Killing Eve – Don’t Get Attached

By: Kelly Kearney

Eve uncovers a secret about her target’s past while her favorite blonde assassin works on getting her thrill of the kill-mojo back. Villanelle is over her hired killer career and is now delving into killing for the greater good and first on her list are the abusive husbands of Havana. Adding to the usual twists and deadly turns we also get a flashback to defector and FSB agent on the run Carolyn and how her past might just help her to track down a top member of The Twelve.

Berlin, Then and Now

We begin with a flashback to 1969 Berlin where a young Carolyn (Imogen Daines), going by Janice, meets up with her boyfriend Johan (Siggi Ingvarsson) and a group of budding socialists who are trying to come up with a name for their anarchist movement. She offers up an idea based on the works of Beethoven, explaining how he numbered his symphonies rather than titled them. She suggests they do the same and after counting heads they settle on The Twelve. Later, after the meeting wraps up, she invites a young Konstantin – who is going by Karl (Louis Bodnia Andersen) –  back to her father’s house for a non-committal shag. He has a girlfriend named Karolina (Teresa Klamert) and the competition between the two young women is deliciously evident. Like his daughter, Carolyn’s father Dickie (Nigel Cooke) also has his own young man sneaking around the house that night. After Konstantin leaves her father warns her not to honeypot herself into the crosshairs of some “Russian toe-tag.” She assures him she knows how to remain on the downlow; after all, her closeted spy of a father raised her.

Cut to the present and Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) is back in Berlin while her protégé Villanelle (Jodie Comer) stays behind in Cuba with the cook, Benita (Anna-Marie Everett) who is inspiring her thrill for the kill again. Exhibiting pain from a burn on her leg, Benita admits her firefighter husband didn’t much like the meal she made for him. His abuse is getting worse and now she secretly wishes he would choke on the next bite he takes. Villanelle offers her assistance and Benita, who admits to knowing what the blonde did to the “toes in the nose” guy, doesn’t dissuade her from her fantasies of revenge.

Next, we head to Margate where Konstantin (Kim Bodnia) is blaming Pam (Anjana Vasan) for his ear infection. That kick off the pier was funny until the big guy got the ouchies and he promises her if she does it again that he will cut her up into pieces. With the threats out of the way it’s time for presents! Pam needs to look the part of an assassin and that means dressing for any occasion to try and fit in. She has to mingle and schmooze and get close to her targets and she can’t do that in a backpack and scrubs. She needs a make-over, but the outfits Konstantin picks out seem more apropos for a leggy Russian blonde, not the smaller statured Pam.

Over in London, Eve (Sandra Oh) is on nanny duty now that she has kidnapped Hélène’s (Camille Cottin) daughter, Chloe (Anyastassia Melehes), from a Parisian playground under the guise that she is Mummy’s new friend. She has been spending a lot of time with the woman, in both the bathtub and the bedroom, so this kid doesn’t even question Eve’s presence – she just goes along for the ride. What she is really aiming for is a bit of payback for getting Villanelle out of prison and this whole thrupple of doom situation is now making Yusef (Robert Gilbert) nervous. Once Hélène realizes her daughter is gone she will come for her and whether or not he knows this yet, the men around Eve never last long thanks to the women in her life.

Across continents and earth, everyone is spinning their own webs to capture someone–Eve with Hélène, Carolyn and Konstantin with their pasts and Villanelle with her current fiery project in Havana. After her talk with Benita she decides to lure the woman’s abusive firefighter husband (Pano Masti) into what he assumes is a burning building. Of course, it’s a set up. Villanelle rigged a smoke machine to billow out the windows and, after knocking the man to the ground, she shoves the fire hose down his throat and turns it on. It wasn’t the only thing turned on in that moment. Ever since Carolyn told her to embrace her inner-psycho, Villanelle has been relishing her deadly masterpieces. So, it is a good thing Benita has a handful of friends in need of an avenging angel. Domestic violence is about to hit an all-time low as the murder rate of subpar men skyrockets. Taking out abusers is exactly the kind of work that inspires a DIY artist like Villanelle. However, she warns the ladies, “Okay, but then I have my own Camilo.”

Innocence Detached

Back to the past and Carolyn invites her anti-bourgeois friends, The Twelve, over to her father’s posh pad for a party. Nobody is home but with the expensive booze she and her friends are having a blast until Carolyn goes to the garage to grab another bottle of liquor and runs into a note on the door warning her not to go inside. Someone found out her father is gay and instead of the blackmail and shame he was surely facing he put a bullet in his head in the front seat of their parked car. Carolyn’s only reaction is silence and then she walks out of the garage and tells her friends to trash the place. They assume this posh princess is finally sharing their “Eat the Rich” sentiments, so they happily destroy the house and probably leave behind enough well-crafted clues to sway her father’s reputation away from suicide and towards some sort of burglary and murder. In the present Carolyn tracks down her nemesis Karolina (Stacy Thunes) and updates her on her real identity and the fact Johan didn’t drown; he is very much alive. Catching a glimpse of her wedding ring, Carolyn questions Carolina’s reaction to the news and assumes this woman is not only aware of Johan’s existence but she might even know where he is currently. After some passive aggressive insults, the two part ways. However, from the looks of things, their business is not finished.

