You know how siblings are often jealous of each other, thinking the other one is obviously the parent's favorite/successful one, etc.? And when you discuss it, both of you go "but I thought YOU were the one who..." and ensues a long list of grievances from both your childhoods. Fleabag and Claire's relationship is like that, and their rivalry/fondness for eacher other has never been more apparent than in this episode.
Claire, by all accounts a very successful lawyer (a surprise announcement in a former episode, I'm not sure what we all thought she was beforehand but it was definitely not a lawyer), is throwing a fancy cocktail party to reward the "Best Business Woman of the Year". And yes, this is a generic as it gets. The whole subject & speech around the award delightfully reminded me of how Gilmore Girls skirted around what, exactly, Christopher was up to and always mentioned his "business" without ever specifying what he did, exactly. As suggested in a previous episode, she's asked Fleabag to cater the event (and waitress it because her staff is only serving drinks, not food) with little canapes from her cafe. We're not supposed to comment on it but Claire's office is indeed HUGE, and it shows how little we (and more to the point, her sister), know about her. The award itself, which Claire asks Fleabag to check on, needs to be something classy and not "pink and girly becaues she'll hate it" (at this point, I wondered if Claire was actually the recipient of the award in a self-congratulory coup, but no) almost immediately gets broken by Fleabag. And by broken, I mean shattered, no repair possible, destroyed.
Being intimately familiar with the rising sense of panic that comes with something going horribly wrong at work and even more specifically during an event that you're organizing, and the consequences you'll have to face if you don't find an immediate and satisfactory fix, my blood pressure was spiking as Fleabag scrambled to replace the award. I've spent sleepless nights wondering if I had or hadn't turned off the heater in a venue, realizing I hadn't sent a specific item so it would be ready on the show because I'd been too stressed out organzing the rest, having to run off to the stationery store beause we were out of a specific kind of label... you get the picture. I even thought she'd just scooped the broken parts of the award and put them back in the box, pretending it had broken on the way or something, but I should have expected Fleabag to come up with something better (and ruder. Seriously, who farts in an elevator for fun?!). Fleabag then proceeds to serve her petits fours as if nothing is amiss, and runs into none other than Kristin Scott Thomas, one of the Business Women of the Year nominees! Kristin will forever be a favorite of mine thanks to the English Patient, and I wish she were in more stuff (or more stuff I watch anyway).
"Are these meaty?" sounds like a trap and it is. Either they are and it's a vegetarian asking so you're screwed, either they aren't and you're faced with a carnivore who won't eat "rabbit food" as Uncle Vernon would say, and you're just as screwed. Fleabag pirouettes out of it by mentioning courgette (who doesn't love a good courgette dish), which works. I'll have to inform my mom that you can "treat courgette apallingly and they still grow" because hers don't seem to have gotten the memo. Neither has my ficus, but that's another debate. Aaaand now I'm hungry, damn it!
It's time for Claire to give out the award, and you'll probably have guessed it before I did (or didn't as a matter of fact): it's the infamous nude statue Fleabag stole from Godmother all those months ago, gifted through Martin to Claire, put back in the house... It's lived quite a bit for a statue, really. Claire is not having it though, and Fleabag has to run after Belinda (yes, Courgette lady won the award, becaue when Kristin Scott Thomas guest stars, she wins all the awards OK?) to retrieve the statue and apologize. Fleabag, who has been reading The Priest's highlighted Bible (I know, I was shocked too. But when your crush sends you a song you listen to it even if you're not particularly fond of raggaeton, you know?), and is a mess, gets her flirt on with Belinda but to no avail. Belinda is right about meeting people and walking into a room full of possibilities though, and we should all follow her advice.
"Grab the night by the nipples!"
(Or something slightly more appropriate)
Fleabag ends up at The Priest's place and he's living it up by really enjoying going to bed at 9:30. Two things you should know about him:
1. He's convinced he and Fleabag won't have sex (sir, please)
2. He has a very strange rapport with foxes.
And that's it for this week! This episode was lighter on the laughs/quotes but I'm always in for more Fleabag/Claire time.
Have you ever ruined one of your sibling's big moments? Do you think Claire will end up sleeping with...the other Claire (sp?)?
