Killing Eve
Killing Eve is a British spy thriller television series, produced in the United Kingdom by Sid Gentle Films for BBC America and BBC Three. The series follows Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh), a British intelligence investigator tasked with capturing psychopathic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer). As the chase progresses, the two develop a mutual obsession. Based on the Villanelle novel series by Luke Jennings, each of the show's series is led by a different female head writer. The first series had Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the head writer, the second series Emerald Fennell, the third series Suzanne Heathcote, and the fourth series Laura Neal.
Killing Eve
Villanelle novel series
by Luke Jennings
- Sandra Oh
- Jodie Comer
- Fiona Shaw
- Darren Boyd
- Owen McDonnell
- Kirby Howell-Baptiste
- David Haig
- Kim Bodnia
- Sean Delaney
- Nina Sosanya
- Edward Bluemel
- Henry Lloyd-Hughes
- Adrian Scarborough
- Adeel Akhtar
- Raj Bajaj
- Turlough Convery
- Steve Pemberton
- Danny Sapani
- Harriet Walter
- Gemma Whelan
- Camille Cottin
- Anjana Vasan
- Robert Gilbert
- Laurentiu Possa
- Ingvar Sigurdsson
- Marie-Sophie Ferdane
- United Kingdom
English
4
32 (list of episodes)
- Sally Gentle
- Lee Morris
- Phoebe Waller-Bridge
- Emerald Fennell
- Gina Mingacci
- Sandra Oh
- Jodie Comer
- Damon Thomas
- Punit Kulkarni
- Colin Wratten
- Elinor Day
40–43 minutes
8 April 2018 –
17 April 2022
The first series premiered on BBC America on 8 April 2018, and on BBC iPlayer on 15 September 2018 through BBC Three. The third series premiered on 12 April 2020 for BBC America, and on 13 April 2020 for BBC iPlayer,[3] and concluded on 31 May 2020. The fourth (and final) series[4] premiered on 27 February 2022 on BBC America, 28 February 2022 on BBC iPlayer and 5 March 2022 on BBC One and concluded on 17 April 2022.[5]
The first two series were critically acclaimed, but the last two series received more mixed reviews. The fourth series, and its final episode in particular, drew significant backlash from critics and audiences. The show broke weekly ratings increase records, and received several accolades, including British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series. Both Oh and Comer were praised for their performances, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, respectively. Comer and Fiona Shaw have also received British Academy Television Awards for their performances.
Synopsis[edit]
In the first series, Eve is bored with her protection role in MI5 and, after brashly investigating the behind-the-scenes of a witness she is handling, she is fired. However, her passion for female assassins later leads to her joining an undercover division within MI6 whose task is to pursue and locate Villanelle, a ruthless international assassin who works for a secret organization called The Twelve. When Eve and Villanelle cross paths they begin a cycle of obsession which leads them away from their individual missions and closer to each other.
In the second series, after a violent encounter at the end of series one, Eve and Villanelle resume their obsessive relationship while continuing their separate missions. Eve works to solve kills set by The Twelve while Villanelle continues to kill for The Twelve; however, after a new killer appears on the scene, the focus changes for The Twelve and MI6, as both women are pitted to work with each other. A dangerous mission leads Eve and Villanelle to Rome where their own lives are at stake.
The third series picks up six months after the fallout of the mission in Rome. Eve, traumatised by her near-death experience at the hands of Villanelle, quits MI6 and begins living a low-profile existence, whilst Villanelle attempts to discover new ways of earning a living after she stops killing for The Twelve. However, the unexpected arrival of her former Twelve trainer leads Villanelle to question who she really is and if killing is what she's made for, whereas Eve begins looking into The Twelve again after they murder someone close to her, leading both women to cross paths once more.
The fourth and final series picks up soon after the third with Eve now desperate for revenge on The Twelve whilst Villanelle is eager to change for Eve. However, due to their different outlooks on their personal missions, Eve and Villanelle begin to clash leading them off into their separate directions but both eventually aiming for the same goal, destroying The Twelve.
