Killing Eve – Are You From Pinner?

By: Kelly Kearney

A Mother’s Day family reunion in Pinner, Russia. That’s where we find Villanelle in this week’s episode and, as you can expect, Oksana’s family is as bizarre as she is. Chocked full of sing-a longs and local festivals, Villanelle finally gets the chance to capture that unconditional love she’s been desperately searching for. Only her arrival reminds her of the person she’s become and, apparently, the poisonous apple does not fall far from the tree.

Mother Russia

The episode begins where we left off last week. Not with Niko (we never learn want happened after he was pitchforked in the throat), but with Villanelle (Jodie Comer) getting off the train in her rural hometown of Gryzmet. With her headphones on she walks down a dirt path, nearly becoming roadkill thanks to a logging truck that comes within inches of her. She finally arrives at a little farmhouse and, in her usual fashion, Villanelle walks right in as if she owns the place. There’s family photos adorning the walls and a pre-teen half-brother named Bor’ka (Temi Blaev) who is fascinated by this English speaking stranger. Apparently, this kid is obsessed with Elton John and assumes this woman is a traveler to whom his parents are renting a room..So does his older half -brother Fyodor (Dimitrij Schaad) and his blonde girlfriend, Yula (Natalia Bulynia). Soon Villanelle’s step-father Grigoriy (Predrag Bjelac) appears. While he’s seemingly calm about this strange arrival, he’s still taken a back and announces he’s going to call the police. It’s not every day an English speaking woman barges into your home and asks you who you are, but it’s not every day your long lost assassin sister shows up out of the blue either. Before the Grigoriy can call the local authorities, the man Villanelle has been searching for walks in the door – Pyotr (Rob Feldman), her younger and spitting image brother immediately recognizes his sister and he’s instantly ecstatic. Apparently, their mother told him she was dead, which is probably why Fyodor and Yula aren’t buying her story. Everyone gets to chatting until Mom arrives and Villanelle flies into a panic. Her behavior is a mix of fear and rage as she runs through the house trying to find an easy escape. With the back door locked, she has no choice but to greet her mother, Tatiana (Evgenia Dodina), in the most awkward and tense hello hug anyone has ever seen. These two are not close, but you would never know by looking at Tatiana’s maternal tears. Hugging and kissing her daughter, she calls Villanelle/Oksana her baby girl.

While looking though some family photos Tatiana confirms Pyotr’s story and claims she was told her daughter burned down the orphanage and died in the fire. Villanelle tries to plaster a smile on her face as the family gathers for dinner and a card game, but the struggle to play the dutiful daughter is evident by the cringe she’s sporting. Once the murder card game is over (spoiler alert: Tatiana is the murderer; like mother, like daughter) they all say a toast to the return of their beloved Oksana. Nobody notices Villanelle tosses the shot of liquor over her shoulder instead of down her throat because Bor’ka enters in a feather boa and sunglasses singling the family favorite anthem “Crocodile Rock.” The Elton John sing-a- long is infectious and even Villanelle joins in during the chorus. This family might be a little off the wall, but what can we expect from the people who made Villanelle?

Family Matters

The following morning everyone’s favorite anger management drop out wakes to find her brother Pyotr sleeping out in the barn. He claims to enjoy watching the stars through the hole in the roof. This kid is made of strong stock if he sleeps in an unheated barn during the Russian winters, but I digress. This brother has issues, namely with anger and sofas. When Villanelle finds him hacking away at a loveseat with a baseball bat, he tells her beating the furniture is better than taking out his rage on people. For an assassin that just seems ludicrous. She tells her baby brother, “Just beat the crap out of people. It’ll make you feel much better.” Only, he’s not a killer like her and he tries to keep his anger under control for their mother’s sake. What isn’t under control is his sister’s explosive laughter when she later finds out Fyodor and Yula are flat earthers. Being a world traveler, she can not contain herself as she listens to them debate the authenticity of lizard people and their takeover of our disc shaped planet. Instead of smiling through that nonsense, she heads outside to find Grigoriy and the two talk about marriage. He’s been down the aisle three times, but somehow found happiness with Tatiana. While the woman seems to be surrounded by a cheerful (albeit simple) family, Villanelle confesses that she wasn’t always so nice. The fact she left her daughter in an orphanage is a good indication as to why her other son, Bor’ka, releases his frustrations by smashing himself in the head. It’s a clue that Tatiana’s doting mothering act is just that, an act. If things seem off about this happy family, Villanelle ignores it and makes the best out of family day at their village’s harvest festival. Could she make this small rural farmland her forever home? She definitely attempts to fit right in when she wins first place in their dung tossing contest. Could this this simple life be what the world class assassin has been looking for? Besides the obvious lack of couture fashion, Villanelle’s personality is quickly noticed as too big for their small town and she starts to realize it everywhere she looks. She has nothing in common with the women her age and even less with the people she calls family. How long can she try to fit in before someone pays the price with their life? Well, not long apparently, and Tatiana must know it.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

