“Sorry Baby” – aired on April 29, 2018
Writer: George Kay
Director: Jon East
Grade: 4.5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

The narrative is moving with deliberate speed in Killing Eve. With only four episodes into the season, a beloved character and several other victims have been savagely executed, an investigation has turned into a pursuit because the assassin’s identity had been revealed, detailed profiles of the main characters have been sketched, and now, by the end of “Sorry Baby,” the face-off between Eve and Villanelle has been announced.

Yet, nothing has felt rushed, contrived, or forced. Showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the writing room, and the two directors featured so far, Harry Bradbeer (episodes one and two) and Jon East (episode three and four), deserve high praises for putting on screen one of the most original shows of the year. Now comes the next challenge. Can the Eve-vs-Villanelle duel, by itself, carry the last four episodes? The question is valid because the set-up for the next one sure feels like a season finale for a detective-assassin show. Yet, judging from what I have witnessed so far, I cannot help but trust that Waller-Bridge will find creative ways to keep the audience preoccupied, and thoroughly entertained, through a ride filled with unconventional loops and revelations.

“Sorry Baby” stays in line with the trend set by previous episodes with regard to plot advancement. It takes unexpected turns, delivers provocative dialogues, and complements the plot with quirky character introductions while building on the emotional frame of the existing ones.

It starts with yet another zoom-in shot on Eve’s face. That is now four out of four episodes that Killing Eve made use on that particular method. I call it a method because I don’t blame the writers for repeatedly turning to one of the show’s most imposing assets, Sandra Oh’s recognizable face that can manage to stir anyone’s emotions on a whim. The scene takes place in a church during the commemoration ceremony for Bill, in the aftermath of his death at the hands of Villanelle.

Eve is deeply anguished over the loss of her trusted colleague and friend. Her grief turns to anger when Frank the buffoon makes a maligned speech in Bill’s memory. She storms out of the church, leaving behind a bewildered Niko. Next, her anger transforms into a desire for revenge as she tells Elena, “I want to kill her with my bare hands.” Oh is simply magnificent in conveying all these distinct emotions in a matter of minutes.

Speaking of Frank, I expressed my concern in my review of episode two about his characterization as a comic-relief figure. I wondered how realistic it is that a buffoon like him could have managed to be in a position to lead an intelligence organization that requires high-IQ above all else from its key employees. My question remains valid, because Frank is not only a clown, but also an idiot, a loser, a degenerate coward, and an asshole, not to mention that he “looks most like rodent,” as Martens cleverly notes.

The big revelation of this episode is that he also happens to be the mole. Thanks to him, Konstantin knew instantly the who, when, and how of our team’s pursuit of Villanelle. Add “traitor” to the list of adjectives for Frank. I am still not completely clear on how he got hold of the information in such a timely fashion. I thought the team that Martens put together, helmed by Eve, was secret, thus unknown to anyone outside the five of them. Did Martens inform Frank of the activity just to appease some unwritten rule of ethics between intelligence leaders? I wish a line or two would be inserted somewhere to explain this discrepancy. Or did I miss something?

Villanelle, in the meantime, is having a ball. This woman possesses an impressive ability to get entertained by mundane scenes and useless banter. We already know she gets pleasure from killing, but her eyes also seem to light up with glee whenever Nadia (Olivia Ross) physically assaults her or tries to, at least. She finds amusement in sitting on the couch at the house of Frank’s mother, eating her hot fruitcake, or in dancing around a wooden Konstantin, dressed up as him. She also drips with mock-sympathy as she brings up her awareness of Konstantin’s daughter in a clear indication of threat to her handler. Villanelle is a thrill-seeker in the fullest sense of the term and Jodie Comer eats the role up.

Speaking of Nadia, she is one of the two doomed guest characters in this episode, the other being Diego (Edward Akrout). Villanelle is ordered to team up with them for the next job which happens to target Frank in the small town of Bletcham where his mother lives.

