Okay, remember last week when I said Killing Eve wasn’t that gory? Well this Killing Eve Recap starts off with a very bloody killing in Bulgaria with Villanelle killing some poor Bulgarian guy who worked in an office. Was that girl on the bus calling her mom just a way to show society’s indifference to murders? Or will she be seen later in the season? My guess is the former, but who knows?
Back in London, Eve goes to meet Carolyn, the head spy lady over at MI6 for breakfast. After she got fired last week for getting a few people killed, the security crew went through her laptop. There it was discovered that she had complied a dossier on Villanelle. Carolyn was impressed with her work. Carolyn takes Eve to what will soon become her new office, she pauses on the doorstep and says,
“I once saw a rat drink from a can of coke there. Both hands. Extraordinary.”
After going through a series of locked doors, they enter Eve’s new office. The walls were strewn with photos and diagrams of Villanelle’s killings around the globe and information about the victims. Carolyn immediately apologizes for the smell. Eve says,”It’s like I’ve walked in to the inside of my brain.” She wonders why she is being selected for this job when there are certainly more qualified people. Carolyn basically explains that it is an unofficial investigation. She has already been fired so she is completely expendable. Oh!… and there is hardly any money to pay anyone. Then Kenny comes busting through the door. He too apologizes for the smell. Kenny is a computer expert and hacker that will be helping her find the killer.
Villanelle has returned home to her apartment where she finds her boss/handler Konstantin inside. He doesn’t want her going out on any more jobs until she is “assessed again.” Apparently, she is even more psychotic than usual. She was supposed to make the witness she killed look like a suicide. Instead she slit her throat and killed four other people. She replied, “It happens.” A shrink does a shoddy assessment when he asked if she has been feeling any stress or anxiety she replies,
“I had quite a heavy period last week, but other than that I think I’m okay.”
I laughed at that for some reason. When asked about how she felt when the last mark begged her not to kill him because he is a father and offered to pay her, she replied, “impatient.” They showed her a photo of a person who was hanged. No emotion. then a dog that was hanged, and she pretended to feel something to fake the doctor out, then started laughing that she fooled him. The doctor says she is fine.
Konstantin says he has another question for her. He hands it to the shrink.
“Do you still have dreams about Anna?”
I can’t quite peg the language that question was asked in. There was also a picture of a woman with no face and dark hair. She say’s that’s not Anna. That’s my mother. Then she says, “I’m joking. My mother has really thin, shitty hair.”
I should point out that the photo with no face somehow manages to look like Eve. And if you recall, Eve has this thing she does when she gets nervous or has something on her mind. She goes to the bathroom and messes with her hair. That is what she was doing when Villanelle came into the bathroom at the hospital right before she went rogue with her assignment and killed five people instead of one.
Based on the final question, it is decided she will not be sent out on the next assignment. Konstantin and the shrink leave. She chases after Konstantin begging for the assignment. She is not pleased. The next one has asthma and he knows how much she likes the breathy ones!
Postcards From The Edge
Konstantin seems to truly care for her well-being. When she gives him an unexpected fake hug, she stole the postcard with the next assignment on it. Konstantin told her to relax, enjoy Paris and go do something normal.
So when her cute neighbor, Sebastian comes knocking on the door, she literally says, “let’s go do something normal.” He chooses a walk through Paris eating ice cream. Villanelle is distracted by a woman with thick dark hair who happens by. Then she looks at Sebastian and says in her very flat affect, “I want to see your apartment.” It is there that she fucks his brains out. He manages to live until morning, which shocked me. Villanelle gets up the next day and says she has to go to work. He wishes her luck selling her perfume.
Next, we see Villanelle making some “perfume.”
Back in London, (excuse the smell) Eve was allowed to hire two people to work with her and Kenny to find the killer. Of course she chooses, Bill her old boss that got fired with her last week, and her former assistant Elena. Bill is not sold on the female serial killer bit at all. There is no hard evidence to tie any of the murders together. When Bill tells her that she can’t lead an investigation with the assumption that they are looking for one woman behind all of these murders, Eve starts to bristle.
