We haven’t seen the last of “Fleabag,” thank goddess. The series’ star and creator, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, has confirmed that a second season of the pitch-black comedy is in the works. The bad news? We’re going to have to wait quite some time to see the horrifying — and hilarious — ways our favorite deadpan protagonist continues to fuck up her life. According to RadioTimes.com, the show’s sophomore season is expected to begin filming in November and won’t be broadcast until 2018. “We are all trying to make it work and have the same team back,” Waller-Bridge said.
Inspired by Waller-Bridge’s one-woman stage show of the same name, “Fleabag” is set in London and centers on a self-destructive young woman (Waller-Bridge) who owns a guinea pig-themed café. Don’t let Fleabag’s job give you the wrong impression — she’s not twee. At all. “I always want to go darker, and I’m always being advised to stay on the lighter side,” Waller-Bridge has said of her writing.
As we previously observed, Fleabag might project an air of randy confidence, but she really uses sex for validation and self-medication. She makes innuendo-laden, off-putting jokes to anyone and everyone, hits on the falling-down drunk woman she thoughtfully puts into a cab, and breaks up with her boyfriend on a whim because she knows he’ll always clean the flat before moving out. She’s a mess — and she knows it. The first season sees her dealing with her mother’s death, her evil stepmother (Olivia Colman, “Broadchurch”), her perfectionist sister (Sian Clifford, “Midsomer Murders”), her emotionally unavailable dad (Bill Paterson, “Outlander”), and the possibly-accidental suicide of her best friend and business partner (Jenny Rainsford, “About Time”). The season finale of the BBC Three/ Amazon series proved that Fleabag isn’t a reliable narrator, particularly when it comes to her late BFF’s tragic death.
“I really wanted to hide a tragedy in a comedy and I really wanted to trick people,” Waller-Bridge has said. “I love the idea of disarming an audience through comedy and making them feel safe, and in turn making them vulnerable to twists and turns that they might not be expecting from a character. It was one of the most important things I was trying to maintain in the TV show.”
News of a second season doesn’t come as a total shock. Before the first season aired, Waller-Bridge hinted, “We cracked it open so that she would be able to have a life beyond it and also there are so many more stories and story strands and character strands to come out of this series.”
It seems like 2018 will be a huge year for Waller-Bridge. In addition to the second season of “Fleabag,” we can expect a new series from the multi-hyphenate: BBC America’s “Killing Eve.” Based on the “Villanelle” novella series by Luke Jennings, the show centers on Eve, a fiercely intelligent security services operative who dreams of leaving her desk job behind to be a spy, and Villanelle, an elegant and proficient murderer. Waller-Bridge will serve as showrunner on the series.
