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Fleabag is the TV show thousands of women are staying home to watch this weekend.

 

You know how there are moments of tragedy, death, breakups, and dismal career failures, where you are suddenly struck with the inappropriate and uncontrollable urge to laugh?

Well, Fleabag is that exact same feeling wrapped up and presented as one of the best TV shows currently gracing our screens.

The series creator and writer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, stars as the show’s protagonist known only to the audience as ‘Fleabag’, a 30-something woman living in London who pauses at certain moments in her life, such as when she’s in the midst of having awkward sex, to talk frankly and directly to the camera about what’s going on. The show also chronicles both the extreme grief and loneliness of her life, coupled with her many sexual exploits and her volatile relationship with her family. Much of the show is also about the series of poorly thought-out decisions she makes that paint her as the ultimate ‘hot mess’.

When the first season of Fleabag aired back in 2016, it quickly became a critical hit and also garnered an intense fan following thanks to the brutal and hilarious way it depicted a series of issues so many women face.

In many ways, it was Sex and the City without the extreme romance, unattainable fashion and gloss, Bridget Jones Diary with a darker and sharper edge and pretty much an antidote to the flood of romantic comedies we all grew up devouring.

Now that season two has premiered in Australia, available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, the conversation and fandom around Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s brilliant creation has been kicked up a notch.

Second seasons can be tricky for any show to pull off, especially when your first outing is as universally praised as Fleabag’s was and expectations are sky-high, but luckily for us this second offering is just as witty, cutting and addictive as the first one.

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Phoebe Waller-Bridge, stars as the show's protagonist known only to the audience as 'Fleabag'. Source: BBC

In season two we're back with Fleabag, a cafe owner who in the first season was in the midst of breakup number 30 with her on-again-off-again boyfriend Harry (Hugh Skinner) and was mourning both the death of her mother and her best friend Boo (Jenny Rainsford).

In season two she's embarking on another slightly inappropriate relationship with Hot Catholic Priest (Andrew Scott) and trying to sort through her complicated yet co-dependent relationship with her sister Claire (Sian Clifford).

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Some of the best comedy moments from the series come from when she's facing off against her seemingly-sweet-yet-totally-vicious step-mother-to-be, the woman who was her Godmother but has now shacked up with her widowed father (played by Olivia Colman) or when she is engaging in showdowns with her brutish brother-in-law Martin (Brett Gelman). A man who tried to sue her for punching him in the face during season two's premiere episode, even though he very much deserved it.

It's hard to really find the words to explain the magic of Fleabag unless you watch it, which is what thousands of women will be doing his weekend judging from the show's international success, its 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and that fact that it is one of BBC's best-received shows.

The way Fleabag is shaped also makes it endlessly bingeable. It's black comedy at its best, delivered in a whip fire fashion that keeps the story moving along at a rapid pace and the fact that each season contains just six episodes, each under 30 minutes long, makes it the perfect weekend quickie watch.

If you're like me you'll watch all six episodes of each season in one go. Twice.

So go forth and enjoy the wildly inappropriate and wickedly wonderful dramedy that is Fleabag. 

Seasons one and two of Fleabag are available to watch now on Amazon Prime Video. 

For more stories like this, you can follow Mamamia Entertainment Editor Laura Brodnik on Facebook.  You can also visit our newsletter page and sign up to “TV and Movies”  for a backstage pass to the best movies, TV shows and celebrity interviews (see one of her newsletters here).