She asks for a bathroom and stands in front of the mirror doing her hair thing, She takes it out of the bun and shakes it out. When she does that, she remembers a nurse who as in the bathroom with her last week just before the murders. Perhaps she might have seen something. Actually, she saw it all because she is the killer. She asks Kenny to pull up all the photos of nurses on duty the night the witness, and four others were killed.
Bill Is Being A Monkey Dick
Then, she has to go chase down Bill who has “left in a sulk.” Bill says he is just going for some chocolate. Eve says it seems like he is just being a monkey dick for not being a boss. Last week I added dickswab to my lexicon of insults, now this. I love this show. Bill says that the female killer is not the person to focus on, it is the people who hire her. Eve says they have to focus on her first to get to “they.”
Villanelle takes her new bottle of perfume and dashes off in a black and white waitstaff outfit and begins pouring wine at a major French political campaign event. The candidate thanks a woman named Carla for being the largest donor to the party and a devout feminist. When Carla goes to powder her nose, Villanelle follows hers. A man tries to stop her from using the private lavatory instead of the staff facilities, she flashes a tampon and says that she was asked to bring it. I mean, who is going to question that?
Once she is alone in the bathroom with her mark, she tells her she is a huge fan and she too is trying to build her own cosmetics company and how much she admires her for paving the way in the field. She even named her perfume after her, “Carla.” She places the deadly scent on the counter. Carla sprays her wrist and says she can’t smell anything and before she can get out the whole “good luck, now go away” sentiment, she is dead on the bathroom floor as Villanelle gleefully watches her expire.
Time To Ambush The Dickswab
The three former employees of MI5, now employed by MI6, go out to ambush their former boss, the dickswab, at the pub. He had claimed there was CCTV of the person who killed the witness they were supposed to be protecting and it was male. Eve wants to prove to Bill that Frank was lying. Frank is drunk and apparently his wife recently died and he had no friends at work. He’s a sad little man with nothing to lose and he admits that he lied about the CCTV because he was sick of Eve always piping up with conspiracy theories that were outside the parameters of her job.
Eve and Bill pretend to feel badly when Frank leaves until they both realized the other didn’t feel badly at all. That night, Eve tells her husband about her new super secret job. He doesn’t seem to mind. I am pretty sure you are not allowed to tell your family about your spy job. It would also seem to open the whole family up to risk.
What Kind Of Psychopath Makes Unscented Perfume?
Konstantin blasts in to Villanelle’s apartment and chokes her up against the wall. He tells her he is halving her allowance. She replies, “I wouldn’t recommend that.” She disobeyed him because he told her it was not possible. Now she has proven him wrong.
They are in a minor sort if physical situation when Sebastian busts in with take out. Sebastian is not going to be long for this world if he keeps this up. Villanelle tells him she will catch up with him in a few minutes. He gives her a small chocolate and promises to keep dinner warm. Sebastian asks about the perfume sales and how it went. He wants to smell it. She deflects and he leaves unsupervised. On his way out, he spots the perfume on the top of her bag she dropped in the foyer and picks it up.
Caught In A Bad Romance
As soon as the door closes, Konstantin says, “You need to deal with him.” I don’t think that will be a problem anymore. Villanelle is on a killer’s high and is in no mood for Konstantin. She said that he told her there would be security and there was not. He lied to her. He says she just has to trust him. Then she pulls a knife on him. He tells here that there is a bureau investigating her in London. She’s flattered. He says it’s a problem. She asks the name of the person hunting for her and he tells her, Eve Polastri. This stupid. How easy this will be for her to find her now!
Suddenly there is a loud bang at the door. The two of them open the door to discover that Sebastian is dead outside the door and the take out was collateral damage as well. Villanelle turns to Konstantin gives a little shrug and says, “Dealt with.” Konstantin groans and gets on his phone, presumably to call a cleaner.
