Well gang, we’ve done it. We’ve made it through the penultimate episode of season three of Killing Eve, and I sure hope you understand all of what the show is trying to show us better than I do at this point. Watching this episode I had multiple moments where I was genuinely confused at how we arrived at that particular moment – why the character was acting that way, why the story took that twist, why we were expected to understand whatever underlying themes the writers were attempting to reveal to us. In short, at the moment when the threads of the season narrative should be tying together into a nice bow (or at least the recognizable shape of a bow), I found myself desperately trying to figure out which thread went where. So, as we approach next week’s finale, I thought it might be time to take stock of each of the show’s major characters and their individual journeys this season – and, since they all spent most of the season locked in their own personal arcs rather than interacting at the rate they did in past seasons, they really were individual journeys.
Carolyn
Perhaps it’s fitting that the series’ most mysterious character remains so throughout season three. At least this time there is a clear reason for her chilly demeanor and closed off emotional state: Kenny’s death has shattered her firm resolve and she’s not willing to admit it to anyone, least of all herself. Carolyn has made a number of crucial mistakes throughout the season, all easily attributable to her refusal to fully mourn the loss of her beloved son: not keeping abreast of the power plays happening at work, failing to see that Konstantin was sniffing around her home and daughter (more on that confusing development later), not catching on that The Twelve are onto her investigation and aren’t happy about it, missing the clear signs that Paul is linked to The Twelve and compromised (and then blandly confronting him with that accusation, which only served to let him know she knows – even if it was one of the most Carolyn things she has done this season). Put it all together and we have a character who cannot admit her own despair at failing to protect her son, and that failure to confront her grief has led to a mess following in her wake.
Now, on paper, that sounds like a heck of an arc. Only we still have yet to see the moment Carolyn accepts that she has to confront her emotions and figure out a way to move forward. Yes, she has an angry outburst at the end of “Beautiful Monster,” but that’s hardly what we (and Carolyn) needed to experience to understand just how compromised she has become. She’s a liability to those around her if she cannot fully grasp the enormity of what she is dealing with in The Twelve. Their murder of Mo might feel like a personal attack to her, but it went unsaid (as it was utterly clear to us and her) that it’s also a clear warning. This is The Twelve telling Carolyn to stop looking into things that don’t concern her. Knowing Carolyn as we do, however, we all know she will keep pushing. Villanelle might be the show’s true psychopath (and more on that later as well), but Carolyn is the only person on the series who understands that sacrifice for the greater good sometimes means losing those you care about the most. Moving into the finale, Carolyn is the show’s wildcard. We haven’t spent nearly enough time with her this season to get a full picture of her mental and emotional state (which has been a major flaw of the season as a whole, as splitting them into their own arcs means we lack the character growth that comes from repeated interactions, leading to a lack of understanding as to how they are processing all that they have experienced), but I wouldn’t be shocked to see her sacrifice herself – or any of the remaining characters in the show – to get what she wants: closure for the death of her son.
Konstantin
Out of all the show’s characters, Konstantin has had the best arc of the season. For one, it’s the only one where the writers have taken the time to explore the emotional repercussions of how his actions have impacted every facet of his life, creating a house of cards that is now falling in on him. From the outset of the series, it was clear that Konstantin wasn’t the emotionless, dispassionate character he wanted those around him to believe. Unlike Carolyn who has, until now, managed to wall in her emotions behind an seemingly impenetrable fortress, Konstantin cares and he cares deeply about those around him. He loves his daughter Irina. He wants to protect Villanelle from herself and those who wish to see her destroyed – despite everything telling him to simply cut ties and run. In a show that is filled with characters refusing to admit they care for others, it’s refreshing to see the show’s big, tough KGB handler is the one who is man enough to admit he cares too much for those he should be willing to cut loose. And that is what has made season three’s arc for him all the more intriguing. What happens to such a man when he realizes that those he sought to protect are the ones who will bring about his destruction?
