FIRST REACTION TO SEASON 2
Editor-in-chief Terri White on the first two episodes
THE NERVES WERE present in the ends of my fingers and the tip of my nose: I put my damp palms together and if not entirely prayed than silently hoped. That Season 2 of Killing Eve wouldn’t buckle under the weight of expectation and extreme hype. Season 1, it’s fair to say, entirely reinvigorated the TV landscape. Not an easy task when it screened the same year as Bodyguard. But reinvigorate it it did. And not just that particular subsection of TV that’s referred to as female-centred. All telly. From the mind of Fleabag’s Phoebe-waller Bridge it was funny, sharp, weird. Whatsapp groups emerged in which women hungrily tore apart the dialogue. It was a thriller like we’d never seen. Villanelle (Jodie Comer) was a villain like we’d never seen. Eve (Sandra Oh) was a hero like we’d never seen. They were bumbling, fumbling and brilliant all at the same time. This was the landscape Season 2 emerged into – one painted by its own genius. Episode 1 picks up just seconds after Season 1 closes: Eve has stabbed Villanelle – surprising herself as much as us – and both women deal with the fallout (“Sometimes when you love someone, you will do crazy things,” smiles Villanelle with surprising forgiveness) and the possibility that their toxic cat-and-mouse game could be up. The first two episodes are, without a doubt, paced differently to the first season, with Villanelle’s Parisian bolthole quickly swapped for a typical, beige supermarket. Meanwhile back in London, Eve attempts to return to something approaching a normal life (get ready for an excellent scene with some manic veg-chopping). The absurdity levels on storytelling are as high as you’d hope, with an exceptional cameo from Julian Barratt doing much of the left-field craziness heavy-lifting. The rhythm really establishes itself by the end of the second episode. The brutality, the barbed banter, the bonkers love of two woman desperate to kill each other.