Representations of Diego and Nadia dangerously border on corniness. They are not only shallow, but highly inept at their job. Nadia cluelessly stares around in the mother’s house, not detecting Franks’ hidden presence – Villanelle naturally does – and amateurishly runs after Frank’s car as he drives away to escape the assassins. She lets Diego treat her condescendingly and swallows every lie fed to her by Villanelle. The frequent-pisser Diego, for his part, supposedly leads the trio, but makes one arrogant decision after another, ultimately leading to his demise. Lowering your weapon under the naïve assumption that Nadia would shoot Villanelle? Really, Diego?

I am fairly certain that writer George Kay and director East meant to make them appear silly – Diego’s overuse of pet names for Nadia is one proof of that –, which then begs the question, how in the world did two such ungainly operatives like Nadia and Diego survive until now in the organization for which Konstantin works? Their lack of IQ glares through the screen as Villanelle toys with them like puppets on a string. We are willing to let that question pass because the scenes involving Villanelle and her companions are donned with fascinating dialogues and dexterous acting.

It is, for example, nothing short of brilliant how the little said between Villanelle and Nadia hints at so much history between the two. Nadia is extremely bitter and keeps on physically charging Villanelle. We learn little by little, through subtle phrases dropped here and there, that they were lovers in the past and that Nadia feels somehow screwed over by Villanelle. Ross and Comer excel in these scenes. The former aptly depicts Nadia’s volatility and the latter plays the collected and calculated Villanelle to perfection.

Other meaningful moments are disseminated throughout the episode. Niko’s patience is wearing thin and we see glimpses of a marriage on the verge of collapse as Eve yells at him, in one scene, to “get out” when she realizes that Villanelle stole her suitcase and returned it filled with expensive clothes, and tersely lets him know, in another, how annoyed she is with the fact that his love for her is all that he has in his life. Ouch!

There are splendid, substantial dialogues such as the one between Eve and Martens in the grocery store and the one between Eve and Elena in the car as they make humorous remarks about Martens and Kenny.

And there is something sublime about the choice of the setting for “Sorry Baby.” For three episodes, scenes filmed in large cities charmed our senses. Eve and Villanelle’s cat-and-mouse game played out in the hustle-and-bustle of night clubs, cafés, subway stations, and avenues in renowned locations like Paris, Berlin, and London, among others. This episode, by contrast, largely takes place in a country-side setting in England and moves to empty fields as it approaches its climax. While looking for each other in London and Paris, Eve and Villanelle ironically find themselves in a face-off at an empty field in the middle of nowhere.  

And what a climactic moment it is! We are almost tempted to cheer for Frank as he is desperately running away from Villanelle in the fields, in an attempt to reach Eve and Elena – I should add “terrible athlete” to the list of Frank-related adjectives. But his character is, in reality, only a vehicle in the closing seconds. The directorial skills of East dazzles in the last 30 seconds as Frank makes it to the car, throws himself in Elena’s arms, Eve and Villanelle establish eye-to-eye contact, Villanelle takes a shot, and the screen turns dark, in one of the fiercest cliffhangers in the recent history of TV shows.

Endnote:

Eve: “Frank, are you running, or are you crying?”

Frank: “Running and crying.”

Until next episode…  

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“Don’t I Know You?” – aired on April 22, 2018
Writer: Vicky Jones
Director: Jon East
Grade: 4,5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

If any individual in the TV-show business theorized that the opening and closing scenes of an episode were paramount to its success, “Don’t I Know You?” would be tucked away in their vault as the defining proof of their theory.

The close-up panning shot of Sandra Oh’s face to kickstart the hour, as Eve describes Villanelle’s physical features, and the brutal elimination of one of the show’s beloved characters to end it, work together to transform the otherwise plot-advancement-oriented episode into a pivotal one for the show.

I have already said it more than once; with Oh playing one of the two leads, the showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge has at her disposition one of the most recognizable faces in the TV-show arena. What better way to make use of that asset than to pan the camera slowly from Eve’s left to her right while she gives details of Villanelle’s appearance based on their fleeting encounter in the bathroom from the pilot episode. Not surprisingly, Oh is up to the task.