Villanelle may have been driving Konstantin to an early grave from the start of the series, with her penchant for flouting all rules and regulations and her obsession with Eve, but their relationship has been the closest thing to a normal family that Villanelle has ever had and she treats him with the utmost care (even if she has a strange, often violent, way of showing it). While with Eve, Villanelle likens herself to a cat playing with a mouse before striking the killing blow (which isn’t necessarily true, but it’s what Villanelle would like to think), Konstantin understands the danger this continued attraction between the pair poses to both of them – and to everyone else in their orbit. He wants to protect Villanelle from herself, but he is slowly coming to the realization that he needs to actually protect himself from Villanelle. It’s a hard truth for him to learn, and it’s taken him far too long to understand the real danger she poses to him – but he is only human.
Case in point: Irina. Sure, Irina was well on her way to becoming Villanelle 2.0 before Villanelle planted the idea of killing her mom’s boyfriend into her head. And Irina is proving to be a far more interesting case of the nature vs. nurture debate when it comes to psychopathic tendencies than Villanelle will ever be (despite the show wanting us to see her that way). Watching this realization play out in Konstantin’s life – that he cannot save Irina any more than he could save Villanelle – has been heartbreaking to watch. Konstantin is rapidly becoming a broken man – his confession to Geraldine* that he was using her to spy on Carolyn was treated as a throwaway confession from a man who is rapidly losing everything he held dear: his job, his daughter, his surrogate daughter, his position in the world of espionage. I desperately want him to escape to Cuba and live out his life safe and secure. But we all know there’s no way Killing Eve allows that to happen. And that might be the show’s cruelest act of all.
*There have been a number of narrative missteps in season three of Killing Eve but I think the introduction of Geraldine has been its most frustrating. While she could have been a key to unlocking more about Carolyn, she’s proven to be a MacGuffin of sorts, simply there as a plot device to force exposition out of characters who are unlikely to share things on their own. With no real tie to the story outside of her strange relationships with Carolyn and Konstantin – barring a last minute twist that sees her become a major player in The Twelve (which was what I assumed would be the case originally, but have since realized likely isn’t the case), it was a completely missed opportunity for the show.
Villanelle
I could have written this entire piece about how frustrating Villanelle’s arc has been in season three, but I will try to condense my disappointment to a mere couple of paragraphs. When you craft a character like Villanelle, you have to do so with clear rules. If she’s going to be a psychopath that revels in the power and serotonin hit she gets from killing, then you have to decide just how emotionally invested she can become in things early on. And, to its credit, Killing Eve was very clear in the first two seasons that Villanelle lacks the emotional ability to really give a shit about anyone or anything. She gets off on power. She gets off on playing with her food before striking. And she wants control. When she confronts someone who she sees as an intellectual equal (or at least someone who doesn’t acquiesce to her wishes), she becomes intrigued and wants to possess that person. And that’s clear in both her relationships with Konstantin and Eve. This isn’t about love. This isn’t even really about lust (although there’s certainly an element of animalistic attraction there with Eve). It’s about possession. She acts out when Konstantin doesn’t want to take her to Cuba with him and Irina and gets him to acquiesce – although she also plants a bomb in her interaction with Irina to ensure that she has Konstantin all to herself. And with Eve, well, Villanelle has wanted Eve to be hers from the first moment she became aware of her. She’s acted out of adolescent jealousy (which, to her, tends to involve acts of violence since that’s how she’s been conditioned to handle her feelings), but she’s never shown any true emotional depth or understanding of the same. Which is what makes everything Villanelle has done in back half of season three so confusing.
