Killing Eve‘s 4×04 “It’s Agony and I’m Ravenous,” including the quite literal nature of the episode title, is just as much about Eve as it is about Villanelle. You know, the actual heart of the show that the showrunners want to keep apart even though the number of episodes is dwindling. That heart. And if there’s anything this episode proves, once again, it’s that Eve has her own agenda and that doesn’t involve Villanelle. This is utterly heartbreaking when Villanelle just professed her love for Eve in “A Rainbow in Beige Boots.”
But are we really surprised? The Eve from season 4 is absolutely shocking and barely recognizable. Yes, she carried some of the traits she’s amplifying this season for ages. But whatever trigger that got her to go ham on them and forget the woman we’ve come to know for seasons, well, that’s just wild and something we don’t know about. And we’re just left twiddling our thumbs, waiting and hoping to get some explanation for how she got here from where we last left her on that bridge.
And don’t even get me started on the bond that has formed between Eve and Helene. On one hand, we’re like, “Get it, Eve. Enter your villain stage!” On another hand, we’re shocked that the Killing Eve writers would give Eve and Helene a real kiss full of passion, lust, and hunger… but they won’t do that for Eve and Villanelle. How does that fit narrative-wise? Because this is something coming from more than a shippers perspective. This is coming from a writing perspective.
Make it make sense, Killing Eve writers.
Because right now, we’re lost and don’t know how the “meek analyst” became this cold user who revels in the power that she holds over others in the same way that Villanelle has done for ages. It’s just…this show is toxic, twisted, and messy. But at the heart of it has always been Eve and Villanelle mooning over each other. And now we’re sitting there wondering if we made it up in our heads and didn’t actually watch what we think we watched.
Even Villanelle was all over the place. She’s fought so hard against this projection that everyone else places upon her of who she is. She’s said that she doesn’t want this life of being an assassin anymore. But that scene in the bed with the member of The Twelve…Villanelle enjoyed it. And honestly, we haven’t seen that look on her face for ages. It does admittedly feel like coming back home for Killing Eve. But it also feels like they took all development and went, “Well, I guess I’ve always been like this. Maybe I need some more money to start unaliving people!”
Doesn’t that feel like going backward for us as viewers? Because it very so much feels like that way from where we’re sitting, watching a new assassin being trained while in all reality, the two leads need to guide the show. And Carolyn doesn’t count because she’s been there from the very start. If anything, it felt like the show coming full circle by giving us Villanelle and Carolyn meeting up to make things like an air guitar moment come true. They were simply magic and really left the viewer wanting a spin-off of these two being a duo.
But we can’t because this show is called Killing Eve and not Villanelle and Carolyn go on adventures. If anything, we’re getting closer to the eventual ending that we’ve been dreading but that has been at the back of our minds: Villanelle is going to kill Eve. The show title being what it is, we should’ve known. We thought they’d continue playing this game of cat and mouse forever. But with the roles reversed and Eve now the cat, there are little options left besides destroying Eve before she steps all over someone else’s life like Villanelle has done since the start.
Killing Eve airs Sundays at 8/7c on BBC America.