Throughout the 58-second-long shot during which Eve says that Villanelle’s “hair was dark blonde, maybe honey,” that “her eyes are sort of cat-like, her lips are full,” and that “she is totally focused, yet almost entirely inaccessible,” it’s difficult to tell if she is simply digging deep within her memory to provide an accurate description, or if she is swooning as she visually reproduces Villanelle in her mind. Her expression oscillates between admiration, fear, curiosity, and obsession. In any case, the director Jon East must have had a field day filming this remarkable sequence that ends with an unintentionally hilarious question by the sketch artist that leaves Eve bewildered – yes, that face again – and makes Bill smile.  

It does not take long to catch up with Villanelle who is in Berlin, ready for her next victim. She poses as a dominatrix specializing in medical-oriented fetishes to “treat” a Chinese client (Simon Chin) who yearns, obviously, to be the patient. Little does he know that his testicles are about to be “clamped,” and that his designated safe word frühstück (“breakfast” in German) will not change his doomed fate.

Thankfully, this murder is not just another one along the string of obscene killings designed to serve no purpose other than putting on display Villanelle’s deranged nature – reference: see my episode-two review. The victim is General Zhang Wu, a hacker working for the Chinese military. The probing into the case eventually leads Eve to meet a Chinese attaché named Jin (Lobo Chan). Unlike in the previous murders, Wu’s death plays a significant role in the episode’s narrative.

Martens and the investigating team are left behind in London as Eve and Bill leave for Berlin where most of the action takes place. Konstantin’s role in this episode is also diminished. He appears once to inform Villanelle, again, of Eve’s presence in Berlin. This is a storyline that could prove to be problematic, unless it is explained in a satisfactory manner in the upcoming episodes.

How does Konstantin know almost instantly, and down to the details, where Eve is and what she is doing? I already posed a similar question last week, when he immediately knew in episode two that there was a small team formed to pursue Villanelle and that it was helmed by “Eve Polastri.” Nobody outside our investigative team knew of either development. Is there a mole inside Eve’s team?** A scene in the later episodes needs to bring a meaningful explanation to this riddle, or else this storyline risks falling into the confines of arbitrary plot devices.   

** If so, I nominate Kenny.

The story is almost entirely focalized around the Bill-Eve duo’s pursuit of Villanelle. On the upside, the dialogues are entertaining and there is substantial character development for Bill, the one delightful male in the show. Perhaps, that played into what Waller-Bridge and the writer of the episode Vicky Jones intended to do during this hour. They aimed to augment Bill’s “lovable” factor and lure viewers into forming a deep bond with the character, only to amplify the gut-wrenching impact of his brutal assassination by Villanelle in the closing scene. Perhaps, it was also meant to eradicate any shred of admiration held for Villanelle by the audience, in case some still lingered on.

On the downside, I am not sure how much of those two goals were reached, although I would venture to say that it worked 100% for the latter. Villanelle is, at this moment, officially despised by the show’s followers. As to the impact of Bill’s death, I am not so certain. Not because Bill’s character growth was anything less than phenomenal throughout the first three episodes, but rather because there were too many signals screaming his character’s write-off during the episode, as well as prior to its start.

First, I have reservations about the wisdom of tweeting, via the show’s official account, that “we’re saying bye-bye” to someone “this week” and adding an emoji of a knife to it, several hours before airtime. It does not take a genius to figure out that Bill is facing his last minute alive as Villanelle stares at him at the night club and pulls a knife out of her pocket. That is, of course, if you hadn’t already figured it out when Bill jokingly said “Daddy is going to die” to his cute infant daughter before his departure to Berlin. We are further cued of his doom as the storyline centers on him and he emerges as the first to notice Villanelle. The alarm bells are ringing loud and clear by the time he begins to pursue her with no back-up, naturally.

It’s a risky move to eliminate a treasured – and multi-faceted – character so early in the season.  The writing fails if the character’s elimination does not mean much to the audience. Jones and Waller-Bridge, however, succeed on all cylinders, despite the above-noted signals sent prior to Bill’s death. The murder is carried out so efficiently – and barbarically – by Villanelle that watching the ending sequence, as Eve pushes the dancing crowd apart in an attempt to reach him as he expires, perfectly conveys the sense of helplessness that invades her.

