Villanelle is back to work and has a new assignment, and a new uniform. Photosource: BBC America
Despite the clowns you might have seen in the promo, the latest episode of Killing Eve is anything but a fun time.
For one thing, the episode kicks off with Kenny’s funeral reception and it’s just as bleak and tragic as you can imagine. We cut in on Eve with an almost empty red wine glass struggling to light a wet cigarette outside the bar until a man cuts in and suggests she switches to electric already. Ignoring him, she ventures back into the crowded bar where we see familiar faces like Konstantin and Carolyn shuffling through the party and ordering drinks like it’s a dinner party, and some new unfamiliar faces we’ve never seen, including a full-fledged sister named Geraldine who has apparently come into town to support her supposedly grieving mother.
Now if you thought Eve was in shambles after Villanelle shot her in Rome, Nico checked into a mental health facility, and she quit her job at MI6 to work in a kitchen, then they have managed to check her into a new level of unraveled. As Carolyn tries to talk to Eve during the reception she loses it. Everyone else thinks that Kenny jumped off that roof on purpose and killed himself, but Eve knows better and she’s unwilling to pretend any different. A noble sentiment that ultimately manifested in Eve repeatedly screaming “No” at Carolyn, loud enough for the entire crowd at the reception to hear, before making what can only be called a sloppy exit.
This season is really not looking good for Eve. Even if the show’s title refers to her murder this series of personal tragedies and embarrassments is somehow more painful to watch.
Meanwhile, Villanelle is out here living her best life in Barcelona. Now that she’s aspiring to the Keeper-assassin level, The Twelve gave her a beautiful, and I mean truly beautiful, historically grand mansion to live in. Sadly, not all the perks are this great. As Dasha explains, she will now have to start training other assassins. Her first charge is a wiry nineteen-year-old named Felix, who killed a truckload of people for bullying his boyfriend who ultimately rejected him, and while Villanelle can relate to his problems she’s still not eager to have to babysit him.
Enter the clown costumes. Their kill will be a parent at a child’s birthday party, hence the get-ups. She instructs Felix on how to make a clean discreet kill per her signature style. However, what she finds is him wrestling the target amidst a bloodied carpet. Villanelle immediately rectified the situation by shooting the targeting cleanly and quickly and then shooting Felix. As the title of this episode relates, management truly sucks and if training other assassins is how Villanelle is supposed to reach the Keeper-level this will be a long road for her, or more likely she’ll find some interesting way to take a shortcut which, knowing Villanelle, will probably be equal parts genius and horrific. I personally can’t wait to see it.
And whether they’re ready for it or not it seems like Villanelle and Eve are back on a crash course to meet each other.
Eve has Kenny’s phone. A phone that apparently has highly sensitive information on it. Kenny’s boss at Bitter Pill, Paul, the man from the funeral, calls Eve to get her to turn in the phone and let them look into it. They think that whatever Kenny was working on was somehow related to his death. Eve is hesitant to turn it over to them, but when they promise to trade her his work thumb drive she finally relents. Things sour once Paul and his coworker Bear reveal that the police actually have the thumb drive. Annoyed, Eve turns to the only other person who can use Kenny’s phone to track the killer, Carolyn.
After being told she would need to take a break from her work to process her grief, Carolyn has to be discreet in investigating Kenny’s murder, and she does know it was murder even if she won’t publicly admit it. Eve’s back in the game and ready to investigate this with Carolyn as we always knew she would be.
Overall, the only interesting thing that happened this episode was Villanelle and Eve finding out that the other person is still alive. Which of course was going to happen eventually, so while we can be thankful they didn’t drag it out longer than they had to, it wasn’t hugely entertaining. The whole episode was well scripted and acted as usual but it only really served to set the stage for our hopefully more interesting plots to come.
