As she sits on the floor, the hamster wheel squeaks. She looks at the camera. The smug smirk is gone. The confident survivor is gone. In her place is a woman drowning. She whispers, sadly, "It's fine. It's fine."
Fleabag tries to get a bank loan. The banker asks for a business plan. She has none. She says the café is "quirky." He denies her loan. She then, in a panic, flashes him. She shows him her breasts. "Now give me a loan," she says. He doesn't. But the moment is crucial: Fleabag weaponizes her body because she has no other weapon. It backfires. It always backfires. Fleabag 1x1
At the dinner table, the Godmother (a magnificent, evil Harriet Walter) unveils a feminist art piece: a woman’s torso made of bronze with a slide projector showing photos of female genitalia. Claire (Sian Clifford) is mortified. Martin (Brett Gelman) sees it as pornography. Fleabag, half-drunk, looks at the camera and mouths, "This is awful." This scene establishes the show's thesis: performative feminism is laughable, but real female pain is invisible. As she sits on the floor, the hamster wheel squeaks
So go ahead. Press play. And when she looks at the camera, look back. She needs someone to watch. Because for all her bravado, the Fleabag of Episode 1 is the loneliest woman in London. The confident survivor is gone
Fleabag looks at us. Rolls her eyes.