Together forever?
Season 3 of Killing Eve continues to embrace the darker side of love with talking teddy bears and family murder.
Midway through the season 2 finale of Killing Eve, things got messy according to one point of view – or worked out just fabulously from another. Psychopathic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) calmly slit a throat, MI6 investigator Eve (Sandra
Oh) thought she’d made a colossal mess of things, and Eve’s diabolically cunning and astute superior Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw) revealed that the deadly game had played out just as she had anticipated, with her pawns Villanelle and Eve filling their roles perfectly. One bloody axe murder and some stampeding across moral boundaries later though, and the season ended in a shambles of a cliffhanger. It leaves a giant question over what will happen following the ugliest break-up…
THE FALLOUT
For the first two seasons, Villanelle has acted as though she’s had Eve’s name tattooed over her heart. So going into season 3, we’re wondering whether she will (metaphorically) go for just lasering it off, picking an insulting cover-up or having detail and shading added as she continues to pursue her obsession with making Eve her partner in crime. “From our study and our research into psychopathic behaviour, psychopaths fall desperately and very passionately and very deeply in love. And it can be very intoxicating, but they can also turn it off. It can just be turned off like a light switch. So if at any point Villanelle feels it’s not reciprocated, we knew that was a really dangerous moment too,” says producer Sally Woodward Gentle.
Once Villanelle switches off her feelings for Eve, can they be turned back on though? There’s a pink talking teddy bear in an angel outfit in episode 3 who could testify to fuzzy feelings remaining behind. As for Eve, their final encounter in season 2 could be a full stop for her… or just a rest as Eve comes to terms with how she has been changing since the day that she got her first fascinating glimpse of this glamorous and deadly assassin. “We really get to see deeper layers of Eve, and her really coming to terms with the person she is now. She’s forever changed because of what happened to her and what she has been through, and it’s really about seeing her now, this new version of herself, and her acceptance of herself, which is very exciting and really takes her into new places,” says Suzanne Heathcote, who takes over as Killing Eve head writer.
HARD FEELINGS
Suzanne muses that there might be no calling it quits for Eve and Villanelle – ever. “For Eve, there’s that speck of darkness that she can’t remove. And it’s that that has drawn her to studying these murders in the first season, for years before she was discovered by Carolyn. That’s always been there. Villanelle, it’s almost the opposite. It’s like she has this speck of light inside her. As a result, there’s a completeness when they’re with the other. They know that they recognise each other in a way that no one else ever has before. Once you’ve known that, you’ve felt that with someone, it’s very hard to walk away from that. It’s an addiction in itself.”
Part of what makes that compelling is that Eve and Villanelle find in each other someone who appreciates the art of what they do. “It’s about two women who are only seen by each other. I think Villanelle and her gifts, which as it happens, tends to be killing people – it’s an art form for Villanelle, and that’s something that Eve actually appreciates in itself. She appreciates the brilliance of what Villanelle does, and sees her as a human, fully in a way that no one else does,” explains Suzanne. “And Villanelle can feel that. And similarly for Eve, the things that she grapples with and her truly deeper, sometimes darker self, is truly seen by Villanelle, and elements of herself that she might have suppressed or hidden – or may not even be aware of – are seen by Villanelle, and she feels fully seen. It’s about these two women understanding each other.”