Why It’s Time for ‘Killing Eve’ to Go There with Eve and Villanelle
On paper, Killing Eve is the story of an MI-6 agent hunting down a world-class assassin.
In actuality, it’s the story of two complex women who can’t seem to let go of one another, a deeply fascinating cat and mouse game with plenty of dark and messy layers.
Over the series’ three seasons to date, the tumultuous relationship between Eve Polastri (the MI6 agent) and Villanelle (the assassin) has run the gamut from enemies to uneasy partners, frenemies to something maybe more than friends.
They’ve taunted and chased one another, dropped off gifts and grisly calling cards, even left one another for dead at various points. Their relationship thus far has been the very definition of chaotic, with no real clear endgame in sight.
While Killing Eve has been careful to acknowledge the very real attraction between the two women, it’s been equally cagey about formally putting a name to whatever this thing is that’s between them.
Do they want to kill each other? Make out with one another? Be one another? Maybe all of the above at once?
Killing Eve Season 3 Episode 8, “Are You Leading Or Am I?,” ended with Villanelle and Eve simultaneously together and apart, staring longingly at one another across Tower Bridge and paralyzed by their inability to either commit or walk away.
On some level, this feels like a metaphor for the show itself writ large, as Killing Eve has repeatedly found itself retreading the same narrative ground in an attempt to not have to make a decision about what these two women are to one another, using the extreme weirdness of its leads’ push-pull dynamic as justification.
That needs to change next season.
It’s time for Killing Eve to not just acknowledge the truth of the feelings Villanelle and Eve have for one another, but to allow them to act on them.
This is a move that makes sense. After three seasons of being utterly unable to kill or arrest one another despite their best efforts, it is the natural next step for the pair — and the series.
Killing Eve has already proven that — for whatever reason — Villanelle and Eve can’t live without one another. And, what’s more, they don’t want to. Whatever it is that exists between them is definitely deeply messed up, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
So where does the show go from here?
The crux of Killing Eve’s premise turns on the obsession between Eve and Villanelle, and the way the two can’t stay away from one another’s orbit, even when it would probably be the best decision for both of them.
So, let’s put them together and see what happens.
Is this a good idea? In all honesty, we don’t know. And we can’t know.
But at this point, the story has exhausted every reason that might keep them apart. (And let’s be real: they’re not going to let Eve finally catch Villanelle and put her in jail for her crimes.)
Watching Eve and Villanelle attempt to navigate a real relationship — whether that involves the two of them on the run, both working for MI-6, or something else entirely — will at least be a new story for these characters.
There’s every chance that this is a terrible decision for both of them and that getting what they’ve each pined after for so long will be a disaster of potentially life-threatening proportions.
But sometimes you have to see a thing through, no matter the consequences, and that’s kind of where Eve and Villanelle’s story feels as though it is at the moment.
There’s only so long you can postpone the inevitable, after all.
Even if Eve and Villanelle’s romance is ultimately doomed to be an ill-fated one, we can’t know that for sure until we see it play out onscreen. (And in a more deliberate and concrete way than the vague finale decision to put them together for half the episode without actually putting them together.)
It’s not like there isn’t plenty of story to be mined there.
After all, Eve has basically admitted that she no longer wants things like a husband and a nice house because of Villanelle. She gleefully tried to kill Dasha. Eve’s spiraling into darkness at a fairly rapid rate.
Meanwhile, Villanelle is exploring the idea of a different kind of life – one that doesn’t include killing – for what is possibly the first time ever.
That’s a legitimate relationship conflict, and it’s one that could be just as interesting as the cat and mouse chase that came before.
The appeal of Killing Eve has always primarily been about the push and pull between its two fascinating leading ladies.
Part of that is due to the incredible chemistry between stars Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh. But it’s also because these women each see each other as the answer for something that’s desperately lacking in their lives.
That doesn’t change just because they admit they love each other. In fact, the addition of a romantic (and, presumably, sexual) element to their relationship will just make things messier and more complicated than they were before.
In the end, a series can only spin its wheels for so long. Give the fans what they want, let Eve and Villanelle say the L-word to each other, and just go for it, whole-heartedly.
At least then Killing Eve will feel like it’s going somewhere again, narratively speaking.
What do you want to see in the next season of Killing Eve? Let us know in the comments.
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Lacy Baugher
Lacy is a pop culture enthusiast and television critic who loves period dramas, epic fantasy, space adventures, and the female characters everyone says you're supposed to hate. Ninth Doctor enthusiast, Aziraphale girlie, and cat lady, she's a member of the Television Critics Association and Rotten Tomatoes-approved. Find her at LacyMB on all platforms.
3 comments
Awesome piece and I agree wholeheartedly. Let these two women be together and see where the series can take the relationship. It could be very funny and intriguing. The books made it happen so why can’t the series??
I agree with everything except for the assumption they’re almost automatically doomed to fail as a couple, which after season 3 should not really be the case. Oh, it could get one or both of them killed, yes, but last season they both had considerable growth(even if Eve’s character was sidelined, which was a big fail in my opinion) and they actually do understand each other in a way no one else does, they see through each other without words even and I think they can complement each other.
I think that for the flow of the story and even for time management(it would free up a lot of screentime if the leads were together instead of having to split the episode to show 2 different perspectives and if there was just one conflict to deal with, them vs the 12) it is absolutely the natural step forward for Eve and Villanelle to be together. Also, if they don’t become a couple and a team, if that’s not the next step, then in my mind it sort of makes everything that happened have 0 meaning, there’d be no payoff and it’d mean all these things they went through, all they gave up because of this irresistible pull and connection towards the other, was for nothing or for very little…which is immensely unsatisfying in a story. It’s like climbing a big mountain only to have to stop 20 meters from the top abd without a good view.
More so, Killing Eve isn’t supposed to be some depressing, case study in bad relationships and bad people type drama but rather a fun,clever, quirky, funny spy dramedy with a heart. I’m baffled by how producers/writers on the show are always making sure to say things like “ah, you know, they’re bad, they’re toxic, they can’t work together, it’s a mess” . Point is I really doubt they’d be so relentlessly negative and dismissive of the romantic if instead of Eve and Villanelle it was Eve and Steve. After all, it’s common for troubled, morally dubious characters, way worse than Villanelle actually is, to get a fair, positive chance at love and redemption when said character is male, so why would 2 morally grey women be unable to have a romantic relationship that works and fulfills them?
It’s starting to smell a little of … not queerbaiting or homophobia but a bias nonetheless, unintentional but there. I don’t know if it’s that they think a romance is beneath Killing Eve’s level or that viewers outside the fandom would not appreciate it(i.e appreciate it like they would a f/m one cause everyone appreciates a good romance) or if maybe their bias makes them undervalue, underestimate the potential for love and feelings there between the 2 women, but it is a bias. I’ve been pretty disappointed by their continued avoidance of the romantic when talking about Eve and Villanelle’s relationship, which is very layered and complex, yes, but the romantic isn’t just an aspect but rather the relationship is a romantic one that contains all these layers. There’s really been pretty much no mention of that unless absolutely necessary and if the s3 finale had happened between a man and a woman, the romance of it would be front and center.
No. Villanelle needs to kill Eve. The end.
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