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The sexiest scene I have ever watched on TV happens in a confessional booth.
But that confessional booth moment is not the scene fromFleabagseason two that made me gasp for air.
Fleabag turns to face the camera, speaking directly to the viewer.
Well last a week, she tells us.
She is both happy and sad about it.
Fleabagspeaks to the camera a lot.
In interviews, Waller-Bridge refers to the equipment as her secret camera friend.
Sometimes theyre more like admissions of guilt, simultaneously begging and daring the viewer to judge her.
Sometimes they are outright hostile, or they act as excuses.
Well last a week feels like something from the excuse vein.
Just like Fleabag, we the viewers know shes going to sleep with this priest.
Just like Fleabag, we cannot stop it.
But then the scene changes.
The Priests eyebrows furrow in surprise.
he asks, looking at Fleabag.
Where did you just go?
Fleabag tries to shake it off.
Nowhere, she tells him.
He only sort of accepts this, shrugging.
Fleabag turns to the camera once again, this time in shock.
Reader, I gasped.
Its tempting to think of Fleabags compulsive habit of looking to the viewer as a form of intimacy.
Packaging them, turning them into a story, is also a way to control her feelings.
Fleabag gives usFleabagas a gift, so she doesnt have to deal with it herself.
But that sense of intimacy, however effective it may be for the viewer, is only ever one-sided.
That scene is thrilling and crushing at the same time.
Its so flattering to be her confidant, and so sad.
Her closest relationship is with a presence she can neither see nor hear.
The Priest cant see or hear us either.
That false intimacy she shared with us?
Suddenly its real, and its not between Fleabag and her silent viewers.
In a later scene in Fleabags cafe, The Priest catches her dissociating once again.
He can feel her leaving, and he calls her back.
To Fleabag, and to us the viewers, it feels like an intrusion.
We have been a couple for so long, a dysfunctional pairing of speaker and observer.
But now The Priest has entered into our relationship, barged in where no one asked him to be.
The confessional booth scene the moment their attraction finally gallops out of control comes later in that same episode.
When Fleabag and The Priest do finally have sex, though, she is ready to shut us out.
She shoves the camera away.
What should she do without him?
She could easily slip back into her old habits, something we the viewers might actually hope for.
When The Priest breaks up with Fleabag, theres a chance that we can getourrelationship with her back.
Once again shell be intimate withus.
Fleabag makes the other choice.
Rather than turning to the camera once again and cracking a joke about her devastation, she walks away.
In the end, Fleabag breaks up with us.
