Killing Eve Review: Still Got It (Season 3 Episode 4)
It’s all about choices on Killing Eve Season 3 Episode 4, “Still Got It,” which breaks with the show’s typically linear narrative, structuring itself instead around a series of character-centric vignettes.
These stories maintain a narrow perspective, focusing on the deeply personal desires and motives that contribute to each character’s decision-making. But as the lens widens to admit more characters — not just Eve and Villanelle, but also tangential figures like Dasha and Konstantin — it becomes clear that their actions are all hopelessly entangled.
For each choice that a character makes, there exists somewhere a pair of unseen hands, pulling the strings of their decisions.
Owen McDonnell as Niko Polastri – Killing Eve _ Season 3, Episode 4 – Photo Credit: Des Willie/BBCAmerica/Sid Gentle
Things are not going well for Eve, who has begun sleeping at the Bitter Pill offices. This could be interpreted as a sign of devotion to her work, but her response to Villanelle’s latest gift — a birthday cake in the form of a London bus, which is of course a cheeky call-back to their encounter in the previous episode — is illuminating.
As she tosses the cake off the roof (a scene that rather sickeningly mirrors Kenny’s fate in the season opener), she lets out a cry of mingled regret and horror, as if she’s disgusted by her own sentimental attachment to the gift.
This emotional confusion is mirrored a few scenes later, as Eve recoils in fear at the sight of a teddy bear. After the initial terror has passed, she picks it up and asks it plaintively, “What do you want from me?”
Her tone is surprisingly soft; there’s no anger or malice in the question, just helpless, embarrassed bewilderment.
These emotional layers are communicated beautifully by Sandra Oh, whose expressive reactions perfectly capture the warring impulses behind Eve’s decisions. She fears and reviles Villanelle, and yet continues to regard her with a fascination that borders on tenderness.
Despite all of that, Eve is trying to learn from her past mistakes. When given the opportunity to choose between pursuing her work and pursuing her husband, she chooses Niko.
The decision is in some ways a deeply selfish one; after everything that poor man has been through, the kinder choice would be to let him go. He deserves a chance to escape the net of violence that he unwittingly got caught up in.
But Eve actually thinks she’s being selfless in that moment, setting her own emotional turmoil aside and making the grand romantic gesture of flying across the continent to make things right with Niko — only to watch him die right in front of her, as a pawn in a much larger game.
The choice Eve believed she was making of her own free will was, in fact, not hers to make. It was Dasha who lured her there, just as it was Dasha’s boss in turn who forced her into that course of action.
Each vignette in this episode ultimately builds toward the same revelation: every character on Killing Eve is being manipulated. Some of them, like Dasha, are all too aware of it; others, like Villanelle, still naively believe that their choices are their own.
Aside from making these layers of manipulation plain, “Still Got It” lays the groundwork for a rift between Eve and Villanelle that could very well impact their relationship for the rest of the season.
Whatever fond feelings Eve still had will likely disappear if she believes, as Dasha intends her to, that Niko’s blood is on Villanelle’s hands.
The events of this episode may harden Eve in a way there’s no going back from.
Villanelle, on the other hand, is on the opposite emotional trajectory. She seems to harbor no ill will toward Eve, but rather a hope for a happy reunion. She is also nervous, in a way we’ve never seen before, at the prospect of meeting her family.
This episode is a measuring stick for just how far these two characters have been pushed past their respect comfort zones. Each of them has lost whatever sense of control they thought they possessed, and every decision heaps on more emotional weight.
What did you think of this episode of Killing Eve? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Killing Eve airs Sundays at 9/8c on BBC America and AMC.
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Ariel Udel
Ariel fell in love with storytelling on the night Flight 815 crashed on a mysterious island, and has been blogging about television ever since. She has an affinity for messy female anti-heroes and an enduring love of Battlestar Galactica, Xena: Warrior Princess, Lost, and Halt and Catch Fire.
3 comments
I loved this episode (and season 3 in general) yet it it was heartbreakingly sad for Eve…again. The story telling in this episode was very well done and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season. Sandra and Fiona are having a great season acting wise
How Sandra Oh chose to play the reaction to Niko being murdered was exceptional. So different, so many nuances, a ton of different facial expressions within the moment. Brilliant.
Usually not a fan of the “viewer knows more than the chracter”-trobe. Hopefully, Eve will figure out sooner rather than later (meaning the last episode of the series) that it could not have Villanelle who murdered Niko. She knows how V operates and that “Still go it”-note doesn’t add up to being V’s creation. And the handwriting is different. Eve is normally great at picking up on the smallest clues. But struck with grief she could also just see red!
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