Anti Hero

Being proper and sweet and nice and pleasing is a fucking nightmare. It’s exhausting…Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s one woman show turned two season sensation lists in my top ten of all time. What makes the show so enticing is its protagonist Fleabag, who on paper is really an antagonist. Or rather the show’s antagonist is the viewer’s protagonist. Actually, scratch all that. Fleabag is both her own protagonist and antagonist. But aren’t we all?!

Although it’s easy to get caught up with the Hot Priest that is Andrew Scott, Waller-Bridge’s illustration of inner turmoil and self disgust is chilling – and transcendent. It’s the show maker.

“I have a horrible feeling that I’m a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist.”

In that line, Fleabag became the every(wo)man. We became Fleabag. Our greatest fears that haunt the halls of introspection are articulated with such candour and vulnerability that we have no choices but to love our antagonist, protagonist, anti-hero and ally, Fleabag.

Most of the adjectives Fleabag used ring true, but with an empire of dirt at her feet, she slowly starts to rebuild. She shows up to the free therapy session, she reconciles with her sister, puts effort into the cafe, and more importantly, she lets the priest walk away. For a character who has lost her mother, her best friend Boo, sister briefly to an abusive husband, and arguably, father, she finds in herself enough strength, and grace to let another person go. No small feat.

The thing they don’t tell us is to resist self-destruction is the greatest act of self love you can make. Because – I don’t care that you’re not supposed to put because at the beginning of a sentence – the thing they don’t tell you is there is satisfaction in being proven right, of seeing how bad things can get, of letting our shadow-self out of pandora’s box, letting all of that crap spill into the relationships that tie us to this world. The thing they should tell you is in the end, it’s you versus you. You’re the one left with all the crappy choices from the day before. So if you can’t do it for the you of today, do it for the you of tomorrow. The hot priest, whether sustained by God’s love or the foresight to see Fleabag for who she was, he chose God. He chose the him of tomorrow. Fleabag, one day at a time makes better decisions than she did the day before. And you should too.