This event takes us past the point of a simple cat-and-mouse game between an assassin and her pursuer. The duel between the two women has now conclusively become personal and the terms of the shift in dynamics were dictated by Villanelle. She stalked Eve and Bill, tricked Bill into following her alone, and by killing him, struck Eve where it hurts the most. I should underline “most” in the previous sentence because Bill appeared to be, by all accounts, the person for whom Eve cared more than any other, including her ever-confused husband.

Villanelle’s risk-taking, though, is out of control. At this point, I am inclined to believe that her official job has become a nuisance to her – Konstantin is increasingly worried – and that her addiction to toying with Eve has taken over that of the pleasure she used to derive from the simple act of killing. As is the case with all addicts, she is willing to take tremendous risks in order to get that next “hit” which consists of devastating Eve via tease-and-denial (another form of fetish, not mentioned in the show, yet).

The middle portion of the episode is filled with brilliant dialogues, especially between Bill and Eve. Their conversation after meeting with Jin – “he wants to fondle you,” says Bill with a wry smile – and the one in the hotel-room scene during which Bill reveals his sexual preferences through a delightful combination of metaphors, are simply magical. We are going to miss Bill.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Nit-picking time: how does Villanelle get to cut the line and enter the night club? The doorman who stops her at first did not know her. If the implication is that she is eventually allowed in because she is a single woman, why was the one in the front of the line required to wait? She was not the only one either.

– Villanelle gets to view the Skype conversation between Niko and Eve. I am declaring at this point that MI5, MI6, CIA, FBI, and SVR have nothing on Konstantin and Villanelle in terms of surveillance skills!

– The subway sequence is splendid from start to finish. The acting, directing, and score combine to form the most haunting scene of the episode, undeniably announcing the beginning of the end for Bill.

– The characterizations of General Wu and attaché Jin were not meant to box Chinese men into a certain stereotype, I am assuming…  ​ 

Until next episode…

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“I’ll Deal with Him Later” – aired on April 15, 2018
Writer: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Director: Harry Bradbeer
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

In the series premiere “Nice Face,” Killing Eve’s showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge painted a fascinating portrait of the two leads, Eve and Villanelle, and complemented them with a few other singular characters, thus building the internationally flavored ensemble that is bound to take us on a thrilling ride for the remainder of the season. Last night’s episode, “I’ll Deal with Him Later,” focused more on plot-advancement, getting us to the point where the duel is staged, and the participants are ready for combat.

We sensed from the pre-season promos that Eve and Villanelle were going to become aware of each other’s identities and come face-to-face early in the series. The latter took place in the pilot episode, the former in the second one. It’s a gusty call by Waller-Bridge, and a refreshing one. Unlike in most other crime-driven serializations, Killing Eve is not centered on one major crime and features no mysterious killer(s) to identify through tedious evidence-searching sequences.

The primary theme seems to lie less in the who or the why than the how. More specifically, how quickly can Eve stop Villanelle? Because our assassin’s killing spree switches to high gear, adding three more victims to the ranks of the fallen.

Before I delve into the details, may I pause for a moment and underline the stellar performance by Jodie Comer in this episode? A sociopath, a psychopath, a maniac, a skilled nutcase, a deranged killer, an infantile lunatic, you pick one, and Jodie Comer makes sure you see that Villanelle on your screen. She is terrifying, yet charming. How is that possible? you might ask. Her first and second victims in the episode could tell you, if only they were still alive – one did not even care to talk to her at first. In their dying moments, both victims stare directly into the eyes of their killer who is either shivering with pleasure or smiling at them with a wondrous look.

At least, Sebastian (Charlie Hamblett), Villanelle’s newfound boy-toy, gets to expire without ever discovering the horrifying side of the woman by whom he was smitten.

Konstantin, Villanelle’s handler, and alive for now, could also tell you all about it. “I’ll Deal with Him Later” builds on the rapport between the two and it is not as chirpy and harmonious as it appeared to be in “Nice Face.” She easily tricks him with a hug to pick a card out of his pocket. She also does not hesitate to put a knife on his throat while acting as playfully – yet menacingly – as Villanelle only can. Konstantin, you see, is expendable, as Villanelle calmly reminds him.  