After the festival Tatiana finds her daughter in the kitchen chopping vegetables. When she turns around, her creative killer child shows off her painted bloody tear streaked face. Her love of dress up is something that comes naturally, as we saw in family photos, but Tatiana never approved and this time is no different. Villanelle immediately gets offended because “this always used to make you laugh,” but her mother disagrees. In fact, Oksana’s shenanigans are the exact reason her mother wants her to leave. She even goes as far as to say she’s “not a part of this family.” It’s a rude awakening and some serious emotional whiplash that Villanelle was not prepared for, but it does reveal the true nature of their relationship. It certainly explains why she left her daughter in the orphanage and why her son Bor’ka self-abuses when his mother doesn’t support his creative adventures. The bottom line is she’s an abusive woman and perhaps the reason her daughter became a killer. Could murder be an inherited trait or did a mother’s neglect drive her daughter’s killer instincts? This is the question Villanelle is desperate to be answered and it’s why she searched them out in the first place. It wasn’t the touchy feely reunion she wanted, but to understand herself a little better though them. It seems Tatiana is the key to her lifelong query for which we may never get an answer. Was she born bad and her mother had no choice but to send her away or, like Dr. Frankenstein, did she create this monster and then leave her for the world to reckon with? Villanelle, who wants nothing but to feel a connection to someone…anyone, thinks it must be the latter and her psychopathy was passed down from her mother. It’s not that she blames Tatiana for her becoming a killer, but would like to recognize her special talents in someone. Her mother refuses to even give her daughter that and says they are nothing alike. In fact, her father (the man nobody in the house will speak of) was so afraid of his daughter and what she might do to their family that he made her Tatiana take Villanelle to the orphanage before somebody got hurt. The only one hurt now is Villanelle, who saw her father as her hero and her mother as the monster she clearly is. Tatiana uses her words like a dagger through her daughter’s heart and the smirk on her face is a clue that’s she’s enjoying the painful show. Villanelle, on the other hand, is shaking with rage. Rejection is hard for her and is usually met with violence. As she crouches down next to her seated mother, she takes a deep breath and says, “I think I’m going to have to kill you.”

Burn, Baby, Burn

After witnessing the effects of Tatiana’s mothering on Bor’ka and Pyotr, Villanelle does something completely out of character. Well, not the murder part, that was inevitable on the heels of her mother’s rejection. But what she does for her brothers is not your usual assassin fare. It’s after we find Tatiana dead and Villanelle covering the house in gasoline that we really see that our favorite psychopath can still have feelings. Her brother Bor’ka wakes up to find a note attached to his ringing alarm clock that directs him to a surprise gift in the barn. There Pyotr finds his kid brother holding an envelope of cash with a note instructing him to go live out his dreams with Elton John’s world tour. Now, her kid brother can afford the trip to England to see his hero and he is thrilled. Before Pyotr and Bor’ka can celebrate this generous present, the house with their remaining family members explodes! The flames light up the night sky, as a screaming Villanelle marches down the dirt path that brought her home. They say you can never go back home and for Oksana that’s certainly true. What she had hoped to discover about herself, a reason for why she was the way she was, ended (as expected) in death. I guess you can take the girl out of Russia, but you can’t take the murderous rage out of a trained killer and that fact is utterly devastating to her.

As this not-so- happy reunion episode draws to a close, Villanelle is back on the train out of Gryzmet wearing a denim rhinestone jumpsuit. It’s the only thing she has left of her mother and their love of 70’s anthem rock. Trying but failing to contain her overwhelming emotions, as the camera fixates on Villanelle, where Jodie Comer gives the performance of her young career in these final silent moments. Villanelle’s pain bubbles to the surface and she desperately tries to swallow it down. With Elton blasting through her headphones, the landscape of Russia whizzes by leaving the tragedy of her childhood behind her. What’s ahead is unclear, but we finally caught a glimpse of why Villanelle can’t quit Eve. When this woman feels, it’s deep and it’s rare and she will hang on to it with all her might. Even if means crushing the very life out if it.