Themes[edit]
Intertwined characterisations[edit]
In The New Yorker, Jia Tolentino characterised both Polastri and Villanelle as "deeply strange" and possessed of a "wild, unlikely interior weirdness and flux", writing that it seemed equally possible that they "could team up, or try to kill each other, or fall into bed".[45] Judy Berman wrote in The New York Times that Agent Polastri tracks assassin Villanelle not as hero and villain but as "two broken women whose flaws bind them together in a twisted pas de deux".[46] Villanelle is romantically interested in women and, as Willa Paskin wrote in Slate, is captivated by Polastri perhaps in part because of a "shared brusqueness".[47]
Despite being enemies professionally, both characters are professional, childless women,[48] "hard-working, ambitious, and slightly obsessive",[49] whose respective worlds "betrayed and deceived them at every turn".[50] Melanie McFarland wrote in Slate that they are "two of a kind" and "can trust in each other's constancy",[50] with Priscilla Frak writing in The Huffington Post that both women are "fueled by a volatile cocktail of ambition, curiosity and morbid adoration".[51] Angelica Jade Bastién wrote in Vulture that, with Eve, Villanelle "feels something beyond (the) crushing boredom" she normally experiences, while Eve looks at Villanelle as "an escape into feminine excess".[52] Perceiving "mirror-image similarities between them, for the good and the bad", executive director Emerald Fennell posited the question, "What does it look like when a psychopath starts to learn how to feel things, and when a woman who's incredibly empathetic and intuitive starts to lose those parts of herself?"[53]
Fennell also said that the Eve and Villanelle relationship will always be the core of the show,[54] in accordance with the perception of BBC reviewer Caryn James who wrote that the "series' true allure is the deeply complicated love-hate dynamic between those two characters",[55] NPR's reviewer Terry Gross' view that the character dynamic "sets Killing Eve apart from other thrillers",[56] and a Dan Snierson review in Entertainment Weekly that the series portrays "TV's most mesmerizing, twisted relationship".[53]
Contrast, conflict and attraction[edit]
Jia Tolentino wrote in The New Yorker that the "amoral" Villanelle's existence is "saturated with pleasure", in contrast to Eve's career as a "bored security-state functionary".[45] Series writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge explained that Polastri has a "sense of self-consciousness and guilt" that cripples her – a perfect counterpoint to Villanelle, who, as Ashley Boucher noted in TheWrap, only does things that might bring joy.[57]
Hanh Nguyen wrote in IndieWire that, even when Villanelle invades her home Eve "can't quite capture who Villanelle is as a person" since the assassin always seems to be a few steps ahead, and that Polastri, possessed of a "frustrating attraction", "keeps banging her head on the enigmatic wall that is Villanelle".[58] Melanie McFarland wrote in Salon that, though Villanelle has the opportunity to kill Polastri during the break-in, forces within Villanelle – despite having been "raised to kill without guilt or concern" – compel her to want Polastri alive.[50]
Angelica Jade Bastién wrote in Vulture that, after Villanelle manipulates Polastri into committing a brutal murder, the women are "finally stripped of their proxies, and the electric tension between them is laid bare".[52] Sandra Oh described Polastri's ultimately misguided belief that she is "special" enough to control Villanelle, that they have a "special" connection, but — upon telling Villanelle that Villanelle doesn't know what love is — learns otherwise: Villanelle shoots her, a counterpoint to Eve having stabbed Villanelle earlier.[59] Villanelle had later reflected on Polastri's having stabbed her, "Sometimes when you love someone, you will do crazy things".[60]
Spin-off[edit]
In March 2021, Sid Gentle Films confirmed that Killing Eve would conclude with its fourth series. Additionally, the development of a potential, unnamed, spin-off series was being considered.[5]
In April 2022, it was confirmed that a spin-off focusing on Carolyn Martens's early life at MI6 was in the early stages of development.[172]