Fleabag was a tremendous show. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who created and wrote it, deserved all the credit she and her team got (it won two Golden Globes and four Primetime Emmys). From the nuanced character arcs and the multi-layered plots to, of course, the humor, Fleabag is the kind of show you wish you could forget, just so that you could watch it again. Bravo, Ms. Waller-Bridge.
Another thing that Fleabag is known for is breaking the fourth wall. Throughout the show, the protagonist, known as Fleabag, repeatedly talks directly to the camera, often delivering biting, humorous lines related to what is going on around her. This has been done before, but Fleabag displayed a nearly-unmatched mastery of this narrative tool. Here are some of the funniest of those such lines that were meant to be delivered right to the viewers.
"He's one of those men who is explosively sexually inappropriate with everyone, but makes you feel bad if you take offense because he was 'just being fun.'"
Fleabag's analysis of other people's personalities was always spot-on. In this gem of a quote, she is talking about Martin, her brother in law.
Martin is loud-mouthed and confrontational, especially when he drinks. He hides his obnoxiousness behind "just being fun," but Fleabag sees right through it. He isn't being fun, he's just being a jerk.
"Quaker meeting. You're not allowed to speak. If the Spirit moves you to speak, you have to stand up and share it with everyone. It's very intense. It's very quiet. It's very, very erotic."
Fleabag talking to the camera fills the viewer in on what's happening, as well as what our heroine thinks about it.
When a priest that Fleabag is falling for invites her to a Quaker meeting, which many people probably don't know much about, it's up to her to give a quick breakdown. She does just that, then adds a splash of her own hilarious commentary, since she's a bit of a sex addict.
"I'm good at this!"
In this scene, Fleabag goes to see a counselor at the request of her father, in order to deal with her litany of issues. The counselor asks why she thought her father wanted this for her, at which point she unleashes an eloquent and detailed breakdown of her personal and family problems.
Most people would not pat themselves on the back in this moment, but Fleabag is very impressed with her ability to regale her troubles to the counselor. Never take things too seriously, as they say.
"F#%@ing does!"
This is Fleabag's response to her sister, Claire, saying that "Putting pine nuts on your salad doesn't make you a grown-up."
True, there are probably more significant acts that prove you have indeed evolved into a fully-functioning adult. However, Fleabag does not always have an easy time "adulting," so she has to take her small victories when she gets them. Pine nuts in her salad = big win.
"Don't tell the French."
Martin and Fleabag find themselves shopping for a present for Claire's birthday. He is not good at this sort of thing, so he asks Fleabag for her help in finding a suitable gift for her sister and his wife.
Martin opines that a certain pair of shoes are chic, so Claire might like them since chic is supposedly a symbol of high fashion. "Chic means boring," says Fleabag, then she looks at the camera and warns the viewer to not tell the French. Don't you worry, Fleabag, the viewers will keep that under wraps!
"Dad's way of coping with two motherless daughters was to buy us tickets to feminist lectures, start f#%@ing our godmother and eventually stop calling."
Fleabag's sharp, deadpan humor never misses a beat in this wonderful show. She is not mean to her father, but she does not shy away from being frank about his actions since he became a widower.
He is a non-confrontational man, which creates a problem when he is dating such a controlling woman like the girls' godmother. These facts don't slip by Fleabag.
"To be fair, she is not an evil stepmother. She's just a c@#%."
Fleabag's stepmother makes passive aggression an art form. She might be a good person at her core, but her exterior is one of a controlling, undermining, condescending, pretentious woman.
It seems like Fleabag knows this, but she also knows that her stepmother makes her dad happier than he has been in years. This forces her to do her best to put up with her (until she can't).
"You know that thing when a guy sends you a text at two o'clock on a Tuesday night asking if he can come and find you and you've accidentally made it out like you've just got in yourself so you have to get out of bed, drink half a bottle of wine, get in the shower, shave everything, dig out some Agent Provocateur business, suspender belt the whole bit and wait by the door 'til the buzzer goes?"
This was one of Fleabag's longer fourth-wall-breaking lines, but it brilliantly and hilariously highlights the procedure a woman goes through in this situation. Quotes like this make Fleabag even more real, thus adding to its excellence.
"We'll last a week."
Fleabag and the attractive priest she likes slowly become more open about their affections for one another. She repeatedly hints at it, but the priest, at first, quells her subtle advances.
He says he'd like to be her friend and Fleabag says he'd like to be his friend, as well. She knows herself, though, and acknowledges that she will not be able to remain "just friends" with this man. She gives their friendship a week before it fizzles out.
"Don't say it ... just don't say it ... I just said it, apparently."
Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character often has difficulty filtering her words. Her diary-like relationship with the camera subdues this impulse a bit, but sometimes she can't help herself.
She meets the priest, her love interest, at a festival that also features certain bits of her godmother's art. The priest comments on one of them, at which point Fleabag drops a fun little tidbit about the piece of artwork that her godmother "orgasmed when she finished it." She tried to hold it in, but sometimes little truth nuggets like that just slip out.