A Bridge Too Far
Villanelle gets in bed with her laptop to start googling Eve. Eve is online going through all of the nurses on duty at the hospital the night the witness was killed. Villanelle finds a photo of Nicholas Polastri, Eve’s husband with his entire bridge team including Eve. The kid that went with Eve to the hospital is also in the photo. Just like that Eve and the entire bridge club is in serious danger. Eve suddenly realizes that the killer was in a nurses uniform in the bathroom with her. When Bill comes in, she tells him, “I think I’ve met her.” And that is where my DVR ends so I don’t know what if anything was shown for next week but do come back for next episode’s Killing Eve Recap!
Body count this episode: 3.
This is so well done, but so without heart of soul.. I am torn about continuing to record, but it is still set to record.
Great recap!
Yeah, shows about a psychopathic killer don’t usual have a lot of heart and soul. Might not be for you. I hate gory shows but this show is fascinating. Plus I will watch anything with backdrops in Europe and lots of foreign languages.
All good reasons to watch! The locales, languages, music and actors are excellent. I haven’t cut it off, so far. It might be too much, given the group that experimented on kids in my childhood.
Of course they were far more evil and calculating, so there is that.
Crime plus European sights – my reasons for watching. Plus, Jodie Comer in this role, since I think this cold, calculating killer is a good fit for her.
I also like Fiona Shaw and am happy to see her here.
No. Just. No. Watching this would be a sacrifice too far.
The woman riding a bus watched from HER window as a gory killing took place insde an office with large windows, but grabbed her phone not to call the police but to call someone else. I took that as being ironical in that the witness only accepted as real and (therefore) important something happening to HER on a DEVICE.
Also, I was wondering if the woman who was killed who was a feminist (overtly stated), was used to explain to the viewer the killer being a woman isn’t supposed to be interpreted as a feminist extraction but instead to show us that women are just as human and some terrifyingly empowered as certain men can be.
Here is my question. Is Eve actually old enough to be Villanelle’s mother? I found it interesting that Eve mentioned the killer likely scores high on the psychopathy scale. Does she have any sort of psychology background? She was basically a security guard with a strong fascination with serial killers. She seems like someone who would score high on the psychopathy scale herself. Sure people online make snap diagnoses of psychopathy and sociopathy all the time with no idea what they are talking about. Eve seems to know the proper jargon. Also, psychopathy has a strong heredity component so if Eve was Villanelle’s mother it would explain a lot of Eve’s ticks, like self harm and self soothing.
In real life the actresses who play them are 22 years apart so yes she’s old enough to play her mother. I’m still tripping off of the lady on the bus totally ignoring the murder! So thankful you are recapping the show!
Interesting. We don’t know the killer’s background, as pointed out by her “handler” in this latest show. Rather than being her mother though I’m thinking she has her own “issues”, probably also inherited, having decided on a career path that takes her on the opposite side of the law. Police, lawyers and doctors are all professions sociopaths tend to choose because they have more autonomy. Most never actually kill another human but have the capacity to do so without remorse.
What about the reference to the bad smell in the office though? What’s THAT about and during an episode when a perfume designer is killed by a scent-less perfume?
Thank you for recapping this and covering it in such detail. I no longer follow anything Bravo. I hope that more of your readers will follow this show and enjoy your recaps.
Thanks. It is very time consuming to recap. I am sort of taking a break from the site right now. Not completely, I am just not feeling like I have to do anything more than I feel capable of the next few days. I feel better already. I’ve worked on this recap over a couple of days without worrying about when it got up. I also stopped to walk the dog and pick some wild flowers. 🙂 So I appreciate the kind words.
AW, TT….you always do any recap justice!!
Glad you ate taking care of YOU!
Had no idea you were recapping this show. Thanks for letting me know. It’s been terrific so far. A “scents-less” murder! And how brilliant to think Eve is the mother. I don’t see it yet, though.
