Even though I really liked the first run of "Fleabag" I wasn't prepared for just how much of a step up the second season would be. It's genuinely, one of the funniest, most enjoyable seasons of comedy I've seen in a long while.
The wedding of Godmother (Olivia Colman) and Dad (Bill Paterson) approaches, and a family dinner introduces Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) to The Priest (Andrew Scott). There is immediate chemistry between them, but due to his vocation, nothing can happen. Meanwhile Claire's (Sian Clifford) marriage is breaking down, caused by the suspicion about Martin's (Brett Gelman) pass at Fleabag, and by her spending more time out of the country, for work.
There's one immediate and obvious reason for the season two improvement. In the first episodes, any love interest for Fleabag wasn't a match for her wit or temperament, they were a punchline. Here Andrew Scott's "Hot Priest" is a fully rounded character, with his own issues and can both punch back and enjoy sparring with her. The moment when starts to catch her doing her asides to camera is a truly brilliant idea but the shows so wonderfully written it never has to explicitly investigate why that's happening, or, for example, have Fleabag verbally explain her crushing guilt to him. The impending wedding gives the season more of a narrative throughflow too, rather than just a series of events, it's building to something, and provides reasons for the characters to interact. It's just funnier all round though, better written, more moving and, as it appears at the moment that this is all we're ever going to get, tinged with a bittersweet sadness - particularly in the final moments.
Just glorious, wonderful TV.
