Impossible not to commend Phoebe Waller-Bridge on her excellent decision to allow FOXES into Season 2 of Fleabag.
Of course now she has also given us the bloody face of loving properly and not being chosen back. And she is much less of an asshole now. But this has all been written about extensively and very well since the beginning of time and in the New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2019/04/fleabag-final-episode-series-phoebe-waller-bridge-priest-comedy.
“The priest, being an extreme version of all the unattainable blokes she has ever adored: those ratbags (and even non-ratbags) who loved someone, or something, far more than her.”
So I don’t need to tell you about that.
But FOXES. The critics have not given her sublime casting skills their full due. If I had any power whatsoever, I’d give the fox in the final scene at least Best Supporting Actor. Or Best Animal oscar. Best Daemon. Best Tragi-Comic Timing on Behalf of a Spirit Animal.
Of course not everyone has such a soft spot for foxes, the priest particularly and that is fine. Often people say they don’t like them because they have fleas or are too scroungy and scruffy and all raggedy. And they are clever tricksters; and sly and cunning. And so people say, I don’t like them, because of course I am not like that at all.
And these are true things to say. And useful therefore, because you don’t have to say actually I’m very scared of foxes. You don’t have to say what if they have a life-threatening animal disease. That I might catch. And then start frothing at the mouth and become terribly afraid of water. And then just die in the worst way. Or explode. And you don’t have to honestly say, in fact I’m pretty scared of all untame animals, and actually also dogs and cats and mice. And many other animals, both big and small. And in fact I’m pretty much afraid of everything. Like the priest.
When I lived in London Bridge, I made friends with a fox. We were especially friends on a Tuesday. That was the night I always had to work until very late. For reasons probably best explained by a psychologist in a cameo role (paid in birthday vouchers) I was the one who agreed to wait until we had sent the last pages of the magazine I worked on to JJs: the Repro house. (Repro houses are now redundant like cassette tapes).
And then JJs would do what they had to do and fax (I know) me back what the page would look like when it was printed IRL. And then a man called Duncan would phone me and say is everything alright love, and I would say yes and I would lock up the office and walk home. Down from Islington through the City to London Bridge in the middle of the night.
Sometimes I would find my fox at Moorgate. I would say hi and he would say hi back in fox body language. Sometimes he would wink at me and I would wink back. Sometimes he would be in the streets around Old Street, and the bars near Hoxton. And I might say, you shouldn’t be here, and he say right back at ya, sister.
Usually though he would be in the alleys near the river. And I would say, this is not a place you belong either, and he would look back and say with his foxy eyes, neither do you, either. At all. And sometimes I would have slightly longer conversations with the fox. Like I can see that you also did not finish reading that self-help book they all recommend called From Surviving to Thriving. I bet you never even got passed the first few chapters. Or I would see the fox, in the shadows, being the underbelly, scrummaging through the rubbish looking for something sustaining. And I would say: that is not a good way to live. And then I would go into the 24 hour cake shop at Guys’ Hospital and only eat a little bit of cake and leave the rest in the bin for him.
And so, like the clever fox she is, this is what Waller-Bridge gives us too. She shifts through all the shit belonging to other people, chipping away at the bits they think they have hidden in the bin. She finds the rotten bits, and that is what makes everyone nervous and run away; but she also finds the small bits of beautiful cake that haven’t been spoiled. So thank-you, not just for the foxes; but for all of it: fear and grief and badass mirth and especially for when at a dinner party when we are brought down with a snarky comment that is like knife to the knee, now we can find companionship.