I am really loving Killing Eve and have high hopes for this show. so far it hasn’t disappointed. I’m still mourning the end of Orphan Black and sad that The Americans is ending. Hell I still miss the original Nikita series. At this point I am so over the housewife bs, New York has always been my favorite but after the last couple of seasons and this current, I feel a little sick to my stomach each time I watch.
In regards to the woman on bus, my interpretation may be too simple but I took it to mean that a sociopath could be anywhere, even seated on a bus right smack dab next to you.
Hope you continue to recap, love reading other perspectives.
I like that explanation of the girl on the bus. On Imposters TONIGHT AT NINE! Every little thing seems to have meaning or some sort of importance. Which makes me think nothing on this show is shown for no reason either.
We might all be reading into it.
I like that reason about the girl on the bus too. Not simple but brilliant. And TT, your recap bringing up the smell comment made by people entering Eve’s new office, what’s that about? All in an episode where a perfume designer is killed by a scentless perfume.
Oh WOW Rab! I think that is even more proof that neither Villanelle or Eva has a sense of smell. Eva never complained about how the office smelled and Villanelle either didn’t know or didn’t care that she made “perfume” with no scent.
They are REALLY giving lots of hints that Eve is either her mother, or Anna whoever that is. The hair picture immediately made me think of Eve. Maybe it is due to my poor facial recognition skills. When a housewife changes her hair, and I see her outside of her usual environment I don’t know who they are. That photo with the hair and no face SCREAMED Eve to me.
Why the hell would Konstantin tell Villanelle who he admits is worse off than usual the Eva’s full name? You know he KNOWS she will go after her. I guess he just wants her to kill her.
Sorry about repeating the “smells issue” question, my other response hadn’t shown up when I posted this.
Aha TT! Konstantin may have a rogue agent in Eve (kind of like the Bourne Trilogy) who knows too much? You’re good!
Omg the smell or lack of ability to smell! Thank you! I hadn’t put that together until it was mentioned here. Oh and here’s some info, my son recently was on antibiotics. One of the side effects… loss of smell.
I also agree that the point of a killer being among us is brilliant. It leads to the last scene when the gent is murdered in a crowd of people.
Tamara, thank you so much for the fabulous recaps. I would completely forget about this show without them. I’m enjoying Killing Eve so much – it’s different and we have the added bonus of the scenes of different cities. I had only seen the show up until the point where Sebastian came home, and can’t wait to see the rest.
I thought the girl on the bus was Villanelle and she was just reminiscing…I may have been a little distracted ?
Love the pink dress in that scene. It has a Edith Anne/Whatever Happened To Baby Jane kinda vibe lol
I love love love the wardrobe choices of Villanelle. She can pull anything off–she’s mesmerizing–and I can’t take my eyes off of her, accentuated by the European backdrop. LOL, almost like she’s channeling Erica Jane.
I was just about to start with Imposters, but I can’t get this show out of my head.
It’s bothering me that Eve’s husband had ZERO reaction to his security guard wife suddenly working to track down a female serial killer. He was all like? “Are you sure that is what you want to do? It sounds kind of dangerous, but whatever” My first reaction was about her telling him and my delayed reaction was about his response to the news?
Now I think HE is the one who told Konstantin about the her working there. The timeline lines up. It’s not Eve that is working with Konstantin it is her husband. And remember how they both talked about how they would kill each other in episode one?
Yeah, what’s up with Eve’s almost brain dead husband? I want backstory about their marriage. Keeps me watching for sure.
I would love the backstory too! It’s interesting her husband doesn’t seem to have more curiosity about Eve’s work
I’ve asked one of my language expert friends to try to identify the language that the shrink used to ask about Anna and the dreams. I will keep you posted if she watches the episode and gets back to me. Hopefully she will join us!
Well, so far they were talking in french, italian (anniversary party), polish (the killer)& broken polish (the older lady), type you is & he are. Then we have all that hospital drivel. The bridge circle seems to be polish speaking. Then they are talking russian, but not the killer, she is refusing to speak russian for some reason (not because she doesn’t know it). That’s the psych eval. I think. Then there was 1 more language, very quick & very short. I’d say bulgarian, croatian? – don’t quote me on the last one until I watch the damn thing again. I did dose off a bit, not because the show is boring, because 10 am is in a middle of the night for me, lately.
