Killing Eve follows emotional payoff with some very out-of-character choices
Eve and Villanelle's relationship gets some real forward momentum before a messy conclusion to the episode.
TV Reviews killing eve
So far, this season of Killing Eve hasn’t seemed to suffer from an overwhelming sense that the show is ending. There hasn’t been too much of a rush to get through all the plot necessary to leave these characters in a place that feels like the end of the story for them. And for the first half of “Oh Goodie, I’m the Winner,” not only does that calm pace continue, but there’s real forward momentum on the central relationship on this show. And then things fall apart in a collection of out-of-character choices.
First, the good: essentially, the entire fallout from Villanelle getting shot by an arrow. Eve and Villanelle have occasionally been wary allies, but seeing Eve actually treat Villanelle with tenderness was one of the more emotionally satisfying payoffs this show has ever done. This has a lot to do with Jodie Comer’s performance in the scene, and how much of the action we see from her perspective. The show has laid a ton of groundwork for the concept that all she wants is to be treated with love by Eve, and the fact that she finally gets that after she’s given up on Eve altogether plays out in a mix of frustration and agonized joy when it finally happens. The moment where they’re sitting on the bed and staring at each other was one of the most charged scenes the show has done, packed with more actual sexual tension and yearning than any of the over-the-top flirtations Eve has been doing with Hélène all season. It’s the show at its best, expressing in a fraught gaze the slow build up of four seasons of push and pull between these women, as well as Villanelle’s yearning to see her love for Eve reciprocated in some real way. But of course it comes too late, after Eve has rejected her too many times and betrayed her by getting her arrested. On the one hand, Villanelle is a monstrous person for whom it’s tricky to experience too much sympathy, but on the other, Eve has spent some untold amount of time now getting closer to her and then pushing her away again, so it makes sense that Villanelle would be tired of the whole thing.
But because Villanelle’s true nature is both what attracts Eve and repels her, it’s important that Eve be reminded of exactly who she’s been getting close to. The scene with Hélène is rushed—Villanelle has been torturing herself over Hélène’s responsibility for her violent life all season, and their eventual confrontation is frustratingly brief. There’s no attempt to dissect Hélène’s outsize influence on her life before killing her. But the ugliness of the death plays out directly in front of Eve, who may hate Hélène, but wasn’t quite ready to watch her throat get cut. Villanelle looks somewhat exhausted by the whole thing as well, aware as she is that Eve is going to dither again after watching her in action. The last second reveal that Eve has kissed Hélène doesn’t help, either.
It’s after this that the episode goes off the rails, with Eve tracking Carolyn down, confronting her, denying that anything she’s doing is about Kenny, then abruptly reappearing to kill Lars for reasons that don’t really track. It’s a twist, but not one with any meaningful emotional impact. Why would Eve pick Lars as the first person she kills in cold blood? Is this solely about revenge on Carolyn, stopping her from getting what she wants? Eve was supposed to be trying to take down The 12, and she must know that killing Lars doesn’t help her do that at all. Plus, unlike either Lars or Carolyn, she knows Hélène is dead, leaving Lars her only actual lead in this gigantic mess. What has she been working on all season if not getting past Lars to someone else? Also, and this may be petty, but Carolyn awkwardly hugging a tree after nearly getting caught talking to Eve plays less as comedy than as deeply out of character. The woman has been working in the spy business for her entire adult life. It’s a cheap gag that makes her look foolish, and not like the profoundly competent intelligence agent we know her to be. Nor does it make sense for Lars, a suspicious, secretive man who knows her well, to accept it at face value.
That all of this transpires after the careful emotional work of the first half of the episode makes for a very uneven hour of television. The show is now spiraling into its final two episodes with no recognizable villains, besides three women who kind of hate each other for various and sundry reasons. But maybe they can take down The 12 on their way to working out their issues with each other.
Stray observations
- I’m not on the inside, so I can’t say for sure, but to me there’s no more obvious sign of the rotating showrunners for each new season of this show than the initial decision to give Carolyn’s son the sweet, innocent name of Kenny, and then the decision to kill him off in a subsequent season in a mysterious way. The whole thing has saddled the characters with saying the phrase “who killed Kenny” over and over again, which sounds absurd each time it comes up, to the point that I find it massively distracting, and I can’t imagine that anyone would have picked that name from the start if they’d known the outcome for that character.
- I appreciated that Bill’s death came up again in this episode, but I really wish the show had made more of a habit of it all along. He was the first really heartbreaking death, and the show has underplayed how much it affected Eve to its detriment.
- I find Konstantin’s characterization the most consistent on the show, and his speech to Pam about how he knows he’s going to be a target someday, and so will she, felt really true to his cheerfully nihilistic take on this whole world. He knows what’s coming to him, but there’s no turning back now, so why agonize over it?
- This show is hardly a model of realism, but it was extra annoying to see Villanelle rowing a boat, then getting in a fistfight after getting shot with an arrow. That would have absolutely torn up those muscles even if it missed everything vital. Eve gives her a motorized scooter earlier in the episode with good reason!
- That said, I did enjoy the comical noises the scooter made. It was a good use of audio to undercut their squabbling.
- Might be Team Konstantin here regarding how rude it was to shoot him. The hand does seem like “an extremely painful place” to get shot.
34 Comments
So Eve and Villanelle’s dance of wanting the other more when they are not wanted continues & seems to be getting as annoying to them as it is to us. I am glad that Eve is being supportive of Villanelle anyway (did she throw her a knife to kill Helene with?)I am not sure it made sense for Eve to walk in and shoot that The 12 guy but I was glad she did, he was getting tedious & didn’t seem like he was going to give Carolyn a name despite her saying she depended on his “honour” in keeping his promise (seriously?) So who did Helene order Konstantin to order Pam to kill? Eve?
