needs to step up. She hits her absolute low when the loan man comes by. She lets herself be vulnerable. And that’s when she connects with him. And that’s when he gives her a second chance, and she takes it. “But what if she just kept letting those people down?” I mean, she did in the beginning. That was her version of being at her worst. And it did take people a long time to believe that she was actually doing better. But she just kept showing up, and they did.

• People are all we have throughout all of this. It’s where the growth happens. It’s where we find love and family and community.

• Love is hard, and that’s why we have someone to do it with. When you do find it, it’s hope.

• Claire has all her shit together in the first season, or at least she thinks she does. She’s got the job, the family, the coat. But she knows it’s not her, something’s up. She didn’t like him. All the “successes” weren’t enough to stop the fact that she wasn’t around the people she loved or needed most. She was so stuck in this bubble, keeping it all together for her stepson and sister, that she didn’t listen to herself. Her haircut, leaving Martin, and Klare are her attempts at getting her life back again. In season two, she tells Fleabag that she feels like the failure because she’ll never be as interesting or funny as Fleabag. But it’s funny, because up until that point we see Fleabag as one who has “failed” this whole time. Despite the size of her office, she still feels shitty. Perpetually on edge. It really is the people that is all we have.

• Sisters »>

• haha asian elaine character

• Fleabag comes to love herself. In the beginning, she hates herself and sees no value in anything about her except her physical form. It’s why she finds so much relief when others want her. By the end, she knows what makes her her. And she only got there through being honest with herself about what she was really afraid of (forgetting people, things she’s done in the past, the confession, etc.) and being able to make decisions for herself. Decisions that she already knew she was going to make. And really trusting, opening up to, and showing up for the people around her (Claire, the Priest).

I’ve viscerally felt a. feeling so deep in the trench that it feels like nothing is salvageable and b. wanting someone to tell me what to do or save me somehow. That I just need to rot so horribly that someone will take notice and pull me out. But there’s never such a thing. No one’s there to save you except yourself. As long as we keep fighting, taking the bet on ourselves, and showing up for ourselves. Because I do know what I’m going to do. I’ve known it this whole time.

I need and want to pour more into the people in my life. Because it is all we got.

Fleabag’s a reminder that the process isn’t always pretty, but you’ll get there if you keep taking steps. That you can really love and accept yourself while also working to improve and become better.

<3 Claire (my actual sis)