Villanelle in her professional attire. Photosource: BBC America
So here we are, the second to the last episode of the season for Killing Eve and where are we exactly? Well, from this last episode it looks like we’re nowhere near where we want to be.
The episode starts off with Villanelle waiting for a meeting with Helene in what looks like a cross between a manor house and an armory. When she’s finally let in she finds Helene is not alone but in the company of a new assassin known as Rhian. After openly telling her how she’d like to use these weapons to kill her, Villanelle tells Helene she is ready for another job. Only Helene knows something has changed and doesn’t feel like she is quite up to snuff, she grabs Villanelle and launches into a monologue about how she loves Villanelle because she is “a beautiful monster” while pulling her into what can only be described as the most awkward hug possible.
They agree that she will take care of Dasha, but Helene warns Villanelle that success is paramount. Now we know that if she’s going to get out, Villanelle has to make sure things look normal before she moves, so convincing Helene to give her a new job was either her being smart or because she wanted to take out her old mentor anyways. Either way, after last week’s debacle with the Romanian politician, can she even do it?
Cut to the other side of the fray, Carolyn has put Mo onto watching Paul and finding a link between him and The Twelve, although for all his watching Mo has only seen him doing “normal white people things”. Eve shows up just as Carolyn dismisses Mo and while they have a charming back and forth about an omelet, Carolyn makes it clear she’s focused on Kenny’s killer and not Eve’s ongoing obsession with Villanelle. As she sums up, “heroes only get the girl in Hollywood”. But is Eve even the hero anymore?
Sadly, heroes and innocents are sorely lacking in this world. Case in point, Irina. She was a charmingly reckless little figure who despite being basically powerless could always rile up both Villanelle and Konstantin. Alas, it was only a matter of time before she followed in the footsteps of these killers when she ran over her mother’s boyfriend with a car. This week we see her in what looks like Russian juvenile being assessed by a psychologist and it is not looking good for her. To be fair she probably shouldn’t have told him that her only regret was not backing up over her stepfather’s body, but even so, the psychologist refuses to release despite Konstantin’s offer of a bribe and his pleading for them to make the holiday they have booked.
Now Irina knew what he had planned. She knew he had to get away from The Twelve and he was going to take her and Villanelle and run away to Cuba very soon. She just couldn’t resist killing her annoying stepfather, although he really seemed like a nice guy to us, and just like a child does she does not understand the consequences of what she’s done. Konstantin tries to tell her that he can’t take her with him, which again he can’t physically do, and when she realizes he’s serious she is enraged at the abandonment. He says he will be back for her in two days but she doesn’t want to hear it. Really, the whole plot echoes Villanelle’s origin story from when her mother left her at an orphanage for a month, with The Twelve eventually finding her and recruiting her. Looks like Irina’s headed that way too.
Speaking of unstable people, Bear comes across Eve digging in the trash. At first, he thinks the stress finally got to her, which is not disproved when she tells him she’s looking for the birthday cake she threw out a while ago. Then she explains she wants to find out what bakery it came from and track Villanelle through the credit card information. This plan is set on the back burner for half a second as they walk into the Bitter Pill office only to find out it was raided by the police and Jamie has basically given up, which is a strange plot to bring up as it literally did not affect anything this episode. After some encouragement from Eve, Bear breaks some privacy laws and finds that the same credit card was just used in Aberdeen, Scotland at a golf course.
Villanelle has invited Dasha along for her latest kill before Dasha retires, not realizing that she is the actual target. But even before they can get out on the course, the only outdoing their stunning tartan ensembles are their petty bickering. Villanelle’s bragging about her promotion while Dasha sees herself as the winner for finally being able to go back to Russia and the son she’s never revealed that she has. On the course, and in a new feathered green outfit that is a killer in itself, Villanelle pushes Dasha to make one final kill, a loud ill-mannered American at the hole in front of them. Never the patient one, Villanelle insists she can’t stand him and takes over the job. By faking a damsel in distress scene she lures him into the woods to help find her ball, raises her club, and then hits Dasha. It doesn’t look like a kill shot, but she lets him run away as she walks down the path and she is picked up by Konstantin.
Meanwhile, Eve raced to Scotland, and on the way to the course, her taxi ran into the screaming American. After he tells her a good looking woman attacked her mother right in front of him she throws him out of the taxi and races to find Villanelle and Dasha. By the time she gets there Villanelle is gone and Dasha is still alive. What does Eve do? She takes the club and pushes it into Dasha’s ribs with actual glee on her face as she hears her ribs crack. She only stops and runs off when she hears the police sirens but that brief scene was enough to dispel that hero question we had before.
At this point in the episode, the race is on. Mo calls Carolyn telling her he’s found the proof against Paul, just as we see Rhian watching him from the bench, and it’s no surprise when we find him dead in the river at the end of the episode. Poor Mo, he’s just the latest in a long line of minor characters we lost before we ever really got to know them. Remember Billy?
Meanwhile, Villanelle and Konstantin are trying to make a break for it but just as Konstantin is complaining about all the people who want to kill him he has a heart attack of all things. It’s about as emotional as this show gets, he says he doesn’t want to die and Villanelle tells him she doesn’t want him to die either. Before she asks about the millions of dollars he stole, takes a note from his pocket to withdraw it, and boards the train while onlookers attend to him. So not super sentimental, but still more than we usually get.
Eve shows up just as the train leaves and returns Villanelle’s wave goodbye. While she might have been ready to break Dasha herself, when she sees Konstantin on the floor she immediately asks for an ambulance, so maybe she’s not fully dark yet. In the end, Villanelle calls her, saying “we can’t keep meeting like this,” and I for one agree.
This is the second to the last episode of the season, it had a lot to accomplish and we got almost nowhere with it. We’re no closer to finding out who killed Kenny, and more importantly if Eve and Villanelle will ever get it together to be a couple. Now we’ve seen Eve become darker and more reckless and we’ve seen Villanelle be thoughtful and vulnerable but none of that will matter if they just keep chasing each other, like they have been since the pilot, and are never actually together. I want to see them throw caution to the wind, cut their ties, and take on The Twelve together already.
Killing Eve has been hit with a lot of queer-baiting complaints from the start and if they cannot find it to finally put these two together after three whole seasons and countless deaths and almost deaths (I still cannot get over Niko being alive) then the series will never be able to shake that reputation. There is one episode left, the finale, and while it’s still possible to pull everything together it’s looking less and less likely that it will. If it isn’t, Killing Eve won’t be so much of the slow-burn we thought it was as it will be an outright tease.