It is nice when your unrequited crush supportively throws you a knife to murder someone with.
Fernanda.
So Pam murdered Fernanda, Helene’s ex, who I guess was a loose end. Helene really was awful
The way Killing Eve is acting as though the events at the end of Season 3 has had zero import on Season 4 as Eve and Villanelle’s relationship is almost as bad when they were trying to mutually murder each other is just bad writing.
You can withhold information from the audience as long as you want, but the longer the wait to reveal it to them, the less impact it will have. As the episodes dribble out it seems as though head writer Laura Neal is saving for a finale exposition dump—-or possibly not at all.
The disrespect the show has demonstrated for its audience goes far beyond the unrequited love affair between its two leads.
A lot of the next episode—no spoilers—almost makes up for all the missteps.
Hard disagree, the next ep is the same slow motion forward momentum on the plot. Not sure how they’re going to wrap it all up with only one more episode to go.
There are some scenes in the episode that finally clued me in to what this whole series has been about. More on that next week.
Seen it and yes, there is a moment that quite literally had me replicate the Rick Dalton pointing finger scene in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. I was that gobsmacked by it.
That said, I did enjoy the comical noises the scooter made. It was a good use of audio to undercut their squabbling.You left out the comical noise that Hélène made while Villanelle was under the bed.I wasn’t sure I heard what I heard until they showed Villanelle cracking up.
Shout out to Villanelle’s cleverness and good sense in waiting under the bed to slice Helene’s achilles tendons before attacking her. Villanelle was wounded and going up against a competent adversary. I am, however, disappointed that it had nothing to do with a tiny chair.
waiting under the bed to slice Helene’s achilles tendons That scene made me wince as much as any scene anywhere for a long while.Just the thought of it. I’m wincing right now. [*SHUDDER*]
I’m surprised they didn’t show her stumbling around trying to walk without them more.
I thought Villanelle was the one who tooted, but it does make more sense that it was Helene. Hee hee.
I watched with closed caption and it said “fart”
Yeah, I backed up and checked, wondering how they’d handle it.I’m glad she had her little moment , before dying horribly.
Yeah, until Villanelle’s reaction I wasn’t quite sure I heard what I heard.Frankly, the sound effect was too slight – “Woman letting it rip after a long day of holding it in” is far more epic.
I thought Villanelle got shot a lot higher.
Otherwise I don’t see how Eve didn’t kill her while she was rolling her around.
Season 3 wasn’t that bad until they rushed the ending. Looks like this season will be the same. It’s like they’ve been writing a 12-parter only to be told after completing 6 episodes that it’s actually an 8-parter.
This show is not perfect, obviously. But Fiona Shaw as Carolyn does make up for a lot. In this episode she conveyed regret, contempt, annoyance, fear, rage, and determination. But hardly any of it registered visibly on the surface. That is quite a performance.
is this still worth watching? i really enjoyed the first two seasons but i dropped out during the third. should i pick it up again?
NO!
i appreciate your strong feelings, thanks!
Well, it ends within a few weeks, so…
It’s only 2 8ep seasons. May as well finish it. Season 4 seems (seemed) more coherent than 3.
Tough to answer. I can’t in good conscience say yes, when I myself have been frustrated with the material this year. But I find it wrong to turn you away because it’s entirely possible this season may work for you. All I can say is that the show is closer to S3 than it is to 1 or 2.
If you ignored the third season you might be fine as the fourth season largely has too. At the very least you won’t be confused as those of us who did and can’t figure out what the hell is going on now.
At this point watching this season feels like a chore. Villanelle is the only character in this show that I still enjoy watching. I really don’t care what’s going to happen to Eve or Carolyn or Konstantin or the 12 or Pam, the most unnecessary character of the season. I’m really happy I won’t have to watch Helene anymore though, she was such a boring villain.
I like Eve and Carolyn more than Villanelle, but I like watching all of them. I am glad that Helene is dead because her on screen took focus from them In herself I like Pam but it is hard to care that much about her when the show is winding down & we are just getting to know her
Getting attached to new characters at the end of shows is really tricky to pull off, and even though I’m indifferent to Pam, I do find her scenes to be among the more interesting ones each week.
That, and Pam has all the personality of soggy Cheerios. I hope she gets taken out and put out of my misery.
I don’t understand why Carolyn is carrying on as if The 12 killed Kenny. Season three’s finale resolved that mystery by explaining it was an accident. Retconning it feels irrelevant.We should’ve had a whole flashback episode showing what happened between seasons. It feels like Eve & Villanelle officially became a couple, which most viewers would’ve liked to see play out. Without seeing the highs & lows of that requited relationship, I can’t get an emotional bearing on them in the exes phase. Or maybe they didn’t get together at all, making the innuendo more queerbaity.
It’s impossible to believe Konstantin wasn’t lying his ass off about his role in Kenny’s “accident,” but I agree using his death as fuel for Carolyn’s defection to the Russians and pursuit of The Twelve seems kind of flimsy as a motivation.
Completely concur on the flashback episode. A couple lines of dialogue between Eve and Villanelle at any point during the season could have cleared matters up considerably, but since they never have normal conversations, it didn’t happen.
It’s very considerate that none of The 12 hired security when they knew they were being picked off.
Oh, my fave ep of the season. Ep 7 was also really good (however..as second to last episodes…hmm).
“Tree, tree, tree” (A+)
Honestly, idk, I’m annoyed that it’s almost over and the show potential has been wasted by so many people, but at the same time, every now and then they still make me laugh and say “oh, that was fun”.
I think it’s the actors. No matter how many misteps these writers have done (so many..I mean, Jesus, how did they do that!?), the actors remain unbothered and just do their job really damn well.