A review of Desperate Times, this weeks Killing Eve, coming up just as soon as I tell you which Doctor Who companion I fantasize about most
Midway through Desperate Times, an irritated Niko suggests that their familys new security guard is there to protect him and Eve from Villanelle. This is a logical assumption, and an accurate one, but Eve doesnt want her husband to know how much Villanelle has taken over her professional and emotional lives. So she becomes obnoxiously defensive, insisting as Carolyn did to her at the end of last weeks episode that her job involves far more than the hunt for one assassin, and Niko is being silly for suggesting otherwise.
Niko wisely doesnt buy into this attempt at gaslighting. But that argument and the episode as a whole hangs a lamp on an ongoing challenge for the series now that its meant to be around for at least three seasons (and probably more, based on how long, say, Orphan Black lingered). Killing Eve cant just involve the two main characters making moves and countermoves at each other. It needs to have more potential stories, and to be able to occasionally lean on other characters, or itll be burnt out long before BBC America tells the latest showrunner to wrap everything up. But to this point, the series is just so much more compelling when its focusing on Eve vs. Villanelle.
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Desperate Times is about the two women trying, with varying degrees of success, to take their minds off of one another. Eve, chastened by her screw-up with Konstantin, throws herself wholeheartedly into the search for The Ghost, and soon proves that her obsessive personality can be effectively applied to more than one female assassin. Villanelle, on the other hand, struggles to amuse herself performing a revenge killing in Amsterdam. Really, though, shes just trying to attract Eves attention, and when Carolyn instead sends Jess(*) there to investigate, it sets Villanelle off on a dangerous, drug-fueled night at a club.
(*) Im starting to get nervous about Chekhovs Pregnant Belly whenever we spend too much time with Jess, given how dangerous this job is and how many of Eves colleagues have already been murdered by Villanelle. Hopefully, her pregnancy is just there as another of the shows commentaries on the things women have to put up with that men dont. But well see.
Theres even an attempt to further expand the shows fictional universe by following Carolyn to a meeting with her own inscrutable boss, Helen (Zoe Wannamaker), a scattered but intimidating woman with colorful socks and a can of Pringles(*). Its actually one of the episodes more purely entertaining scenes, not only for showing us a new, more flustered side of Carolyn, but for conveying the different ways that female power can present itself. There are moments where Helen seems utterly oblivious to whats happening, but she is also unquestionably in charge of things, and Carolyns post-meeting anxiety felt entirely appropriate.
(*) Never has TV better conveyed the idea of stress-eating than when Helen tosses the Pringles can into the trash to prevent herself from having more, only to fish it out moments later and resume snacking.
For this hour, at least, Killing Eve manages to make the separation of the two leads nearly as compelling as their interactions. Its hard to care much about who wants to kill everyone connected to Aaron Peels father, and why. But the pursuit of The Ghost herself is fascinating because of how thoroughly Eve throws herself into it. Sandra Oh plays this kind of focused mania so well, and we see how reckless Eve becomes from the euphoria of doing the job well. When she chased Villanelle, she fell in love with her. The Ghost is a more abstract figure until Eve meets her as the assassin is dropping her kids off at school, so instead her attraction turns to, of all people, Hugo. She seems more than willing to let her sexist young colleague kiss her until theyre both saved from the hovering transgression by a text from Kenny. And even before the attempted kiss, theres a flirtatious euphoria to their conversation inside the chicken shop. She doesnt like Hugo, but she has to let these feelings out on somebody, and Niko is both out of the loop and rightly ticked off at her at the moment.
Villanelle, meanwhile, stages her most baroque murder yet, pairing a dirndl and a pig mask to publicly murder a cheating husband in front of a crowd of red light district tourists and the mans vengeful wife. Its visually impressive, but Villanelle feels nothing from it. Her night at the club, where she nearly strangles a woman to death for cutting in front of her in the bathroom, is even more reckless than what Eves up to with Hugo.
We conclude with our two leads hundreds of miles apart, each studying her reflection in a mirror. Eve is composing herself, feeling confident as she prepares to interrogate The Ghost while Carolyn observes her from the next room. Villanelle is crying, trying to make herself feel better about her current circumstances, and perhaps brainstorming a new plan to get with her current angel of the morning (as a Dutch cover of the soft-rock classic plays).
For this week, Eve is doing much better at establishing a life beyond Villanelle than vice versa. Killing Eve as a whole will have to keep being diligent about doing the same for both women, even as it provides us with those periodic magic moments where their paths cross again.