Killing Eve – End of Game Review

We finally got an episode that contained a pretty even balance of the show’s central four characters. It only took nearly the entire season to get us to this point; a season that had far too many rambling narrative tangents that pulled focus away from the season’s central arc, thereby making it a muddled mess when we should be itching to get to the season’s climax. That’s a long way of saying: I still don’t really get why it took everyone this long to decide to do something about The Twelve. Like, were the characters just ignoring the fact that The Twelve is heinous and a great danger to each of them for the past three seasons? Sure, Konstantin and Villanelle were keen to work with them while the going was good, but it’s a bit perplexing to me that they both have suddenly decided it’s time to get out of the game before the game catches up with them (a large part of this stems from the show not making clear just what is happening within the ranks of The Twelve that is making everyone so jittery about that missing money). As for Eve and Carolyn, well, I will certainly make some allowances for their currently fragile mental and emotional states. But really ladies? Now we suddenly think something should be done about The Twelve?

Speaking of Eve and Carolyn, I think this was the finest hour for both of the characters this season. For the first time since Kenny’s death, both are acting exactly how one would expect them to act: Slowly emerging from their initial fog to see that the pieces on the game board have moved significantly in their absence, but still not quite being able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Eve correctly figuring out that Villanelle was not in Poland felt absolutely right. This is the one person she knows on a level beyond anyone else in the world – she knows what Villanelle will do, how she does it, and nothing about poor Niko’s impaling matched her MO. Sandra Oh was great this week, as Eve pushed all her emotional turmoil to the side (which is so completely true to the character – although we don’t have much time left for the delicate house of cards Eve has built around her grief and pain to collapse and force her to deal with everything she’s been ignoring) and tried to become the MI5 agent she once was. Eve being back in the game – even if she’s in denial about several things – makes the show far more engaging.

And the same goes for Carolyn, who has been sidelined for most of the season. Now that Carolyn has begun acknowledging that something is happening right under her nose with Geri and Konstantin (her means of extracting the information from Konstantin were masterful, even if she got more than she bargained for in the exchange), we might finally get to see her really dig into the mystery she (and the show) should have been focusing on from the beginning. And, perhaps, we might get some coherent explanation for just how The Twelve factor into this all. Carolyn likely holds far more information than she has shared with Eve, Konstantin, or us, so it’s time for the writers to start filling in the necessary backstory to get us up to speed. At this point in the show, The Twelve are starting to feel a bit like the mysterious government officials in The X-Files – we constantly hear about them through minor agents of chaos, yet we never get a clear picture as to just who they are and what they want. It’s time to start providing answers so we can truly understand what our characters are up against.

Which brings me to the Villanelle storyline. I’m still flummoxed at the show pushing the narrative that something about her encounter with her estranged family awakened emotions deep within her and has led her to some emotional crossroads. I fully accept that some element of her fuck up with the Ukrainian politician was the result of her anger at getting what she asked for from The Twelve – her new title and all the other perks – while still being treated like nothing more than a contract killer, but the writers seem to be hinting that there’s some emotional turmoil boiling within our psychopath. And that troubles me.

If we’re going to start changing key cornerstones of characters at season three, well, then there are bigger issues at hand  with the series as a whole than an unfocused season arc. Now, it’s entirely possible Villanelle is simply trying these emotions on for size and attempting to perform what she thinks someone in her situation should be feeling – but if that’s the case, we need to spend the time seeing that this is purely performative. Her influence over Irina speaks to it being performative (manipulate her into killing her mother’s boyfriend because Villanelle cannot handle or process her own sense of jealousy at Konstantin rejecting her for his daughter – that petty reaction is textbook Villanelle), but I sense the series wants to take Villanelle to places that they can’t and are trying to have their cake and eat it too. It’s a tight line to tread, and I worry we’re in danger of fully falling off before the end of the season.

Final Thoughts:

— Ok, what is up with all the insanely fast traveling folks are doing this season? Sure, planes get you around Europe quickly (on the whole), but we’ve got characters jumping all over the European map so quickly I have no real sense of how long has passed since the start of the season – hell, even how much time has passed since last episode.

— The meeting between Dasha and Eve was . . . odd. They clearly needed to have a confrontation, sans Villanelle, but I’m not sure this was what it should have been. It felt far too loose, which isn’t Eve’s style at all even if it is Dasha’s, and all it really did was let both women see who they are up against. Also, how did Eve learn exactly where Dasha was? Where is this specific intel from?

— Good for poor Niko for telling Eve to piss off forever. Sure, he wasn’t the best character, but he didn’t deserve the utter hell he went through. Taking him out of the picture makes it clearer than ever that a major choice is coming for Eve, perhaps by season’s end: Is she going to accept Villanelle into her life or is she going to make a move to ensure that Villanelle never gets close to her again?