From the moment we meet Fleabag, she is our friend. Or maybe a more accurate way to put it is that from the moment we meet Fleabag, we are her friends.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge's tragicomic masterpiece, which debuted 10 years ago(*), opens with the title character, played by Waller-Bridge, in her flat, in the middle of the night, preparing to receive a male visitor. She turns to the camera and talks to us like we're the closest of pals. Referring to herself in the second person, she explains all the work she had to put in for this unexpected booty call, including the way that, "you open the door to him like you’d almost forgotten he was coming over." Even once they're having sex, we're as much a part of the event for her as he is, if not more. Matter-of-factly, she explains, "Then after some pretty standard bouncing, you realise that he is edging towards your arsehole. But you're drunk, and he made the effort to come all the way here so, you let him. He’s thrilled."
(*) It premiered in the UK on July 21, 2016, but came to the States on Prime Video on September 16.
This scene isn't an anomaly for the two-season, 12-episode run of Fleabag (though the use of second-person got dialed back). She speaks to us early and often. Sometimes, she's explaining her fraught history with the members of her family: her intense sister Claire (Sian Clifford); their father (Bill Paterson), who has been emotionally distant since their mother died long ago; their passive-aggressive stepmother (Olivia Colman); and Claire's useless, disgusting husband Martin (Brett Gelman). Sometimes, she is talking about the strange guinea pig-themed cafe she opened with her best friend Boo (Jenny Rainsford) before Boo got killed walking into a bike lane. Sometimes, she's just venting to us about the inconveniences of being a young single woman. We are a constant presence in her life.
The concept of direct address — a fictional character breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience without the other characters noticing it — goes back to the earliest days of what we think of as drama performed for audiences. It's in the plays of Greek authors like Aristophanes. It's in Shakespeare. It's everywhere. It's fairly common in modern film and television, for that matter. Waller-Bridge didn't invent the device, but what she does with it is very specific. In movies and TV shows, direct address is usually used in one of two ways. In the likes of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Malcolm in the Middle, and House of Cards, it's supposed to make clear that the main character is smarter than everyone around them. In projects like Wayne's World and Deadpool, it's a way to take the piss and let you know that the heroes are in on the joke — that they know on some level that they're a fictional character in a story.
Fleabag doesn't do that. Fleabag herself is witty, but she's not a genius, and is prone to terrible, terrible decisions. She knows we're here, but she doesn't think of herself as the lead of a TV show — or, in Waller-Bridge's original version of this, a character in a stage play.
Instead, Fleabag talks to us because we're often the only people she can talk to.