Seasons 1 and 2 of BBC America’s deliciously sharp, darkly comedic spy thriller hit show “Killing Eve”—written and overseen by “Fleabag” star Phoebe Waller-Bridge in its debut season— was the culminating apex of the dark pangs behind obsession and they’re deep cuts and costs. Dissatisfied MI5 desk jockey Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh, earning every second of her comeback Emmy and Globe awards and nominations) was essentially awakened out of her blasé life slumber by the discovery of psychopathic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer). The cat and mouse game of investigating and potentially capturing the flamboyant, seductive killer was intoxicating, both for viewers and the show’s protagonist, but it spoke to all the things missing in her life.
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Much to her own surprise, Polastri found her calling in detective work and it filled her with purpose, lighting her up inside. The response to this call was a game-recognize-game intrigue as Villanelle herself became fixated with the idea of a hunter finally worthy of her talents was on her trail. “Killing Eve” was essentially founded on the idea of a hero who had unexpectedly found her arch-nemesis and the twisted idea that they were complementary souls who completed one another.
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Wouldn’t it nice if things were so simple? Their deadly preoccupations and unhealthy obsessions with each other eventually took their toll, and at the end of Season 2 (then written by Emerald Fennell), Polastri’s fascination with Villanelle cost the now-graduated-to-MI6 agent her marriage and nearly her life. Villanelle romantically rejected by Polastri in their will-they-or-won’t-they dynamic, shot her and left her for dead. Season 3 (now written by Suzanne Heathcote), is a quieter new dawn, and a pick-up-the-pieces aftermath that finds the self-destructive Polastri retired from the spy game and largely down and out. It’s pitched slightly in a lower register if only because the show itself has to feature its characters licking their wounds and gearing up for the rematch they not even aware is coming at first. And the nature of the narrative, a reset, essentially, means, it’s slow going. So “Killing Eve” Season 3 doesn’t cut as deep, at first, but when it does finally reveal a dagger, oh boy, the hemorrhaging is brutal.
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As the new batch of episodes begins, Niko Polastri (Owen McDonnell)—Eve’s English-Polish husband, exhausted with how unrecognizable she’d become and horrified that one of his teacher friends died in the crosshairs of their tête-à-tête —has left his wife and checked into a low-key mental institute. Eve, feeling betrayed by her MI6 boss Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw), has left it all behind, instead, boozing, living in a dump in the Chinatown section of London working as a cook in a Chinese restaurant.
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Villanelle, believing Polastri died, has been recruited by Dasha (Harriet Walter), an old Russian friend and spy who herself has been enlisted and tasked by The Twelve—the shadowy group behind all of the assassins and dark machination behind the show—to handle the rogue assassin. Defiant to the core, the impish Villanelle’s always been a problem for the Twelve, but also an undeniably great asset. Dasha has been brought in to essentially to tame her and give her one last chance, though this detail unbeknownst to the killer.
Everyone is on different paths, and really, so, so over each other, but fate intervenes. Kenny Stowton (Sean Delaney), Eve’s former MI5 colleague and hacker—the son of Eve’s ruthless MI6 boss Carolyn, now an investigative journalist for an Intercept-esque muckraking newspaper— decides to check in on his former co-worker, worried about her mental health and squalid living. Their reunion is brief and has fateful consequences, suddenly pull Eve back into the world of MI6 and deeper investigations. She begins to work with Kenny’s online Editor-in-Chief boss Danny Sapani and Eve starts to pull on news threads, which of course, lead her down a new, even darker rabbit hole.
Meanwhile, Villanelle, reconnected with her former handler Konstantin Vasiliev (the terrific Kim Bodnia)—not in an official capacity beyond their strange father and daughter-like affections for one another—uses his intel to dig into the roots of her past. Namely, the Russian family that left her in an orphanage and then separated when the young girl was assumed dead in a fire (the episode dedicated entirely to this subplot detour is outstanding).
In the end, “Killing Eve” is both a little muted and more of the same with its delicious bon mots, twisted humor, and diabolical plots of deception and intrigue, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing— though one does question how long this cat and mouse game can sustain itself before it grows too stale and familiar (it’s on the verge). The two women are mostly separate the entire time—apart from a quick violent one-off—and things don’t really pick up until the fifth episode, late in the game when there are only eight episodes per season. But three things to consider: keeping them separated for so long is a bold choice, that fifth episode is killer, and given that Seasons 3 and 4 were greenlit at the same time, one has to wonder whether they’ll act as one complete chapter in the same way the first two seasons did. Moreover, “Killing Eve” has managed to stick to its very specific heightened, dark, but funny tone over the course of three seasons despite a constant change in lead writers (a tradition that will continue in Season 4 too).
That fifth episode, “Are You From Pinner?” where Villanelle returns home to a farm in Russia to reunite with her family— much to their shock given they believed her dead— sums up the best of “Killing Eve,” the bubbling dark psychological rage and trauma beneath these characters and the sociopathy that can be unleashed without a moments notice.
Because there’s a gloss to the show that can be annoying, frankly. It’s music for one—that cinematic retro-kitsch groovy Europop supergroup Unloved by DJ David Holmes that sounds like Holmes’ own “Ocean’s Eleven” soundtrack on breathy, dreamy steroids— has always been just a bit too forced and melodramatic; intoxicated by its own freedom to be playful, arch and devilish like the show. But the show already possesses that dark, wry wickedness on its own and doesn’t need such extra self-conscious, we’re so cool, atmospheres (or at least they could stand to be way dialed back). Still, this one minor blemish also speaks to the way how “Killing Eve” can sneak up on you with such visceral emotional fury. Just when your guard is down and the superficial glibness of the show can feel just a little too shallow, “Killing Eve” sticks an emotionally lacerating knife in your side, winding you in disbelief. Bleeding out, it lays you down, gently, whispering in your ear to never underestimate it, telling you with quiet seething rage that it’s been watching your growing apathy, just waiting for the right moment to strike and stick you with its blade that you’ll strangely always want more of. [B]