About Fleabag’s finale
I slept on it but I still have WAY too many feelings about the finale so here goes.
SPOILERS FOR FLEABAG 2x06.
Claire got everything she wanted and I’m so fucking happy for her. If Fleabag and Claire have something in common, it’s a deep rooted fear of letting go, showing too much and risk rejection. That clear, frank, unambiguous declaration of love from Claire to her sister was everything.
The breakup scene with Martin was so fucking perfect. Every sentence of his speech was so carefully crafted to make him sound like an even bigger arsehole. My personal favorite was his taking credits for taking his son to stuff. NO. You don’t get brownie points for doing the things you’re supposed to be doing in the first place. You ONLY get points taken from Slytherin when you DON’T do those things. Fuck you, Martin. You’re the worst. Also, “it’s not my fault that I’m a horrible person with a shit personality” is a really bold defense.
THE BASSOON IS A CRY FOR HELP.
The moment in the kitchen with the Godmother was really good as well. They’re never going to like each other but they’ve reached an understanding, and OH MY GOD the sculpture is the mother, this is so ridiculously perfect. I wonder if PWB always intended it this way, or if she just randomly thought of that one morning and if so, I hope she had a toast to her own genius.
The scene with the father. This was so…. unexpectedly insightful of him. As the daughter of a somewhat aloof man of about the same age, who also can’t articulate uncomfortable feelings to save his life, the moment touched me very, very deeply.
MY BABIES LOOK SO GOOD. That scene behind the house, with good lighting so we can better see their hearteyes, was a pure gift. Fuck you, then. Ah!
Now onto the things I didn’t love.
WHERE IS BOO. WHY NO MENTION OF BOO. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy that FB’s getting better as living with her grief, but Boo being completely absent from the finale felt just plain wrong. Accepting one’s absence is one thing, forgetting about them is another.
Look I didn’t expect Fleabag, of all shows, to get a ride-into-the-sunset kinda ending. I get it. It works. It’s fine. It’s probably as it should be. I just wish it wasn’t so damn final. I like a slightly open door. A tiny, tiny crack in the door would do.
I’m not worried about her at all. She’s come so far. She’s doing so much better. She can love and be loved and it will be slightly less terrifying the next time because it doesn’t really get more dramatic than falling in love with a priest who loves you back but eventually ditches you for God.
I will worry about him, though. He’s still running. His problems didn’t start when he met her. He was already lonely. He was already drinking. It seems like he likes being told what to do because he doesn’t make the best decisions on his own and I don’t know how long that’s going to work for him. How he’ll feel about this in a few months, a few years. I know I’ll still be worrying about him in months though. That’s how strong Andrew Scott’s performance was.
It was the best show. Like, honestly, for real. It was THE BEST show. I will miss it forever.
PS: SOMEBODY PLEASE WRITE A FIC ABOUT THE TWO OF THEM RUNNING INTO EACH OTHER AT BOOTS IN 6 MONTHS SO I DON’T HAVE TO.
This is kind of where I was at yesterday but thinking about it today (as we all have), I believe I’ve found that tiny crack in the door we’re looking for so that the ending for FB and the Priest wasn’t as final as it may have appeared.
My interpretation is that yes, there was no way that FB and the Priest could be together. For now at least. There was undoubtably love and a connection there that neither of them had encountered before, but as you say The Priest is an emotional fuckup at the moment with so many other things going on in his life that he needs to address. To me he’s where FB was at the start of the series 1 in a way and the relationship would NEVER work out with that behind the scenes.
The drinking is clearly a problem, but I think some of that was due to the fact that his feelings for FB were causing massive internal conflict. The exchange they had at the end of ep 4 before the confession bit, he was clearly drunk but had been thinking about FB deeply - ‘you were in my head and now you’re there’, ‘fuck you calling me father like it doesn’t turn you on ....’ etc. - his despair was fuelled by the alcohol. Clearly NO excuse but with help could be something he’d get over if his faith in God had been as restored as deeply as it seemed to have been during the speech. He also hints at his need for guidance in the talk at FB’s flat in ep5 - ‘when I was a child ....’ and the line about if she really wanted to be told what to do, she’d wear a dog collar. To me that was his way of saying his priesthood provided protection from bigger issues that plagued him.
So frankly, yes you may be worried about him but he seems to have full belief in God and what that will do for him so let God do the hard work and deal with the shit he’s carrying and get him to a higher level of peace and acceptance to bring him to where FB is now. Let God be his emotional crutch for now to accept and move forward from his problems until that crutch isn’t needed so much, if at all. To me that’s a factor in why he chooses God over FB at the end - he believes God can help him in a way FB can’t or more importantly shouldn’t while she’s still recovering from issues herself.
And that’s where the crack in the door lies for my soppy, overly romantic brain.
‘It’ll pass’ - I truly believe the Priest said that as much for himself as FB. He’s clearly in love with everything about her and the tear down his cheek after his ‘I love you too’ just reinforced that. At this point he needs to convince himself too that the inevitable heartbreak will fade. Yes feelings pass, but just because they’ve passed, doesn’t mean they can’t return again. And to me this is where I can see their future further down the line. Say 5/10 years pass and the Priest has resolved all those various issues thanks to his religious beliefs, but he feels strong enough in his own resolve and self-worth to not need that support anymore so he leaves the church. Not for FB, but for himself. He needs to do that for himself. And who’s to say that after that he doesn’t then bump into FB again and those feelings of love and longing for another individual who you already know understands your being better than anyone else don’t resurface for the both of them? Except this time they’re both strong enough, and hopeful enough to move forward together.
That’s the beauty of art - it’s all down to the interpretation of the individual. And there’s no denying in my mind that the finale was art.
Final, yet open.
And all thanks to PWB’s astonishing witting and clear love for her characters. We can all see the ending we want if we believe in it enough.
