Killing Eve Season 3 Remains a Devilish Delight

In its third season, BBC America’s Killing Eve again subverts a typical anthology format. Usually it’s the same lead writer / executive producer and a different story each season. With Killing Eve, it’s the same story and a different lead writer / executive producer. This time around, Suzanne Heathcote takes the reins for the latest chapter focusing on the unique relationship between beleaguered agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and flamboyant assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer), which picks up some time after the latter shot the former to end Season 2.

That moment mirrored the end of the first season, when Eve surprises both herself and Villanelle with a knife stab, a thematic motif that darts through the new episodes. Eve remains uncertain in how to process her feelings towards Villanelle—if they are sexual, obsessive, or perhaps something else entirely—and often conflates them with violence. She gave herself over to that in those first two seasons, allowing it to effectively end her marriage and ruin her career. In return, we find her alone in a crappy apartment, working odd hours in the kitchen of a restaurant, drinking too much, and spending her nights with Cup Noodles while Villanelle believes she’s dead. In a way, she is.

Heathcote makes a decision to keep Eve and Villanelle separated (minus one brief and surprising scene) for the first five episodes available for review. There’s more to explore with them apart, although Eve’s story again suffers when not closely tied to Villanelle. Of course the sartorially-minded superstar assassin is the more interesting thread to follow, especially as Season 3 seeks to uncover more of her past. But (so far) it doesn’t do the same for Eve, who again often feels secondary to her own story as she faces a personal wilderness.

Villanelle, meanwhile, is reunited with her assassin coach Dasha (an always exceptional Dame Harriett Walter, who also sparred with Comer in Starz’s The White Princess miniseries). Through Dasha, and later, Villanelle’s search for her family, we start to get context for our star killer that could prove tricky to navigate. On the one hand, filling out her backstory makes her more human; on the other, the series does an excellent job of reminding us (often) that Villanelle is a psychopath. (She kidnaps a baby for a laugh, whose mother she killed on her way up to a management position, although it’s Dasha who places the crying baby swiftly into a trash can. It’s okay, though. Really! I mean, kinda.) Is she beyond redemption? This is the silent question Eve struggles with, and there’s no sense of when or if the show will ever answer it. Regardless, for now, Villanelle (and Comer’s truly weird and wonderful performance) remains a centerpiece—despite some overplayed flourishes like the idea that Villanelle has put in enough effort to have a fiancée (and then, just as quickly, doesn’t).