The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Return of Killing Eve
Susan Swarbrick on the appeal of the spy thriller with a difference
BINGE-WORTHY is a must-have tag for any television show worth its salt. Step forward Killing Eve which, since its debut in 2018, has proved to be thoroughly addictive, entertaining and suspensepacked viewing. The spy thriller – move over James Bond – returns this week for a third series. Here, we celebrate the many reasons why we can’t get enough of intelligence agent Eve Polastri and her shapeshifting adversary Villanelle. **Warning: contains spoilers for Killing Eve series one and two.**
STRONG FEMALE LEADS
It’s difficult to imagine a more perfect casting for Villanelle, the glamorous, multilingual, Russian assassin and psychopath, and Eve Polastri, the doggedly brilliant MI6 agent tasked with bringing her to justice, than Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh.
If we’re talking on-screen chemistry, this pair have no shortage as Villanelle and Eve embark on their somewhat erotically charged cat-and-mouse game across cities and countries.
Villanelle – real name Oksana Astankova – is a clinical killer who wouldn’t hesitate to throw her granny under a bus, never mind off it. She is also chic, funny and has a flair for the flamboyant when it comes to finding creative ways to off her targets.
When we first meet Eve, she is feeling smothered by a creeping sense of dissatisfaction. Her desk-bound job at MI5 involves assessing risk, yet never living it. An astute theory that a woman could be behind a string of assassinations across Europe sees Eve appointed head of a secret MI6 unit.
On the surface, Villanelle and Eve are yin and yang (that’s a little joke for Grey’s Anatomy fans, the medical drama that Oh previously starred in) yet, what bubbles beneath is jarringly similar. Fascination breeds obsession for Eve and Villanelle. An elaborate
dance ensues – sometimes playful, occasionally sexual, often vengeful – with deadly consequences. Oh, goody.
CLIFFHANGERS GALORE
Every episode finishes on a tantalising teaser: that’s how you end up blearyeyed at 2am, telling yourself just one more hit of adrenalin-inducing viewing… In the series one finale, Eve stabbed Villanelle who, in turn, fled the scene and disappeared. As series two drew to a close, Villanelle shot Eve and left her for dead. The show may be called Killing Eve but as series three begins, let’s hope that’s not the case.
ASSASSINATIONS AS AN ARTFORM
This is murder most horrid. Villanelle is a dab hand at devising innovative kill methods. And the more theatrical the staging, the better (it’s her calling card, you see). A poisoned hairpin to the eye, a whiff of lethal perfume and a knotted tie in an ascending lift are among her hits.
Then there was an eye-watering scene in Amsterdam’s red-light district where Villanelle, wearing a cartoonish pig mask and pink Bavarian dirndl, performs a gruesome burlesque show.
Not to forget the hapless amateur captor – played by Julian Barratt of The Mighty Boosh fame – who holds Villanelle prisoner in his creepy dollfilled house. She dispatches a knitting needle to the jugular and leaves him dead with a toilet brush stuffed in his mouth. It makes Cluedo, with its candlestick in the library, look a tad pedestrian. Step aside Miss Scarlet, Villanelle is painting the town red.
KILLER DIALOGUE
One of the show’s most famed lines comes after Villanelle breaks into Eve’s home and insists they eat dinner together. Over microwaved shepherd’s pie, Villanelle tries to convince Eve she is being manipulated and made to kill against her will.
Eve isn’t fooled and tells her: “I know you’re a psychopath.” Villanelle feigns pathos as she replies: “You should never tell a psychopath they are a psychopath. It upsets them.” Her pantomime pout and crocodile tears make it clear that Eve’s assessment is on the money.
There was another memorable barb when Villanelle stalks Eve’s husband as he leads a field trip of students to Oxford. After a heated exchange, she gets in a final verbal jab – a knockout uppercut – as she tells him: “You look like someone stuck a moustache on some fudge”.
Then there’s the zinger when a young woman approaches a glamlooking Villanelle in Amsterdam and asks if she can take a photo for Instagram. Our anti-heroine’s incredulous snort can practically be heard round the world: “No, of course not. Don’t be pathetic. Get a real life.”
LITERARY BEGINNINGS
The series is adapted from a quartet of novellas by British author Luke Jennings called Codename Villanelle, published between 2014 and 2016. They were later compiled into a single novel.
