That Old Feeling: Ab Fab Forever

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The biggest fad — and so enduring that it passes beyond obsession into religion — is dieting. It happens that Jennifer Saunders is a handsome woman with a figure that would be admirable at any time in history but the past half-century, since Audrey Hepburn vied with Marilyn Monroe for the thinking man's 50s pinup, and then Twiggy helped turn anorexia into a fashion statement. I suspect that, to morph into Eddy, the actress puts on a few pounds and some ill-fitting, wackily colored designer clothes before each season's taping. Wearing too-tight couture is the trick. In an scene where Eddy browses in a Christian Lacroix showroom, the shopgirl tells her, "We don't have that in your size." "I don't need my size," Eddy retorts, "I don't WEAR my size." For her, humiliation at exorbitant prices is a fashion statement of both exhibitionism and self-loathing.

In the cycle of self-abuse, constant eating chases the tail of constant dieting. In this week's opening episode, Eddy vows to lose it and and then some. "In three weeks I want to be on the cusp of organ failure... I want my bosy just to be, just to be a relief map of veins. O wanna be an X-ray with a pulse." She tries elaborate stretching exercises so that "I'll be able to kiss my own ass from both directions." But starvation is driving her bats; an inner voice is gurgling. Patsy tells her (and who better than a best friend?), "Eddie, y' know, your stomach's like a dog that doesn't know when it's gonna be fed next, so it just hangs around till you want to kick it." Toward the end she finds a temporary solution: admit that she's fat and "get a body double for life."

MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS

In "Modern Mother and Daughter," the skit that started it all, the "Ab Fab" theme is already underlined: the mother is the daughter (craving both sensation and attention) and the daughter is the mother. "Mother," begs French as the college-bound girl, "would you please stop swearing!" (And turn the music down, and take your birth-control pills.) It's the motif that drives "Ab Fab"; the adventures of Eddy and Pats are just the inspired chrome on the show's chassis. Edina pouts, wheedles and sneaks booze and drug when Saffy's not around. Saffy cooks for Eddy, tells her she's late for an appointment and nags nags nags. Parental responsibilities, and what she sees as a lack of her mother's love, have made Saff a dull girl in everything but what we might call mother wit.

In the Eddy's cramped and sodden heart, she feels unloved: a donkey to Patsy's race horse, bullied by her friends, censured by Saffy, outcareered by her rival Claudia Bing. And it's partly because she her parents ignored her misunderstood her dreams and fed her lard at meals. Alas, Mum is still around to remind Eddy of her failure as a daughter (both when she was a kid and now, when she's Saffy's charge) and to make airily snide remarks. After one of these, Eddy says to Saff, "Now you know why I have to take it out on you, darling." But she's planning her revenge. "Don't think you're so clever," she tells her mum. "I've started Repressed False Memory therapy — I'll get something on you yet!"

In the new season, we can spot vagrant mellowing in Edina and Saffy (or in Saunders). A Paris excursion warms feelings up for a moment — until Eddy betrays her daughter atop the Eiffel Tower — and there's an "awwww" moment, involving a kitten, at the end of the fifth episode, a wonderful show about an autobiographical play Saffy has written ("Self-Raising Flower"). Now that Saffy is in her mid-20s and Edina is approaching menopause, the two have become more like bickering sisters. (Saunders, 43, is actually closer in age to Sawalha, 33, than to Lumley, 55.)

In seasons to come — and we thrill to hear that Saunders is planning more "Ab Fab" — the relationships are likely to mature even if the characters are destined to remain as they are. With brilliant writing and ferociously precise acting, the show can't get much better. But even if it were to stay on this exalted level, it would be absolutely...well, you know.