Love this show! Thank you foe suggesting it. I have my friends all watching this now. Interesting about the lack of smell to the perfume. I was just thinking t was because she didn’t care. Once she smelled it she would die and/or smell it again because she could not get the scent. The lady she saw while eating the ice cream, that is the second time she has noticed her. She is in the first eps.too. She must look like her mom or something.
These are the kind of books I like to read and there are not too many about women being sociopathic, so it’s super interesting to me.
I think Eve must have an interesting past. This might come out later, like what makes her tick.
Idk but my thoughts at the time were that adding scent would interfere with the effectiveness of the toxin and that the “perfume” having no discernible scent would lead the victim to breathe in a higher dose in an attempt to detect one.
Exactly!
Had it not been for the fact that everyone kept apologizing to Eve for the smell and her seeming to not even notice it, I would agree with you. I don’t think either one of them can smell. Again, that is just what I took from it.
Well, I appreciate that there seems to be a theme, but that leads to the perfume mogul also lacking a sense of smell. That’s getting to be a lot of people with no sense of smell.
What I think they are saying is she can’t smell so she wouldn’t think of adding a smell to it, like you would when making a perfume. She used poison only.
Scent can be added by formula. I’m sure the perfume mogul could smell and V didn’t add scent for practical reasons. People can smell something but not be bothered by it, i.e. the office smell. I took that as an indication that they were pointing out just how down-market in real estate the office is; the rats, the grubbiness, the toilet paper thefts, the smell, the low pay. To me, that was all part and parcel of setting up the parameters. Idk. Could be something more significant.
The perfume lady obviously CAN smell and there was nothing TO smell. Villanelle for whatever reason didn’t even attempt to give it a scent.
You have a good point Tamara. I had not thought of that when I was watching. I like the theory about not being able to smell (and Eve too). Very excited for Sunday. Thanks again for suggesting it.
I keep having flashbacks to Homeland episodes, especially with the dingy secret office location equipped with requisite IT-wizard-guy.
Is it me or does this season of Homeland suck? I like it way better when they were in Afganistan or wherever the hell they were and not stateside. And when a kid was not involved. It seems unnecessary to have the kid in danger at every turn.
I know, right? Waaaay too much about Carrie’s daughter, Frannie. I’ve been disappointed with the whole season, and I don’t care about the storyline with the president at all. I miss Quinn–maybe I should clarify, I miss Rupert Friend. Love him.
I love this show and I love this review. That ‘rat and coke can’ was the best line I’ve heard on tv in a long long time. I literally jumped out of my chair for that bit of writing excellence. Then the ‘okay we can fight, but you will get tired and I will get bored’…. It just gets better and better.
I love Fiona Shaw who plays Caroline, the M16 Russian desk chief. Her delivery is so low key and spot on, and she becomes her characters – hard to remember she was Aunt Petunia on Harry Potter, and Marnie, a witch on True Blood (one of my all time favorite shows). IMO, she’s one of the best actresses in modern times, but sadly not as well known as the Maggie Smiths and Vanessa Redgraves. I love that her Irish accent can come back, whenever she wants – she’s a reason to watch Killing Eve – wish she had more air time.
YES!!! I adore Fiona Shaw, too! I loved True Blood, but she really elevated the season she was on it. As Caroline she slays it. It’s like the character was written for her. Her abrupt description of the rat drinking coke came out of nowhere and Sandra Oh’s expression was priceless.
I loveeee this show so far! Thanks for telling me about it, Tamara! I’ll be watching and reading your recaps.
Me too.
After watching epusode 3, I now want to join Eve and kill Villianelle with my bare hands. This episode made last weeks look like it was all fun & games.
Jodi Comer has done a fabulous job with this role! Its chilling how she can switch from being playful with her prey one second and then poof they’re dead.