grief displaced into comedy

Fleabag (BBC, 2016-2019)

Fleabag does not break the fourth wall for laughs. She breaks it because the audience is the only relationship she has constructed to be safe: we cannot leave, we cannot be disappointed by her in the way people are disappointed, and we cannot know her well enough to see the thing she is most afraid of being seen. The direct address is not a comedic device. It is the architecture of avoidance.