Would Villanelle get mad that The Twelve only want to use her for her killing skills? Sure, that would fit with everything we know about her. And I would wholly expect her to take steps to kill off her handlers and escape this life (although I would suspect, much like Hannibal Lecter before her, she would never really be able to quit her penchant for taking out those who annoy her). But that her confrontation with her family would spark an inability to kill with the same panache as before? That doesn’t track. That she would be consumed with “mommy issues” and slowly begin to unravel? Yeah, that’s not how this should be playing out. We have never seen any indication that Villanelle has the emotional capability to process the murder of her mother with the depth of emotional difficulty she has had of late. Being thrown off her game because she didn’t get what she wanted from The Twelve? I might buy that, but again, shouldn’t she want to prove herself even more, to show them what they are missing out on by refusing to really give her the power she craves? Shouldn’t she be warning them that they are messing with the wrong woman? Instead, she’s fumbling and unable to kill even the most odious of people, all because she’s shaken by having to kill her truly awful mother – a character we never heard about at all prior to this season? Sure, Jan.
There’s a tendency to humanize monsters so that the audience can empathize with them to some degree. However, when you’ve built a monster that lacks their own ability for empathy – one who has been shown time and again to be a true psychopath – you can’t change the game plan in the third quarter and expect the audience to just blindly accept the changes without comment. What made Villanelle so delightful to watch was that she fully accepted her own monstrosity and wasn’t worried about what those around her thought or felt. Season three has taken a immensely interesting character and tried turning her into someone far less exciting. I’ve often said there’s only two ways the show will end – either Eve destroys Villanelle or Eve becomes Villanelle’s last victim – but what the show seems to be positing is that Villanelle can be saved in some way. And that’s the worst possible way the show could end.
Eve
Speaking of saving Villanelle, well, I don’t doubt that deep down in a place Eve doesn’t like to think about, she has a flicker of hope that she can, in fact, save Villanelle. Of course, everyone (except possibly the writers) understands that such a thing is not possible. Hell, Carolyn warned Eve of the exact thing in “Beautiful Monster” – this story won’t have a Hollywood ending where the hero saves the villain and convinces her to turn away from her life of crime. The only real victory for Eve in this twisted story is if she vanquishes the dragon and continues on as a white knight. However, in the best twist of the season thus far, it’s looking more and more like Eve might not get out of this story without losing the innate goodness she continues to possess. And, personally, I’m all for the darker ending to tales like these.
Most of the season has seen Eve spinning her wheels without any real direction. The series opted not to have her really deal with the emotional fall out from Kenny’s death (although she certainly dealt with it far more than Carolyn did). It also opted to have her push aside Niko’s horrific fate without really addressing it. While we still have time for a true Carolyn meltdown (or some major action that addresses her own failings to come to terms with the emotional fallout of losing a child), I don’t think we’re going to see Eve grapple with everything that she has lost this season. And that’s really too bad. I would have loved to watch someone on this show explore how to move forward when you’ve lost everything you held dear, yet still feel a pull to the person at least partially responsible for those losses.
And here’s where we get to the incredible thing that happened in “Beautiful Monster”: Eve finally embraced the darkness that has been swirling within her since her first meeting with Villanelle and almost killed Dasha in anger. The Eve we saw in that moment is the Eve Villanelle has been trying to coax out since season one. There’s a darkness to Eve that comes out when she’s with Villanelle. It’s seductive, it’s exciting, it’s so incredibly different from everything Eve stands for. It calls out to her like a siren song and pulls her closer and closer to the edge. It’s been there since before Villanelle, of course, with her obsession with female serial killers. But it’s making itself manifest now, and that’s truly exciting for us as the audience. Eve has come close to this line before, but this is the first time she’s stepped fully over into a place where she cannot simply go back and pretend this didn’t happen. She can rationalize the hell out of it (would the world be worse if Dasha were gone – after all, she did try to kill Niko?), but the act of trying to kill Dasha was the official moment Eve moved beyond simply being a tourist in the world of Villanelle’s darkness and became an active participant. Make no mistake – if the cops hadn’t shown up, she would have killed her. And with the way she hesitantly waved at Villanelle as she sped away on the train? Well, I think our girl has fallen under Villanelle’s spell. And that, my friends, would be a hell of a way to advance this story.
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