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[Warning: This post contains spoilers for Episode 6 of Killing Eve. Read at your own risk!]
You may have heard that Sandra Oh acts her ass off in Season 1 of Killing Eve. (Or maybe you didn’t, in which case, she won the Best Actress Golden Globe this year. Got it now?)
As Eve Polastri, an investigator in the U.K.’s M16 secret intelligence agency, Oh gives Eve’s clumsiness endearing charm, and she informs Eve’s inexplicable obsession with assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) with so many layers of depth viewers can practically peer into her psyche as if looking into her soul with 3-D glasses. In Season 1, she chased Villanelle and subsequently lost herself in pursuit of this mysterious murderer. It was all about Eve. Season 2 (which is still great, by the way) is not. It’s all about Villanelle, and watching Comer act her ass off.
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Sandra Oh as Eve Polastri, Jodie Comer as Villanelle, Killing Eve
The Season 2 premiere, which followed Villanelle as she tumbled out of her Paris flat, clutching her bleeding abdomen after Eve stabbed her in the Season 1 finale, should have been the only clue we needed to know Villanelle would steal the spotlight this season. But, hey, the show is named Killing Eve, so missing that bit of foreshadowing seems forgivable. As the season has galloped on though, Killing Eve has steered the narrative ever more to Villanelle’s favor, a wickedly delicious turn that gets more rewarding with each episode.
Eve has a new obsession now — she’s chasing a new assassin who threatens to occupy the room in Eve’s head Villanelle thought she leased — causing Villanelle to get jealous, annoyed, and despondent. It’s a neat trick: The violent psychopath discovers she has feelings, about another person no less, and has to confront them. In Episode 5, Villanelle’s butthurt causes her to confront Eve’s husband’s to tell him Eve stabbed her — a way of reminding him who Eve really belongs to — but the season’s twist of empathy reaches its juiciest apogee in Episode 6, “I Hope You Like Missionary.”
Hired, unbelievably, by Eve to help track down Eve’s new obsession, Villanelle has to pretend to be a recovering addict and attend a self-help group to infiltrate a source’s life, and in the process of talking through her (fake) feelings, Villanelle’s armor begins to shatter. “I don’t feel anything,” she says, knowing Eve is listening via a wire, and hinting she may be speaking honestly about herself. “I try to find ways of making myself feel something but it doesn’t make any difference,” she says, her eyes welling up. “No matter what I do I don’t feel anything.” Comer rides Villanelle’s unforeseen vulnerability like a jockey — steady here, fast there, flamboyant just a few minutes later. Eve is experiencing emotional turmoil of her own — her husband’s left her, for starters — but it’s Villanelle we can’t look away from.
Jodie Comer as Villanelle, Killing Eve
Comer has always hopped back and forth from wryly hilarious to patently awful in this role, but this time she gets a much more meaty and complicated song to sing. She’s absolutely killing the season, and keeping this already unpredictable series one step ahead of viewers. What a bloody good time.
Killing Eve airs on Sundays at 8/7c on BBC America. Season 1 is currently streaming on Hulu.
Source : TVGuide
