12 Shows Like Fleabag to Watch if You Miss Fleabag

Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag is an easy show to miss. It seemed like everyone was talking about it when Season 2 took the world by storm in 2019, introducing us to Andrew Scott's Hot Priest and going on to win a bunch of Emmys. It's the kind of bite-sized show that you can easily rewatch any time you're prepared to feel emotionally devastated all over again.

But Fleabag is a tough act to follow, and there's nothing else that will give you exactly the same feeling. But there are plenty of shows that come close. From another of Waller-Bridge's television ventures to dark comedies with complicated protagonists to more shows featuring unique romances, here's our list of the best shows to watch after Fleabag.

Fleabag Watch on Prime Video

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This Is Going to Hurt

Ben Whishaw trades in his red hat and duffel coat for a pair of scrubs in this seven-part medical dramedy based on Adam Kay's memoir about an overworked OB-GYN at a British NHS hospital. Whishaw has never given a bad performance, but he's especially impressive in this, expertly playing a man with a high-pressure job who's teetering on the edge because of it, inviting the audience in on his inner musings via Fleabag-style fourth-wall breaks. The direct-to-camera addresses are the thing that make it feel most like Fleabag, but the prickly mix of witty comedy and devastating drama are familiar, too.

Crashing

This one's a gimme, but the most obvious thing to do if you're looking for more of Waller-Bridge's singular voice is check out Crashing. Predating Fleabag, the six-episode series centers around the relationships and romantic entanglements of a group of twenty-somethings living together in an abandoned hospital. In addition to creating the series and writing every episode, Waller-Bridge also plays Lulu, the flighty childhood friend of another resident who disrupts everything with her arrival, and Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey co-starring as the sex-obsessed Sam, who begins to explore the complexities of his sexuality as the episodes progress. It's definitely less polished than Waller-Bridge's later work, but it's a fun, easy watch where you can clearly see glimmers of what would make Fleabag so special.

Frayed

Frayed has a lot in common with Fleabag: It's a spiky British dramedy about a messy-ish woman played by a comedian, and it's also very underrated (which, true heads will remember, Fleabag was before its second season turned it into a hit). Set in the late '80s, the series stars (and was created by) Sarah Kendall as a woman who is forced to relocate herself and her two children from London to her hometown of Newcastle in Australia after the death of her husband leaves the family broke. She moves back in with her alcoholic mother and is forced to contend with things from her past she hasn't dealt with in years — starting with the fact that she's been faking her British accent. It's as funny as it is dramatic, with lovably complex characters and sharp writing that will make you wish it was longer than two seasons.

You're the Worst

Stephen Falk's FX series follows the triumphantly messy evolution of the relationship between Gretchen (Aya Cash) and Jimmy (Chris Geere), two generally unhappy, distrustful people who find themselves falling in love despite their reservations, emotional constipation, and separate personal demons. There are so many great things about You're the Worst: It's exceptionally funny, it takes on the realities of clinical depression thoughtfully, and its supporting characters, Kether Donohue's Lindsay and Desmin Borges' Edgar, are written with just as much care as Gretchen and Jimmy, but the thing most likely to hook any Fleabag fan is Gretchen herself. Gretchen is bitingly sarcastic, makes some infuriatingly bad decisions, and attracts trouble like it's her job, but Cash's empathetic performance is reminiscent of Waller-Bridge's in Fleabag. Even in her lowest moments, it's hard not to root for her. Her recklessness is part of what makes her lovable, and her arc over the course of the show's five seasons is stunningly human. There's probably an alternate version of this universe where You're the Worst and Fleabag did a crossover episode that saw Fleabag and Gretchen realizing they were long lost cousins and subsequently causing a lot of problems together.

Catastrophe

The love story between Fleabag and Andrew Scott's Hot Priest(™) will go down in TV history as one of the most affecting and memorable of all time, and if it's more of that you're looking for, Catastrophe should be your next watch. Co-creators and co-writers Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan star, respectively, as the affable Rob and the sardonic, disillusioned Sharon, two single people who find themselves falling into a relationship after a short fling leaves Sharon pregnant. Reminiscent of Fleabag's second season, which found Fleabag and the priest tentatively exploring their remarkable connection, Catastrophe is the kind of show that celebrates the joys and frustrations of unexpected romance. Catastrophe tells us that love isn't easy, but it's worth having if you can find it. If all that wasn't enough, the late, great Carrie Fisher is the show's answer to Olivia Colman's godmother character, making recurring appearances as Rob's eccentric, judgmental mother.

