When you haven’t seen Fleabag, then you definitely’re wasting your time studying Cracked articles as a substitute of watching probably the most progressive and compelling comedy present of the final decade. Phoebe Waller-Bridge wrote and starred within the sequence that seamlessly blended black comedy, cringe humor, and deeply shifting drama over an advanced, unflinching, and anarchic two seasons whereas racking up a half-dozen Emmys within the course of. Fleabag was a very singular present that was carried by the thoughtfulness of Waller-Bridge’s writing in addition to the fearlessness of her efficiency.
However what made Fleabag so attention-grabbing from a story standpoint was that the climactic occasions of the primary character’s life occurred earlier than the beginning of the sequence. Fleabag wasn’t about Waller-Bridge happening an journey or overcoming obstacles, it was about her selecting up the items of a life that we, the viewers, by no means knew. The exposition was given to us nearly totally in subtext. The flashbacks solely supplied us small glimpses of the previous – not often did Fleabag permit us to see the entire image.
Distinction that with the storytelling strategies utilized by Marvel – the one occasions we’re launched to new superheroes with out half an hour of expository dialogue and origin story rationalization is with characters like Spider-Man, a hero whose background is already so ubiquitously identified that one other iteration of “with nice energy comes nice accountability” could be fully redundant.
The humor of Fleabag comes principally from the sheer shamelessness of its title character – Fleabag lies, curses, begins fights, ruins dinners, and wrecks her life as finest she will in probably the most absurdly plausible method. She’s not a hero. She’s not even an anti-hero. She’s simply Fleabag. She is an impulsive, aimless, usually egocentric, deeply flawed, and outrageously humorous trainwreck of a human being. Nice comedy comes from fact, and Fleabag bombards you with each of these issues in droves. Fleabag’s flaws expose her humanity, and Waller-Bridge permits her to sink to unthinkable lows in an effort to draw out that honesty.