After her fashion show fail, Pam heads back to the Dreamland Amusement Park to find the flirtatious young Darren (Josh Zaré) she met at the “test your strength” game. He helps her with an appropriate new look and then she tells him her name. The two are smitten, which cannot possibly end well for the smiling guy who assumes Pam is just your average girl.

Cupid, Psyche and the Love Arrows of Havoc

Meanwhile, Eve is sitting in a lecture hall listening to Oliver Schubert, one of the early members of The Twelve, tell the story of Cupid and Psyche and the chaos their love unleashed. While Hélène’s kid scrolls through her phone, Eve is gripped by the retelling of what some believe to be the most romantic Greek myth ever told. But is it really? Psyche was abused, beaten, and forced to battle both heaven and hell under the control of Cupid’s heart piercing arrows. The story is a metaphor for Eve’s current situation with Villanelle, and a good reminder that this burning desire she is so desperate to both run towards and simultaneously push off a cliff, has changed her. She is evolving to survive her obsessions in hopes to one day defeat them and regain control of her heart. How far will she go? It’s a question Hélène must ask herself after she retrieves her child, and the girl is enamored with her new babysitter/kidnapper. Eve has proven to be as calculating and manipulative as any fembot this woman could train and now Hélène knows she has the upper hand and the smile on Eve’s face says she knows it’s true.

Back to Carolyn’s walk down memory lane and her feet take her back to Karolina’s house at night. She breaks in, remembering another time she did this and found a young Konstantin sleeping and his hidden Russian passport behind a brick in the fireplace. This time she finds a note from the woman telling someone named Peter she went to her family’s cabin for the weekend. She isn’t the only one discovering hidden gems, after Eve pretends to be a poli-sci major interested in soviet revolutionaries of the ‘70s, she talks with Professor Schubert about the photo she bought from the French photographer he happens to be in. He recognizes Lars right away and says his name is Johan and that he accidentally died in a drunken boating accident not long after it was taken. He mentions his ex-girlfriend Janice might know more but he cannot remember her last name. He does have her image captured on film and then hands the reels over to this very eager student. When Eve turns on the projector she instantly recognizes Carolyn as Janice, and it heads us into another flashback to why everyone thought Johan drowned.

Meeting Karl/Konstantin on a dock by the river for what was supposed to be a secret date behind her boyfriend’s back, but instead of romance, Carolyn pulls a gun on him and he on her. Thanks to the passport she found she knows he isn’t German but works for the KGB who sent him to get close to her so he could blackmail Dickie into suicide. He doesn’t deny it, and just when things look deadly for the young jovial man, Johan shows up in a jealous rage with his own gun. Shots ring out and the two men wrestle for dominance until Carilyn clocks Johan in the skull with a canoe oar and he falls into the water. She and Konstantin take turns pummeling him in the head until he doesn’t resurface because it seems nobody is allowed to kill Konstantin unless it’s by her hands, and that pact has held true up to today. In the present, Carolyn begrudgingly calls the Russian for the whereabouts of Karolina’s cabin. She questions whether or not their lives would be different if they never swung those oars and Konstantin wonders that too. She puts those “what ifs” out of her mind knowing people like them aren’t made for happy endings. He promises to send her the address, but winds up distracted by Villanelle who crashes his fashion show with Pam to find out where Hélène is. Apparently, her good- deeds killings back in Cuba wasn’t fulfilling, “charity starts at home” she says, and that breaks the ice between assassin and former handler. He doesn’t know where Hélène is and warns Villanelle he doesn’t think she can break free from The 12 anyway, but he hands her the address of his former trainee who he thinks might be able to help. They hug intensely– like it’s the last time, and then we head back to Carolyn who took the address he gave her and finds the cabin. Johan AKA Lars answers the door to her forcing her way in with an apology for the oar incident. She really needs to work on her sorrys.

Finally, with everyone searching for the same end to this nightmare we head back to London where a ticked off Hélène approaches Eve in the street with news she found Lars. It’s dangerous to tag along but when she offers Eve a ride to the location, she cannot help herself and climbs into the backseat. When they arrive.  it isn’t outside a cabin but an apartment building–one that looks out over the ocean. We know Lars isn’t in there because he is with Carolyn, so who is this target they’re waiting for? It’s Villanelle! She walks out looking at the address Konstantin gave her just as the car doors lock—trapping Eve inside. This is payback for taking her daughter and in response, this desperately furious and panicked Cupid starts pounding the window and screaming, but it doesn’t get Villanelle’s attention. Like some sort of twisted fate, an arrow flies through the air piercing her heart and breaking Eve’s. She attacks Hélène, and the two women both attempt to choke the life out of each other until finally the car doors unlock and Cupid runs to her Psyche, battered by the chaos of their love. She holds her close, like she is willing her to fight; for her life, for an end to The 12, but most tragically, for their all-consuming love. Fear can often remind us of what is most important in life, and as Eve breaks down in the streets holding an unconscious Villanelle, we know nothing is more important to her than this woman.