Konstantin, for his part, is leery of Villanelle’s mental condition – I am glad someone is – to the point of requiring her to get “assessed” by a psychological evaluator. This brings us to the most petrifying scene of the hour. It is not so because there is any violence in it – although there are a few morbid images on which Villanelle is asked to comment. It is not so because the dialogue between the three characters reveal any shocking secrets either.

It is petrifying because Comer as Villanelle nails the part, and because the director Harry Bradbeer makes sure the camera angle oscillates at the right moments between the faces of Konstantin and Villanelle, and the larger shot of the three talking. The presence of the masked anxiety dominating the interview is skillfully conveyed to the viewers.

Having observed Villanelle laugh at her own cynical joke about the picture of a dead dog hung by the throat, the evaluator concludes that “she is fine” at first. We are not completely sure if the evaluator means that she is stable enough or that she is indeed a bonified psycho. Her behavior during the interview points more to the latter, not to mention the dress she chose to wear for the occasion.

Konstantin, however, is not convinced. He says “wait” and takes out one last image from his pocket. The evaluator hands it to her and asks, “do you still have dreams about Anna?” Villanelle appears to take it lightly, but the evaluator has now changed his mind: “I won’t sign you off.” The closing shot of Villanelle’s face shows that she is not pleased.

We do not know who Anna is for now. I certainly hope that future episodes will add context to that name and not leave it there because, for all the excellent acting done by Comer in this episode, Villanelle’s character-growth flirted a little too close for comfort with that of a comic-book villain. I understand that we are not supposed to focus too much on how the victims are chosen – at least that is what the first two episodes seem to encourage us to do – but if the murder scenes settle into the pattern of existing solely for the purpose of putting on display the twisted mind of Villanelle, Comer is facing an uphill battle.

She has already shown us more than once – wonderfully I might add – Villanelle’s idiosyncratic behavior in action. The opening scene in Bulgaria and the later murder of Carla De Mann are executed to perfection by the showrunners and the actors, but we have no idea why these people are picked by the organization employing Villanelle. Comer’s performance and good directorial skills can only carry so many of these murders, if they only continue to exist as procedural expositions.

Speaking of dangerous paths for characters, I am also a bit concerned with Frank’s growth as one. We find out that the boss at MI5, who fired Eve and Bill at the end of the first episode, had recently lost his wife. Bill and Eve feign running into Frank and Elena at a bar. It was actually set up by the three of them so that they could probe the boss for information. The scene is absolutely hilarious. Frank, who naively thought that Elena asked him out because she felt sympathy for him – Elena clarifies that she did not ask him “out out” – eventually catches on the ruse and murmurs, “God! I’m a knob.”

In his ensuing anger, Frank reveals that he never saw the CCTV for a previous murder because there was not any, and furthermore, that he did it because he was sick of Eve “piping up” her theories “any time there was a sniff of conspiracy in the air.” He calls her a “tiresome think-bucket.”

Kudos to Waller-Bridge for squeezing numerous droll-mockery quotes into each episode. Other than the ones in the above scene and those in the earlier scene between Eve and Martens, “dick-swab” and “monkey-dick,” also deserve honorable mentions, just to mention a couple.

Unfortunately, the scene also makes one wonder how a buffoon like Frank came to helm an organization that demands a high-degree of intelligence and acumen from its employees. It certainly makes me wonder if he is the right character on which the spotlight should shine for comic relief. I truly hope that this particular characterization for Frank is unique to this episode and not the beginning of a pattern.

In the meantime, Martens, probably the smartest and the most composed character in the show, recruits Eve and forms a small, secret team around her, composed of Bill, Elena, and a certified computer geek in Kenny (Sean Delaney). Just like that, Eve is fired by MI5 and hired by MI6. Fiona Shaw is at the top of her game as Martens. The way she dryly engages Eve in a dialogue at the café is something to behold.

