Killing Eve – Nice and Neat

By: Kelly Kearney

In episode “Nice and Neat” we see The Twelve are hunting down Villanelle thanks to the mess she left behind in Paris. With the help of a stranger (emphasis on strange), she manages to evade the immediate danger long enough to recover from the wounds Eve inflicted. Elsewhere, Eve joins her new MI6 team as Carolyn’s expert female assassin and while her main focus is Villanelle, the brilliant spy in training uncovers a new killer that’s been hiding in the shadows of her current obsession.

Home Sweet Home

After hitching a ride in the back of a mini-van, Villanelle (Jodie Comer) finally makes it to England. Still wearing her cartoonish pajamas and white Crocs, she manages to sneak out of the van undetected…mostly. The family’s sleepy toddler spots her carrying their luggage and after a quick, “sh…” and a smile the child stays quiet and Villanelle slips away. Her escape from Paris is the least of her problems when her medication is stolen during a nap at a local laundromat – the very medication she needs to stop the spread of infection festering from the stab wound in her side. Battered, beaten and with no medication she heads to the grocery store for supplies. While there Villanelle spots a man following her that she assumes was sent by The Twelve. Her suburban housewife look isn’t enough to throw the man off her scent, so she goes with plan B to manipulate a seemingly lonely shopper into helping her. She tells the man, who we learn is named Julian (Julian Barratt), that she needs to escape her abusive stepfather and pleads with him to escort her out of the store before she can be seen. Considering her face looks like someone used it as a punching bag, Julian agrees to play hero and whisks her away to his car where he offers her a safe place for the night. Having nowhere else to go and becoming increasingly ill from her stab wound, she agrees to go back to Julian’s house as she practically chokes on her gratitude.

Meanwhile, Eve’s (Sandra Oh) waking up in London, next to Niko (Owen McDonnell), who is shocked at his wife’s early morning online shopping. Apparently, Eve wasn’t really into the hottest fashion trends and Niko comments about how much she’s changes since her trip to Moscow. The couple tries their best to put their problems behind them and agree to be as open and honest as they can with each other. Eve fills Niko in about her Alistair Peel case while conveniently glossing over Villanelle’s connection to the internet tycoon’s death. Niko knows his wife can’t reveal all of MI6 secrets, but he’s just happy Eve is confiding in him at all. As he gets ready to leave for the day, his wife warns him to be careful, knowing her favorite assassin could still be out there somewhere. Her warning is not reassuring, but Niko kisses her goodbye and leaves anyway.

Back to Business

Now that Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) forgave Eve for her rogue trip to Paris, Eve is back at work and collaborating with a new team at MI6. Carolyn meets Eve outside to prep her on her new assignment, but somehow it turns into the master spy’s youthful look. How does Carolyn stay looking so young? I would have guessed the woman bathed in the blood of her enemies, but she assures Eve it’s all thanks to her skin care treatments stating, “It’s my moisturizer. It’s pig’s placenta. Smells like arse, but it’s exceedingly effective.” Skin care tips aside, Carolyn lets Eve know her new title at MI6: Expert on Female Assassins. As the two women enter their new, and presumably less smelly, offices Kenny (Sean Delany) greets them and is relieved to see Eve is okay. Or is she? He quickly updates her on Elena’s (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) absence as it seems he left the team in fear of getting murdered and it’s understandable since this is not a risk-free job. Elena’s already gotten a glimpse of Villanelle’s fury. Eve tries to tell Kenny what happened in Paris, because it’s clear she came back from that trip different, but the two get interrupted by their new co-workers Jess (Nina Sosnaya) and Hugo (Edward Bluemel). The savvy Jess welcomes Eve to Operation Mandalay, a place where she says “everyone is waiting to steal your job.”

Back to Villanelle where we learn her hero Julian is a doll collector whose mother has died so now he lives alone in an empty and extremely creepy house. Once his new guest gets settled in he leaves to go to the store, but not before locking her in behind him. Villanelle takes this alone time to check on her infected wound and that’s when she hears movement upstairs. Didn’t Julian say he lived alone?

Over at Operation Mandalay, Eve pulls Kenny side to elaborate on what went down in Paris; however, the two can’t really get into details since there are listening ears all over the office, specifically Hugo who is nosey and assumes their whispering means they’re having an affair. Neither deny the romance and that seems to satisfy the posh new comer’s curiosity.

It’s not long before Eve is asked to conduct her fist presentation on Villanelle the assassin. One by one she recounts the woman’s victims and Jess points out that the latest kill must mean their suspect is sloppy. Eve takes offense to that and snaps back with, “No, not usually. She’s flamboyant and attention seeking and instinctive. Spoiled. Easily bored. But, no, she is not sloppy.” Take note Jess, nobody talks smack about Eve’s favorite killer but EVE! The power point presentation hits an emotional snag when Bill’s photo is the last victim on the screen. Eve explains how he dies and threatens her new co-workers with, “If anyone says it was ‘murder on the dance floor’ I will throw them out the window.” She still hasn’t processed her partner and best friend’s death and isn’t about to start during a meeting on her first day back at the job.