His other books include Atlantic, set on a cruise ship in the post-war years, and Beauty Story, a novel about a young actress who vanishes from a 16th-century English castle where she was filming a fragrance commercial.
Fun fact: Jennings trained at the Rambert School in London and was a dancer for 10 years. He later became dance critic for the Observer.
Producer Sally Woodward Gentle from Sid Gentle Films, the UK company which makes Killing Eve, optioned Codename Villanelle in 2014, saying that Jennings’ take on a female assassin caught her eye because it was “fresh, intelligent and tonally much bolder than others”.
She liked that it “wasn’t exploitative”, adding, “we really enjoyed the character of Villanelle and the inventiveness of her kills, but we were particularly engaged with the mutual obsession between the women”.
THE CLOTHES
The bar was set high in the sartorial stakes when Villanelle donned an oversized, bubble-gum pink Molly Goddard-designed frock to swish her way into a psychiatric evaluation in an early episode.
The costume and wardrobe department continue to knock it out of the park. Fashion watchers are continually impressed by Villanelle’s roster of high-end couture and designer labels such as Burberry, Chloe and Christian Lacroix.
She wore a Dries Van Noten brocade suit to kill an undercover agent in a Berlin nightclub and casually strolled around the canals of Amsterdam in a fuchsia Alexander McQueen jacket with floral trousers by Italian brand Etro while awaiting instructions of her next target. A visit to Oxford saw Villanelle channel a Brideshead Revisited vibe, complete with vintage cricket jumper casually draped around her shoulders. Then there was the colourful, comic book pop art-emblazoned pyjamas stolen from a child in a Paris hospital.
Eve’s ill-fitting attire is drab and dour in comparison, something Villanelle attempts to remedy when she steals her pursuer’s suitcase in Berlin. When the bag is returned, it has been filled with expensive, beautifully tailored pieces.
JET-SETTING LOCATIONS
London. Paris. Berlin. Moscow. Amsterdam. Rome. Talk about wanderlust. Granted, there’s usually a growing body count messing up the views, but that is a minor quibble. We can’t wait to see what stamps our intrepid duo get in their passports during series three.
A STELLAR CAST
Comer and Oh aside, the rest of the cast are far from idle window dressing. Not when you have the wonderful Fiona Shaw as Carolyn Martens, the head of the Russia desk at MI6. This is a woman who can segue from spies to sausages without missing a beat.
Kim Bodnia plays Villanelle’s longsuffering handler Konstantin (fans of Scandi crime dramas will recognise the twinkly-eyed Danish actor from his role as police detective Martin Rohde in The Bridge), a man whose deep belly laughs are off the Richter scale.
New additions to the cast list include Gemma Whelan, known for playing Yara Greyjoy in Game of Thrones, and Danny Sapani, who has appeared in Misfits, Doctor Who, Penny Dreadful, The Crown and Black Panther.
Dame Harriet Walter is downright genius as Dasha, a former Russian gymnast and long-time associate of Villanelle who tracks her down in the opening minutes of series three. Walter recently graced our screens as Caroline, Countess of Brockenhurst, in ITV’s period drama Belgravia.
WOMEN AT THE HELM
Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge spearheaded the critically acclaimed debut of Killing Eve, with Emerald Fennell, the actor-writer-director who recently played a young Camilla ParkerBowles in The Crown, stepping in for the second instalment.
Now it’s the turn of Suzanne Heathcote, known for her work on Fear the Walking Dead, to take up the reins as writer, executive producer and showrunner for series three.
Killing Eve has been confirmed for a fourth outing when the baton as lead writer will be passed to Laura Neal, whose credits include Sex Education and Secret Diary of a Call Girl.
IT IS GENUINELY GOOD TELLY
Killing Eve is packed with delicious and darkly comic moments. It is variously suspenseful, fiercely intelligent, cruel, sexy, glamorous, dirty, addictive, entertaining and all manner of other sublime superlatives that trip off the tongue.
As series three gets under way, brace yourself for somersaults, an epic brawl and someone getting handy with a meat cleaver. Smell ya later, as Villanelle would say.
Killing Eve premieres on iPlayer this Monday, from 6am, with episodes being shown weekly on BBC One from Sunday, April 19, at 9.15pm. Watch series one and two on BBC iPlayer now.