Fleabag: She’s Just Like Me
January 17, 2024
Writer: Anushi Varma
Editor: Leighton Gray
Aside from the short hair and British accent, I feel akin to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character in her show Fleabag. Her chronic inability to take most things seriously, conveyed by her blunt and crude sarcasm, makes me laugh to the point of tears. It also makes me wonder how concerned I should be about her and with myself.
The concern is valid: Fleabag wrestles with her self-perception and unstable relationships with her family and romantic partners. Most heart-wrenchingly, however, is the guilt she feels over going behind her best friend, Boo’s, back, ultimately causing the sequence of events leading up to Boo’s death. Throughout the first season, Fleabag’s guilt slowly oozes out for us to see through short clips of her interactions with Boo. The memories begin with positive, wholesome moments of their friendship, such as Boo gifting Fleabag, the guinea pig that became the selling pitch of their joint-owned cafe. From there, Boo and Fleabag’s relationship declines rapidly. Boo is crying with mascara stained on her cheeks, looking directly at us as if we are Fleabag and explaining her plan to hurt herself. Finally, we see Fleabag at her wits’ end, standing at the same curb Boo stood before she died.
Fleabag’s guilt underlies everything she does and follows her wherever she goes. Her signature habit of frequently turning to look at the audience (“breaking the fourth wall”) throughout the show demonstrates how her plaguing guilt forces her to retreat further into herself as she attempts to reconcile with her actions. She is absent from the outside world, sharing her reactions and impressions with invisible viewers, who can only offer sympathy and a few good laughs.
The feeling of guilt is a powerful emotion to sit with. Mostly concealed, it festers within us, lining the inside of our thoughts and actions. As such, it is shaped individually by each person and situation, making it difficult to convey to others. How can anyone remotely comprehend the discomfort we put ourselves through when they can hardly notice it in the first place?
I sit with guilt over my actions and words from my high school senior year. Grappling with stressful college applications, flighty friendships, and tense relationships with my parents, I was a ball of anger and unpredictability. Clouded by my personal issues and the unhealthy atmosphere of my high school friend group, I was distasteful. I acted secretively and talked about people behind their backs, ultimately stumbling to high school graduation, having made a huge mess of my social life. Guilt haunts me: I can’t change my past actions or take back the things I said.
Just like me, after screwing up so badly and struggling with the repercussions of her actions, all Fleabag wants is to feel grounded: for someone to tell her how to correct the situation and finally feel good about herself. Fleabag’s desperate desire to redeem and prove herself is deeply intimate—the most authentic form of vulnerability.
There is no heartwarming moment of redemption where Fleabag neatly resolves her feelings of guilt, but there is satisfaction in seeing how she gets closer to accepting herself. Fleabag is disappointed countless times as life progresses and ruthlessly sets back on her path to self-acceptance. On the other hand, Fleabag is also surprised and rewarded as her relationships and work life improve significantly. By the end of the show, her past no longer restrains her but rather redefines how she sees herself and what she wants in life. Fleabag inspires me to take faith in myself and my surroundings, crack a couple of jokes along the way, and pull myself together. The things I did and the person I was can’t stop me from being the person I want to be, and neither can they for you.
