Killing Eve – Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey Review

One of my chief complaints with the second season of Killing Eve was that the series lacked any real stakes. The season was built around the premise that Eve and Villanelle would work together, which meant that despite Villanelle’s penchant for extreme violence in the name of dealing with her twisted attraction to Eve*, we (and the team at MI6) were supposed to put her past to the side (but not forget it, naturally) and accept her as “good” for the bulk of the season. So, we did, and as a result the season lacked the thrumming tension of season one. Sure, it dripped in sexual tension between the show’s two leads (and that was all well and good – and if you ship the pair, I suspect you enjoyed season two a lot more that I ultimately did), but the sense of danger in the cat and mouse game of season one was gone. And that was a shame. I never truly worried for the fate of any of the show’s characters like I did back in the show’s stellar first season.

*Just wanted to clarify that it’s not Villanelle’s attraction to Eve that is twisted – that’s the one thing I definitely believe about the character – she really does want Eve. But as she’s a psychopath who lacks the emotional ability to love someone, everything in how she expressed this attraction is twisted in its nature (as we have seen time and again).

All of that is a long set-up to say: It looks like this season of Killing Eve is going to have some stakes. Sure, Kenny’s death was rather predictable. He’s left the shelter of MI6 (and with it, his mother, although he’s still living at home – London rental prices are insane, after all), and is trying to make his way in the world. Yet you can take the spy hacker out of the spook game but you can’t take the spook out of the spy hacker. Searching for information on The Twelve while on a (presumably) open network? Meeting up with Eve and telling her about his new plan to keep digging into the powerful cabal for more information? Finally getting a backbone and standing up to mum? Yeah, definitely about to die. Couple that with the mysterious phone call Konstantin received, well, it looks like Eve is getting pulled back into the spy game. Just when she thought she was out . . .

Look, we all knew something would happen to bring Eve back to the spy life. That’s just the nature of the series. I don’t begrudge the series using Kenny’s death as the impetus this time around. Although, I can’t help but wonder just how long her connection to Villanelle will be enough to keep her coming back for more. She lost her best friend to Villanelle in season one, she lost her (admittedly failing, mostly through Eve’s own lack of participation) marriage and almost her own life in season two, and now she’s lost Kenny. That’s a lot to lose and still want to keep pushing to find justice. Yes, it’s the structure of the series, but I’m anticipating this Eve to be even less engaged in the spy craft than the other versions of her. This is a woman who has truly lost everything. She either has nothing left to lose (let’s be honest, poor Niko doesn’t really matter to the story anymore) or she has the most important thing left: herself.

While the possibility of Eve sacrificing everything one final time (as much as I enjoy the series, despite its flaws, I really cannot see them churning through this same exercise again for a fourth season barring a major shake-up at season’s end) is interesting, I’m finding I’m less enthused at the prospect of Villanelle trying to move on up in the organization through a competition with Dasha, the OG Villanelle. Now, I’m a massive fan of both Jodie Comer and new cast member Harriet Walter (a brilliant, RSC-trained actress whose had a lot of success in smaller roles on TV over the years), so I do not doubt for a second that the scenes will be wonderfully acted. But I find that I’m less excited at the prospect of watching Villanelle as an assassin again.

And herein lies the trouble with a series built upon the relationship between a psychopath assassin and a “normal” MI6 agent who secretly relishes the emotional darkness that relationship brings to her: Villanelle is never going to become someone capable of emotional depth (and if she does, well, that betrays the entire premise of the character and the series). So, either Eve fully gives into her attraction to the darkness Villanelle represents and falls from grace or she kills Villanelle.* The series can drag it out for as long as it wants, but cycling through the same arc over and over will become less and less compelling as the series continues.

*If you’re watching Killing Eve largely for the interplay between Villanelle and Eve, might I suggest you check out the series Hannibal? It is grounded on a similar relationship between predator and prey, yet manages to balance the interpersonal relationship between the leads and the overall arc of the series pretty darn perfectly. Frankly, Killing Eve could learn a thing or two from it. It’s currently streaming on Amazon.

So, I’m hopeful that Killing Eve has realized that it needs to have stakes to compel the narrative forward – there cannot be any sacred cows among the characters if it wants to capture the sense of foreboding that haunted season one. It also needs to develop its supporting cast to make the series compelling once again. Villanelle is a great villain. Sandra Oh is sensational as Eve. And the rest of the cast is incredible. Give them more to do. Take some of the pressure off the relationship between Eve and Villanelle to allow the series to breathe a bit more. “Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey” did just that by giving us a deeper dive into Kenny, only to remove him from the game board immediately after. If we care about the characters, we’ll care about their fate. Focus less on the killing and intrigue and more on the humanity behind our non-psychopathic characters. Then let us worry about what might befall them once Villanelle gets them in her cross-hairs. I’m willing to take this ride again, but it needs to be better focused and willing to go all-in on character and story. Let’s see what else they have in store for us on this journey.

Final Thoughts:

— Villanelle’s weird wedding seemed to just be a silly vehicle to introduce Dasha, but I still hope there’s some explanation for it. How much time has passed since the second season finale? Why did she end up in Spain getting married to someone that vapid? I doubt we’ll actually get an explanation, but the whole scene just felt weird and not thought out.

— The big question, of course, is who killed Kenny. I’m assuming it’s Konstantin, as he’s the only person with the means and motive (get Eve back in the game to neutralize Villanelle; get back at Carolyn for something; make Villanelle notice that Eve is still alive), and I really don’t want to deal with another outside baddie this round. Although, considering I’m aware of a couple new characters we’re going to meet this season, I could very well be wrong.

— With the addition of Harriet Walter, Killing Eve remains the series with the deepest bench on TV. Even with the story isn’t quite working as well as it should, the caliber of the cast means the series works a hell of a lot better than it has any right to.