While Eve is right, Villanelle is not known for being sloppy, she can’t stop thinking about Alistair Peel and how his murder seemed so unlike Villanelle. Like she mentioned to Jess and Hugo, her girl is flamboyant and she wants to be found. She wants Eve to find her and this kill was almost like the murderer didn’t want to be seen at all. Eve realizes Alistair wasn’t killed in a dramatic and risky fashion; he was killed by someone who was careful…someone unnoticeable. She figures out that the person they are looking for isn’t Villanelle but probably a middle-aged immigrant who spends her life in the shadows and is easily overlooked. It’s almost like she’s describing herself, which makes this second killer all the more appealing to her already obsessed mind. That and the fact another female killer occupying space in her brain will really tick Villanelle off!

The Snake, The Apple and Eve

Speaking of the flamboyant killer, she’s ransacking Julian’s place for antibiotics but coming up empty handed. In her fury, she takes a moment to reminisce about the woman who stabbed her, the same woman who’s researching her latest kill. Eve is looking into the murder of a Parisian teen boy and the suspect: a blonde on the run. Up until now she wasn’t sure if Villanelle was alive, but after she receives a police report from Gabriel’s (Pierre Atri) murder she knows the woman survived. The report comes with a photo that shows a a slumped over Gabriel holding a partially eaten apple, a symbol of the forbidden fruit. Eve immediately knows that apple is a message for her; Villanelle is alive and leaving Eve clues hoping she will find her. Villanelle was right, she knows Eve better than anyone. It’s why she’s sure Eve won’t be able to resist following her trail of breadcrumbs. She is Eve’s forbidden fruit and the Garden of Eden imagery is enough to wet the MI6 agent’s appetite. Mixed emotions cloud the spy’s face, is she afraid of what the psycho killer will do next? Or, could it be she is thrilled to have another round in this increasingly dangerous game of cat and mouse?

Finding Villanelle might be harder than Eve thinks thanks to Julian who seems to be keeping her as his prisoner. The doors are always locked and while he offers to go to the pharmacy for her he never returns with medication. Putting on her best damsel in distress act, Villanelle begs Julian to help her get the antibiotics she needs. He responds with forehead kisses and empty promise. She stats to realize Julian is not the good Samaritan he pretended to be.

After a quick bath to cleanse her wound, Villanelle stalks past a sleeping Julian and runs right into a screaming old woman (Diana Payan)! Armed with a ceramic cat she grabbed off of the nightstand in her room she swings at the woman, but Julian comes running in before she can strike the old woman down.  We soon find out the woman is his mother and she’s suffering from dementia. Didn’t he tell Villanelle that his mother was dead? When she questions him about that Julian brushes her of and escorts her back to bed. She rests for the night but in the morning she isn’t feeling any better. In fact, her fever has spiked forcing Julian to finally agree to get her the medications she needs. After he leaves, his elderly mother warns Villanelle about her son telling the seemingly frail blonde to be careful of him, he means well. It’s always a comfort when a mother fears her own son, but why does she fear him? Villanelle can’t get a straight answer out of the woman, who winds up slipping into a comatose state before she can elaborate.

With Julian gone Villanelle realizes she’s not safe in the house and does something so unbelievably crazy that nobody, not even Eve, could’ve expected. Fearing she’s trapped in the house, she grabs the kitchen phone and places a call to MI6. She’s looking for help, but more specifically she’s looking for Eve, who isn’t around and has no clue her favorite assassin needs her. The call puts the desperate woman back in Eve’s orbit long enough for it to be traced back to the home, but by then it’s too late. Julian arrives with the antibiotics and realizes his house guest used the phone. The two start to fight igniting that spark that makes Villanelle the relentless killer that she is. She stabs her captor with a knitting needle and plunges a toilet brush down his throat, effectively killing him in the most gruesome of ways. What was that Eve said about her not being sloppy? By the time the call is traced and Carolyn and Eve realize it came from Villanelle, the team of investigators finds Julian dead, his mother missing and their wily assassin on the run again. Unfortunately for the wounded killer, she doesn’t get far because she wound up falling directly into the hands of her new handler, Raymond (Adrian Scarborough), and he is not as friendly as Konstantin. “You’re going to be on a very tight leash from now on,” he says while practically choking the life out of her. As she loses consciousness, Raymond drives away and right past Carolyn and Eve who’ve just exited Julian’s murder scene.

The recent killing is proof to both Eve and Carolyn that Villanelle is nearby and very alive and if they plan to catch her they need to get to work and fast! Carolyn takes Eve back to her house, assuming she’s trying to protect her but instead reveals a huge secret. Sitting in her living room, alive and well, is Konstantin (Kim Bodnia) – the man Eve assumed was dead! After all, Carolyn was the one who confirmed his death and why would Eve question that? She saw Villanelle shoot the charismatic man right in front of a restaurant full of people! How is he still alive and what role will he have in Eve’s search to find not one but two assassins? Not only that, but why would Carolyn lie? Was it to protect her charming Russian friend or is this a quid pro quo relationship? Is MI6 helping Konstantin stay safe if he hand delivers them the Twelve? We will have to wait and see.