Both Eve and Villanelle experience their a-ha moments to discover each other’s identity. Eve’s moment is telegraphed a minute or so in advance as it arrives at the heels of her discussing with the team the possibility of a blond woman’s presence in the previous murder scenes. At that moment, she needs to go to the bathroom. And of course, as she lets her hair loose and looks at herself in the mirror, she suddenly remembers the blond “nurse” she met in the bathroom at the hospital while doing the same thing in the previous episode. Villanelle did, after all, advise her to keep her hair down.

Somehow, Konstantin knows immediately that not only “a woman in London is leading a department just to find” Villanelle, but he even knows her name. Enough for Villanelle to get on the internet and find a picture of Eve and have her own a-ha moment.

The impact of this closing sequence, with the back-and-forth focus on Eve and Villanelle as they become aware of each other, is played magnificently by the two women. It does, however, come across as a time-saving plot device, unless the show explores it further in the future. To our knowledge, the team of four, led by Martens, are the only ones aware of their existence since less than 24 hours ago.

How did Konstantin get a hold of this information so quickly? Could Elena, Bill, or Kenny be a mole? At this point, this possibility seems far-fetched. Then what? Even if one of them were the mole and supplied the information, it sure traveled at warp-speed through the grapevine to reach Konstantin, and finally Villanelle. For whom does Konstantin work anyway? Bill wonders that too, but Eve is fixated on Villanelle. “I’ll Deal with Him Later” poses these questions but leaves the answers to the later episodes.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Sebastian says to Villanelle after sex, while affectionately rubbing the bruise on her eye, “I’m never going to hurt you.” Oh, my dear Sebastian!

– As Eve is fumbling one word after another in the café, Martens waves her right left and right and speaks: “Say it!” Brilliant!

– Martens saying “You seem to know a lot about female assassins” to Eve is the understatement of the year. Eve stutters in response, eventually justifying it with the following sentence, the only complete one among her utterances: “I am a fan.” Sandra Oh rocks!

– Whenever Villanelle faces a sticky situation or a pointed question, her go-to-phrase relates to menstruation. Well played Madame Assassin!

– The reaction of the woman in the bus when she notices the brutal scene in progress in the window of the building in Bulgaria is peculiar. I would love to know what Bulgarians thought of that scene.

– Elena glancing at Bill with an accusatory look after Eve leaves the room and Bill feigning innocence with a “what?” should make you chuckle.   

Until next episode…

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“Nice Face” – aired on April 8, 2018
Writer: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Director: Harry Bradbeer
Grade: 5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Critics are having a ball trying to ascribe a genre to BBC America’s latest series Killing Eve and I don’t blame them. Showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge has indeed framed a spy thriller in a unique way that is bound to fascinate them. The story has been billed as an “epic game of game cat and mouse” by the network itself, while others have called it anything from a “spy vs. assassin” based thriller to a “dark twist on the glamorous international espionage thriller.”

In any case, judging from the pilot episode “Nice Face,” Killing Eve should dazzle viewers. There are rankings of best pilots to TV shows floating around the internet that are fun to browse through. However, if you care to actually watch one, look no further than “Nice Face.” It is brilliantly written by Waller-Bridge, well-executed by director Harry Bradbeer, and carried to perfection with fierce and efficient performances by the female-dominated cast.

The story pits two psychos against each other. Villanelle, the professional assassin played by Jodie Comer, emerges as the bad psycho, while Eve Polastri, the MI5 security officer played by Sandra Oh, portrays the good psycho, so to speak. But they are psychos in their own ways – “Nice Face” leaves us in no doubt of that reality in the first two scenes of the episode.

In a café in Vienna, Villanelle notices a little girl who is looking back at her from a neighboring table while having an ice cream with her mother. The girl’s attention turns to the bartender and they smile back and forth. Villanelle’s expression turns sour as she observes that exchange, but when the girl looks back at her and smiles, she smiles back and gets up to leave. As she walks out, she knocks the little girl’s ice cream on her lap. She exits with a sadistic smile in her face, as she hears the mother scolding the little girl behind her. I am not a big fan of too many close-up shots of actors’ faces, but here, Bradbeer makes it work so splendidly that the sequence feels violent without any actual violence in it.

