i go to a party alone, in the skin tight skirt i wore when i stumbled to your apartment. the cold october air hits my fish net covered legs. i sit in the back seat of a strangers car. i go to a party alone. i go to hunt. i go to see if i could find someone to lend my heart out to there. in another universe, i take you with me. i don’t go to parties alone there.
something blue something borrowed
the rag, so i dont forget
no one answered my last post so i guess i have to do everything myself, buckle up for some fleabag analysis.
when fleabag says “this is a love story” in season 2 episode 1, the love story is between her and claire. listen i love the hot priest as much as anyone else, but to me the most compelling arc of s2 is the sisters rebuilding, redefining, and strengthening their relationship instead of leaning into growing apart the way we’ve seen them default to doing.
when we meet them in season 1, they’re civil and clearly see each other fairly often, but they aren’t close. we only see a few conversations that don’t end in a fight. they both clearly care, but they seem incapable of interacting without accidentally pushing each other’s worst buttons. there are several pivotal points where we see them turn away from each other, whether because of other people or their own conflicting needs, insecurities, and personalities
-after their mother’s death, claire had martin and fleabag had boo. these separate support systems combined with the family dynamic their father described, wherein fleabag very much takes after and was closer to their mother, meant they almost certainly grieved separately. as we see at the funeral, grief clearly looked very different on each of them, and they did not react well to each other’s coping styles
-their father’s new relationship clearly drove a wedge between him and the girls, and while the godmother needles at both of them, she clearly targets fleabag more often (almost certainly reacting to her resemblance to her mother), only occasionally sniping at claire. as a result of this and her determination to view her own family (and marriage) in a positive light, claire maintains a level of denial about their godmother, leaving fleabag to deal with it alone
-after boo’s death claire almost certainly reached out, but the distance between them and their clashing coping styles would’ve mixed VERY badly with fleabag’s guilt over her role in the tragedy. if claire’s after what you did to boo jab at the sexhibition (almost certainly fueled by martin referencing it while telling “his side of the story” re his infidelity to claire) is anything to go by, definitely martin and possibly claire were judgemental about it, and even if it wasn’t to fleabag’s face, she would have felt it, real or imagined.
-after the incident with martin, claire again retreats to her denial and determination to be a successful person (happy marriage included), and leans into judging fleabag alongside the rest of the family, deliberately choosing to ignore the signs of crisis she has demonstrated she can see in fleabag, probably in no small part because all of her attempts to do anything or help in any way or even reach out have somehow been exactly the wrong thing to say to her “broken sister”
because it’s not that we never see them reach out to one another. there are frequent moments where one or the other tries to bridge the gap. but there’s always a defense mechanism or insecurity (or husband) in the way of the other’s ability to accept that olive branch. they both feel they’ve repeatedly tried only to be rebuffed by the other.
but in the second season, they’ve spent some time in total radio silence from one another. it has explicitly canonically been over a year since they’ve seen each other or spoken. given the space to not constantly be rubbing against each other’s raw insecurities and grief, as well as the extenuating (WILD) circumstances of the s2e1 dinner in particular, they’re finally in a position to reconnect.
by the end of season 2 they still aren’t perfect. but they’re able to have a vulnerable conversation and accept help and advice from one another and feel like they’re on the same team, quite possibly for the first time since their mother got sick.
we’ve gone from claire sniping at fleabag to keep her nose out of other people’s marriages to refusing to let fleabag leave the room while she confronts her husband. we go from fleabag flinching away from a clearly rare hug in s1e1 to
“is it a running through the airport kind of love?”
“….the only person i’d run through an airport for is you”
the animosity of godmother towards fleabag is based on total guilt. fleabag is told time and time again that she looks + acts like her mother, and godmother who just wants a nice life cannot shake the knowledge that what she is doing is unethical to say the least every time fleabag's around. the hatred towards fleabag is just hatred towards herself.
people gamble because we all would like to think that we are special. you play your home away because what if you’re the exception.
TAYLOR SWIFT 2023 MTV VMAs
tonight, i demand the city of chicago loves me.
its not about you. it was never, about you. its about me. and my incessant urge to put love into things that don’t want it. only so that i can make life, digestible. but i think that maybe, life’s meant to make you want to throw up a little bit. its not meant to be palatable. it’s meant to make you feel something.
one of the many reasons Fleabag is so heartbreaking and relatable is because no one ever chose her. Not her family. Not her lovers. Not her supposed “soulmate”. The one person that picked her died. She was no one’s choice or option, not even to herself. The way we can feel her loneliness through the screen is enough to make me collapse into a mess of tears on the ground and shake uncontrollably
in fleabag episode 4 when the bank manager says “i want to take clean cups out of the dishwasher and put them in the cupboard at home, and the next morning, i want to watch my wife drink from them. and i want to make her feel good.” phoebe waller-bridge why would u write that.
I am Fleabag. She is me. The inconsolable loneliness. Never being chosen despite love being there. Never having people believe you when bad things happen to you. Always an angel never a God.
if i were to think about it, having an existential crisis over a boy i had strong feelings on a bus stop at night, while being traumatic, was also very fleabag coded of me.
confess your hearts secret
when i was in my sophomore year here at lake forest college, an upper class man read a piece of hers about her struggle with mental health and how she transferred schools a couple of times before getting here. how it took her longer to graduate than most and how she felt shame at first but was able to move past it. lake forest can be very isolating. aside from the fact that you are physically isolated, and getting anywhere fun without a car is very heavy duty, i can’t count on both hands the times the culture here has had me down on my knees, with damp cheeks and messy thoughts. at the time that piece felt moving to but i couldn’t relate to it.
lake forest is a bubble
i graduated from lake forest college in the year 2021, after the fall semester. i still carry resentment for north campus. in the year 2016, i lived in lois hall for a semester long before my academics came crashing down. it had been the first time i’d ever been this far from home, 5,478.09 miles to be exact. i flew eleven hours from the city i grew up in. the city i bruised my knees in for the first time when i fell down, fell in love, fell apart. the American dream may be outdated but if you grew up in a middle eastern European country, the ideals of the western countries are drilled into your brain. i came here starry eyed, excited about meeting new friends and having access to hot Cheetos. its safe to say i left very differently than how i arrived.
why do all the guys who disregard my heart have brown leather jackets and love for green skies.
Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died
Megan Fernandes, from “Fabric in Tribeca,” in Good Boys
i put my legs in your lap and your palm rests on my calve. that is gentle love, and i am high on it.
