Fleabag Taught Us a Lesson We All Failed to Learn in 2023

Let's be clear: Fleabag was never about a protagonist going on a good old-fashioned hero's journey.

No, the Fleabag we fell in love with was a chaotic extravaganza of family squabbles, messy love life, sex, mental health issues, and existential crises.

The unnamed heroine, brilliantly portrayed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is no Wonder Woman as she struggles to find her place in life and is clearly slow to understand that sex obsession and sarcasm is not the way to do it.

Other ways that are not "it"? Stealing a cute boy from your friend, guilt-tripping your father, snagging a weird statue from your father's new wife who happens to be your godmother, emotionally abusing your own boyfriend — you name it.

There are a lot of things Fleabag has done that neither she nor her fans are proud of. Some of them would probably cancel her today.

But the way she grows and learns throughout the series makes us realize that forgiveness and empathy is the "it" we are all looking for.

"I have a hard time saying Fleabag is a bad person, but she definitely does bad things and has hurt people and continues to do so throughout season 1. Seeing her growth and prosperity in season 2 and her relationship with Claire improve was so cathartic for me," Redditor forgivenmadness noted.

Well, the show ended after two seasons in 2019, but here we are, four years later, immersed in endless "cancel" campaigns (even though some of the things we cancel people for happened a long time ago) and practicing emotional abuse and escapism like there's no tomorrow.

The way Waller-Bridge (who also wrote the show) makes us sympathize with characters who are clearly not the best people (or even borderline toxic, like Fleabag's father) only shows how beautifully imperfect we are as humans, fans note.

"Phoebe Waller-Bridge is clearly a very close observer of people. She gets how everyone is supposed to behave around those they love and she also gets how they often fail to due to dealign with their own pain and suffering," Redditor Glass_Ad_8774 noted.

The lesson Fleabag teaches us to this day? Life is nuanced, and hate is rarely the answer or a way to deal with it.

Have we learned the lesson?

Well, a few minutes on Twitter clearly shows that we still have a long way to go. Instead of trying to solve our problems (or at least sit down and discuss them in a civilized way), we try to cancel them, erase them or bombard them with hate.

But let's hope it'll pass.