When Hot Priest gets to this point in the wedding sermon, he looks at Fleabag, and we know--and they know--that he's talking about her, and about him ... and about God. Uhoh.

At first I took that as HP giving himself credit for choosing love of God over love of Fleabag. Then I heard something else. He's telling Fleabag that she is stronger than he is. She took the leap with no net.

I don't mean to say that HP's faith and (re-)commitment to God is a crutch. I believe him when he says that he's found immense peace in the relative strictures of the clergy. He intimates that before joining the priesthood, he struggled with addiction and excess. He wrestled with the same coping mechanisms and addictions that Fleabag did in the depths of her grief and guilt. Even now, he's an alcoholic ... but he's doing better.

So the priesthood isn't a crutch, but it is something that he has to lean on to stay buoyed above the churn. He needs that Someone in Charge to tell him what to like, what to think, what to wear, how to be. The institution of the church is that for him. Fleabag still wants that, as she tells HP in the confession booth ... but she's grown to a place where she does the work of healing and sustaining without self-sabotaging or self-medicating. She can even open herself up to love.

Interpreting "love isn't something that weak people do" this way makes it more rewarding for me to watch Fleabag walk away from the bus stop completely undiminished. She's sad, but she'll be okay. She seems to have gained the strength to be vulnerable, to offer and accept love ... and still be all of herself.

With HP, we could see how giving in to love was starting to unravel him. We can assume guilt plays a part, but that's not all of it. The day of the wedding, he was dazed and unmoored. When he told Fleabag that sleeping with her and falling in love would ruin his life, he was right. I think he really wanted to be with her, but then he'd have to step off the solid ground that keeps him in a healthier place. He's still struggling with alcoholism, but he's managing. The structure helps him. It's just sad that one of the rules that comes with that structure is that you can't find peace in God and love on Earth at the same time.

That's how I feel more empowered and happy for Fleabag in the end, and not so focused on resenting HP, lol. I'm weak.