Fleabag — confession and the language of longing

What the work does

Phoebe Waller-Bridge wrote and starred in the first series of Fleabag in 2016 and the second in 2019, both for the BBC and Amazon Prime Video. The second series introduces a Catholic priest (Andrew Scott, listed in the credits only as “The Priest”) who is to officiate the wedding of the protagonist’s father and stepmother. Over six episodes, the priest and the protagonist develop a relationship — partly antagonistic, partly mutual recognition — that includes formal confession in a confessional, an extended scene at the priest’s flat, and a closing scene at a bus stop in which the priest names what he cannot do and the protagonist agrees that what is happening cannot continue.

This entry documents two biblical resonances in the second series: the formal confession scene, and the longing register both characters operate within.

The dialogue is under copyright. This entry describes the scenes’ biblical resonances without reproducing the dialogue beyond identifying phrases of a few words.

The confession scene

The fourth episode of series 2 contains an extended confession scene. The priest sits inside the confessional booth; the protagonist kneels on the other side of the screen. The scene runs in the form of the Catholic sacrament. The priest does not parody the form; the protagonist does not parody it either.

The biblical material that underlies the Catholic sacrament of confession is, in Catholic and Eastern theology, found in three principal places:

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.” (James 5:16, BSB)

This is the text most commonly cited as the explicit “confess your sins to each other” warrant.

The other two are the binding-and-loosing texts:

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19, BSB)

“If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.” (John 20:23, BSB)

The Catholic and Eastern traditions read these passages as authorising the apostolic and episcopal succession to absolve sins; the Reformation traditions read them differently, generally placing the authority less narrowly within the institutional church.

The Fleabag confession scene is set within the Catholic sacrament’s frame. The priest holds the role the form gives him; the protagonist takes the position the form gives her. The naming of what one has done is the substance of the scene. The scene’s emotional force derives from the formality of the form, not from its dissolution.

The longing register

The priest’s subsequent scenes — particularly the scene at his flat after a confessor’s drinking, and the closing scene at the bus stop — operate in a register of longing that has a recognisable parallel in the psalms.

Two psalms in particular work in this register:

Psalm 42 opens with the deer-and-water image:

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, the living God. When shall I come and appear in His presence?” (Psalm 42:1-2, BSB)

The Hebrew verb for pants in 42:1 is ʿārag (עָרַג) — to long for, yearn for, pant after. The verb appears in only one other place in the Hebrew Bible (Joel 1:20), making it a relatively distinctive word in the psalm’s vocabulary. The image — animal at the empty streambed, body’s need redirected upward — sets the register.

Psalm 63 opens with a parallel:

“O God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land without water.” (Psalm 63:1, BSB)

The Hebrew verb for thirsts is tsame (צָמֵא). HALOT s.v. tsame: “to be thirsty, to thirst for.” The image is bodily — the felt absence of what the body needs. The psalm continues with the imagery of seeking in the night, of meditation through watches, of the protection of the wings of God.

These psalms are unusual in the biblical canon in their explicit use of bodily-erotic language for the longing for God. The longer biblical tradition runs through the Song of Songs, where erotic language is sustained throughout, and through the prophetic tradition where Israel’s relation to God is figured as marriage (Hos 1-3; Jer 2-3; Ezek 16, 23). The pattern is reciprocal: erotic language is used for the divine longing, and divine language is used for the human longing. The two registers are not separable in scripture.

The Fleabag scenes are not citing the psalms. They operate, however, in a register that biblical Hebrew has well-developed vocabulary for. The priest and the protagonist’s longing — for what they cannot have within the form they each occupy — has a structural parallel in the psalmist’s longing for the presence of God within a dry land.

The series does not adjudicate the priest’s vocation. The closing exchange at the bus stop refuses to resolve the situation; the priest names what he cannot do, the protagonist accepts the refusal, and the camera holds on her face. The series ends.

What this entry does not argue

This entry does not argue that Fleabag is a religious work. It does not argue that the parallel to the psalms is intentional on Waller-Bridge’s part. The longing register is widely available in Western narrative; it has a long biblical tradition; the parallel is structural rather than allusive.

For the wider treatment of grace within the meanings collection, see Grace — meaning. For the related vocabulary of soul and longing, see Nephesh — soul.

To read the relevant psalms in other translations:

• Psalm 42 — NIV →
• Psalm 63 — NIV →
• James 5:13-20 — NIV →