Finally, Eve (played by Sandra Oh) came face to face with Villanelle (Jodie Comer) for more than a split second this season, after Villanelle had effectively taken hostage Eve’s friend Martin (Adeel Akhtar), a criminal psychiatrist.
Eve, who has always found herself drawn to Villanelle (and vice versa) decided to make a big move almost as shocking as when she stabbed Villanelle in Season 1. However, audiences didn’t expect Eve to be the one to betray Villanelle, especially after all of this time.
Eve really did it. She really did call the police on Villanelle, something, she admits to Villanelle’s face and perhaps for the first time to herself, she should have done from the very beginning.
Killing Eve Showrunner Laura Neal told Newsweek: “We love the idea of Eve finally doing the thing that she should have done in Season 1. Villanelle has had so much of a hold on her and has caused so much chaos and destruction in her life. We thought, ‘what if she just does the thing that she could have done and saved herself all of this trouble originally?’”
Cat and Mouse Chase
It’s been three seasons of serial assassin Villanelle and former MI5 agent Eve Polastri’s cat and mouse chase began. At the end of Season 3, it looked like the women had finally found each other, while simultaneously accepting they had to go their separate ways.
At the beginning of Killing Eve Season 4, Eve and Villanelle are apart, but whereas Eve is working on herself (and her mission to take down The Twelve) Villanelle is working on getting Eve back, in her good books and in her life, for good.
Villanelle is even going to big extremes to do so. By the end of Episode 4, she had inadvertently taken Martin hostage in the hope he would be able to help her become a good person and therefore, win back Eve’s affection.
When Eve realized Martin’s life could be in danger, she headed over to his home where Villanelle choked him in a panic. The good news is, Martin isn’t dead (yet?), and maybe has just some seriously bad concussion from falling headfirst onto the floor after Villanelle stopped strangling him just in time.
At first, Eve and Villanelle had a bittersweet exchange of words on the couch, where Eve told Villanelle the fable of the scorpion and the frog after Villanelle shared her optimism for the future.
In the fable, both creatures die because a scorpion “can’t change its nature.” Eve implies Villanelle is the scorpion, but Villanelle seems to think she is in fact the frog, and Eve is the scorpion.
After a long pause and gaze into each other’s eyes, things took a surprising turn when Eve whispered: “I should’ve done this when we first met” and right on cue, the police came bursting through the door and arrested Villanelle.
Just like the audience watching at home, Villanelle too seemed incredibly shocked and hurt by Eve’s move.
Going into Episode 4 (Sunday, March 20), Neal teased that the implications of Villanelle’s arrest on Eve will be explored.
Damaging Impact
She shared: “We liked the idea of ‘what would happen if Eve put Villanelle away? What does that do to Eve as somebody who, you could argue needs to be chasing Villanelle in some deep way. What happens if Villanelle is no longer around to chase?’”
Neal also teased that Eve’s betrayal could have a pretty damaging impact on Villanelle, who for all this time has taken for granted Eve’s presence in her life.
She shared: “I think for Villanelle what was interesting is she’s somebody I think, who takes for granted her power over Eve and takes for granted this idea that Eve needs her and that’s what Villanelle loves. I think about her relationship with Eve as the power that she has over her and what happens to Villanelle if she starts to think that Eve doesn’t need her anymore.”
Luckily, Killing Eve fans do not have too much longer to wait to find out what will happen next after that shocking twist.
Killing Eve airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on BBC America and Mondays at 9 p.m. GMT on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the U.K.
