TV Tuesday: Fleabag

With my husband and sons out of town two weeks ago, I had a quiet five days to myself at home, so I wanted to indulge in some "me time," enjoying something new on TV. I discovered Fleabag, a short British Amazon series. It looked like a funny, sexy comedy - perhaps along the lines of Chewing Gum (which I loved) - but it turned out to also have plenty of depth to it.

Fleabag is adapted from an award-winning play, and its lead actress, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, starred in and wrote both the play and the TV series. She plays an unnamed single woman, living in London, looking for love, and caught up in the crises of her daily life. Her sister, Claire, is seemingly perfect, married to a handsome American, thin and pretty, and with a life that seems perfectly put together. Though they don't have a lot in common, the two sisters do sometimes come together, in grieving for their mother, being disgusted by their inappropriately blunt stepmother (who was/is godmother to the narrator), and rolling their eyes about their inept father.

The narrator, who I guess can be referred to as Fleabag, also has an on-again, off-again relationship with a boring guy named Harry and a string of hilarious encounters (during the off periods) with other guys, including a man she meets on the bus who has teeth like a rabbit and a late-night booty call in the first episode who wants anal sex. Shortly into the first season, we also find out that Fleabag recently lost her best friend and business partner in an accident, which suddenly puts everything else into perspective and adds a significant layer of emotional depth.

The first season is only six half-hour episodes long (as is more the norm in the UK), but there is a lot packed into those three hours of television. Fleabag often looks directly into the camera to share an aside with the audience (or sometimes, just a look that says it all), again reminding me of Chewing Gum. The overall result here is a fascinating main character with interesting supporting characters, moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity, and moments of quiet introspection, too. It's the life of a modern woman, with all of its complexities and challenges (and more laughs than in a typical life!). This mix of humor and real-life emotion reminds me very much of another British Amazon show that my husband and I enjoy, Catastrophe. Just watching the trailer (below) reminded me again of how much I enjoyed this funny, moving, outrageous show - and it's perfect for binging.

The 6 episodes of season 1 are available on Amazon Prime. I was very excited to see that a season 2 is planned for 2018 - I can't wait!