A Rainbow In Beige Boots
Episode 3 of Killing Eve Season 4 starts with Villanelle working as a maid in a hotel. And if you weren’t sure who Villanelle is, this episode starts with a massive block of text reading VILLANELLE. Thanks BBC. This is a trend throughout the episode though, and I’m not sure if it’s intentional or not but as we skip around the different characters, every time this pops up it feels really condescending, like we couldn’t figure out who Eve, Carolyn or any of the other characters are. Anyway, I digress. Eve shows up in the hotel room, where Villanelle has stripped down out of her bloody clothes and asks her for help. Eve is completely nonchalant to the whole affair though, getting dressed and leaving while telling Villanelle to be gone by the time she returns. Dressed in a suit, Villanelle visits Martin, wanting therapy and his help to straighten out her woes. Villanelle admits she doesn’t like the way that she feels right now. Villanelle is on a depressive downward spiral and wants Martin to help her “fix that.” So naturally, Villanelle talks about her thought process. Martin believes she could be mid-morphosis, which explains why she feels so bad at the moment – she could be coming through to something better later on down the line. Eve heads back to see Yusuf, who continue to try and find what Helene’s part is to play in all this. Eventually their search brings them to Fitztovia Garage where they decide to stake the place out. Whilst there, Eve overhears someone talking about Helene and plays the pity party, trying to make a friend of this woman by making herself out to be a desperate loser. It seems to work as well, with Fernanda (that’s her name, complete with a huge block of neon pink lettering to confirm as much) agreeing to befriend her. The pair drink all afternoon, with Fernanda getting ever-more drunk as she discusses the woes of her ex-husband and how he was cheating on her. After listening to her story, Eve finds the information she needs courtesy of Fernanda’s ID, which she spies while the woman is using the toilet. There’s also a newspaper in her bag too, confirming Villanelle has killed two people. Meanwhile, Pam continues to work her job, getting another body prepped for a family visit. Her superior (and brother), Elliot, is really not helpful and condescends her the whole time. He calls her a waste of space and bemoans that she was even born. Eventually he turns off the lights and keeps her in the dark. Pam meets Helene and tries to convince the big boss to take her on to work properly as an assassin. Helene is still hung up over Eve tracking her down though and believes Pam’s extraordinary… but not ready just yet. Pam believes she needs to prove herself, and after taking a stand against Elliot, ends up killing him. She leaves the place in a bloody mess, even bragging about it to Helene too later on. Helene is completely shocked and furious that she’s disobeyed her orders, forcing her to leave. When she does, Helene receives a call, confirming that one of her victims, Rustem, has survived. In the middle of all this drama, we cut across to Carolyn who’s still trying to get to the bottom of who’s responsible for killing members of The Twelve. Eventually she receives some crucial intel, realizing this whole affair links back to Scotland. Over with Eve, she does some digging and learns that Fernanda’s husband is a guy called Lars Mayer. When she returns to her hotel room, Villanelle is gone but in her place is a tablet with messages to Martin, prompting Eve to show up at his place herself. Villanelle ends up knocking out Martin as Eve shows up at the door. Eve isn’t there for Villanelle though, she’s there to check up on Martin. The pair do eventually sit together and discuss that earlier analogy about the scorpion and the frog again, likening it to their own situation. As they sit together, loud banging from outside sees Villanelle realize she’s been outsmarted. Police show up and take her away in handcuffs.
The Episode Review
The most exciting part of this show has always been Villanelle and whatever wacky antics she gets up to. Even during season 3 when she’d slowed down and mellowed out a bit, there were still moments of placing babies in bins or killing randomly to spice things up. And yet, at the same time she’s always been a woman of style. This whole arc that the writers are gunning for, sidelining Villanelle for a bland story about the shadowy Twelve just feels poor and shows just how much of this series has rested on the shoulders of both Villanelle and Eve for so long. Without that chemistry or same danger there once was, everything just feels stagnant. That, combined with the constant text to tell us who each character is (I mean, maybe for episode 1 but 3 episodes into the show? Did we really need that?) feels like a stylistic misstep. Hopefully things can pick up going forward but right now it’s hard to see where that inspiration is going to come from.