I May Destroy You

If much of Fleabag is about the rocky path that comes along with healing after trauma, I May Destroy You took that concept and ran away with it. Michaela Coel's dark and deeply personal masterpiece mines from her real life experience to tell a story about the aftermath of sexual assault. Similar to Fleabag, Coel's protagonist Arabella is strong-willed but totally lost in the world. Over the course of the show, she experiences the full, difficult spectrum of emotions and reactions as she flails to stay afloat while struggling to piece the night of her rape back together. In some moments, she presents herself as hardened and wise; in others, she completely breaks down. After just one episode of I May Destroy You, it becomes immediately clear that Waller-Bridge and Coel are kindred creative minds. They both flourish in the cerebral, and they share a talent for writing (as well as portraying) difficult women, and presenting them to the audience, warts and all.

Chewing Gum

Before I May Destroy You, Michaela Coel created, wrote, and starred in the obscenely funny Chewing Gum, in which she played Tracey, a sheltered young shop assistant who decides she wants to break away from her devoutly religious upbringing, have sex, and see the world. The show has a madcap comedic energy that will remind you of those early episodes of Fleabag, and Coel regularly breaks the fourth wall the way Waller-Bridge does. Plus, it's just so much fun to watch Tracey get herself caught up in increasingly absurd situations, faking confidence as she tries to navigate something resembling a sex life with her crush, Connor (Robert Lonsdale), and trying (unsuccessfully) to channel Beyoncé with her every move. 

I Hate Suzie

Billie Piper pulls double duty as co-creator and star of I Hate Suzie, a brutally funny series that follows the unravelling of Piper's Suzie Pickles, an actress whose personal and professional lives spiral out of control after her phone is hacked and compromising photos are leaked for the world to gaze upon. The show is reminiscent of Fleabag in how it doesn't shy away from its protagonist's darker qualities, or from the desperation she often feels as she struggles to gain back some semblance of normalcy while dealing with such an astounding invasion of privacy. It's not always an easy watch, though I'm willing to bet that if you like Fleabag, you're not someone who shies away from the cringeworthy.

High Fidelity

Not many shows can pull off breaking the fourth wall as expertly as Fleabag managed to, but High Fidelity is one of them. A televised adaptation of the 2000 film of the same name, Zoë Kravitz steps into the role of disaffected record store owner Rob, previously played by John Cusack, and it's not long into the first episode before she's looking right into the camera to tell us about her top five greatest heartbreaks of all time. She slowly begins to spin out as the show progresses, her carefully constructed walls beginning to crack, and in the spirit of Fleabag, she invites the audience in to share in her pain (and, sometimes, the comedy born out of her pain) by addressing us directly.

Mrs. Fletcher

If you finished Fleabag and thought, "That is good, but I'd like even more sex," look no further than Mrs. Fletcher. Based on the Tom Perrotta novel of the same name, it stars Kathryn Hahn as the titular Mrs. Fletcher, a divorced woman who tries to get her groove back, so to speak, when her son goes off to college. Part of what made Fleabag so alluring to so many people was the way it portrayed desire in all of its many forms: desire for love, desire for self-actualization, desire for a good relationship with your sister, and that's ultimately what Mrs. Fletcher is all about. It's about the ways humans want things, and how that want can come to change the course of your entire life.

Atlanta

Donald Glover once said that, after spending an entire night bingeing Fleabag, he walked into work on his FX series Atlanta the next day and instructed his entire writing staff to do the same. It makes sense: Atlanta is just as original as Fleabag, if not weirder and more experimental, and these two shows share all kinds of DNA. On Atlanta, Glover stars as Earn, an aimless, cynical college dropout turned music manager working overtime to get his cousin's (Brian Tyree Henry) rap career off the ground. Earn hustles constantly, and often fruitlessly, rising up briefly only to be kicked right back down to where he started. Like Fleabag, Atlanta is about trying to find a place for yourself in a cruel, unforgiving world; unlike Fleabag, there's an episode set at a Juneteenth party.

Russian Doll

Does anything sound worse than being stuck in a time loop, forced to relive the same day forever? The answer is no. That very Groundhog Day effect is the premise of Russian Doll, which was co-created by and stars Natasha Lyonne as Nadia, a New Yorker doomed to repeat the day of her 36th birthday party over and over, dying at the end of the night only to wake up the next morning, completely unharmed. In Season 2, she finds a wormhole that allows her to travel back in time and inhabit the body of her mother. Lyonne and Waller-Bridge's anti-heroines share an acerbic wit, and although the worlds they're in are very different, Fleabag fans will instantly see hints of Fleabag in Nadia as she struggles to figure out why the universe literally seems to be against her.