The next shot is Eve screaming her lungs out in her sleep. Her husband Niko (Owen McDonnell) is panicking and trying to wake her up. Her ear-piercing screaming lasts several seconds, but Niko succeeds eventually. Eve explains rather calmly, less than two second after she wakes up, that she “fell asleep on both arms.” She adds matter-of-factly, “oh they’re coming back now.” Her husband chimes in: “You’re a freak.”

Yep, the two leads are psychos. If you still had doubts on that after the first two minutes, the rest of the episode will confirm it for you.

Wait until you see Villanelle the second time she appears, as she mocks an old woman who is struggling to walk down the stairs in her apartment building in Paris. It is obvious from the woman’s replies that Villanelle has tormented her before. You will later get to see her perform her professional duties, for good measure.

As for Eve, wait until she calmly gives her husband a lucid account of how she would proceed if she wanted to kill him, the details of which would put demented serial killers to shame. How did they start that conversation? Niko walked in on Eve while she was busy puncturing her leg with a knife – blood rolls out – in an effort to simulate a murder that she is investigating.

Oh excels in portraying Eve, the bored MI5 officer who seems obsessed with her work, notably with female assassins. She dons that universally recognizable “what?” expression to perfection – see my preview for more on that – as she cleverly digs for clues and seeks answers. Nothing escapes her attention to detail, and if necessary, she cuts corners without hesitation.

It appears that Eve has found her dream match in Villanelle. Our professional assassin lives luxuriously in Paris, surely thanks to the ample income from her line of work. Her handler is Konstantin, played by the Danish actor Kim Bodnia, and the two appear to know each other inside-out, to the point of finishing each other’s sentences.

Their two dialogues in the episode lay the ground work for understanding how Villanelle operates in her job. She is methodical, ruthless, untraceable, and effective. She is also very athletic (she climbs up the pipe of a gutter with ease to the third floor of a house) and perhaps a contortionist (she hides inside a suitcase). She completely lacks empathy and takes genuine pleasure in killing.

She also takes risks. As pointed out by the head of MI6’s Moscow operations, Carolyn Mertens (Fiona Shaw), “She is starting to show off.” Mertens is not wrong. In Tuscany, Villanelle leaves the murder weapon on the scene, firmly planted in the victim’s eye. She does not wear gloves or mind the little boy who sees her on the scene. Konstantin later expresses concern and urges her to be more diligent. He tells her to eliminate the possible witness to her earlier job, currently laying in a hospital bed.

That eventually leads to the hospital scene in which we get to fully appreciate Bradbeer’s directorial skills in a terrific sequence that begins with the focus on Eve’s face. Her expression changes to inquietude – did I say how well Oh does that? – as she senses something is deeply wrong. The camera changes and we follow her from behind. She looks inside the room and switches to panic mode. We see her rush in the room as she begins to yell. The camera approaches the open door and slowly puts on display the gruesome scene inside. The sequence is exceptionally well filmed and Oh performs wonderfully in conveying the horror she is feeling as she tries to revive the patient in the following shot.

Eve’s penchant for cutting corners ultimately catches up with her and her boss Bill (David Haig). They get fired by Frank (Darren Boyd), Bill’s superior, in a subtly humorous scene that will bring you a whole new appreciation for the insult “dick-swab” and will have Mertens deliver the funniest line of the episode to Frank – “Clearly, there is going to be some reshuffling in your department” – in the flattest tone possible.

The episode makes it clear that Villanelle and Eve are on a collision course. They even come face to face, in a quasi-silent but powerful bathroom scene, each without yet knowing who the other one is.

The background music, the locations, and the guest stars of international backgrounds contribute to a five-star pilot in an episode that will leave you yearning for next Sunday to arrive rapidly. It is evident that women lead the way here. Eve, her colleague Elena (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), and Mertens will be chasing Villanelle throughout the next seven episodes. “Nice Face” includes scenes from Vienna, Paris, London, and Tuscany, and apparently with more to come, we gladly tag along for the ride.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Interesting that they could not cast a Frenchwoman for the role of the old woman in the stairs when, unless I am mistaken, they had all other guest stars speaking in native language. Or is that nit-picking? Actually, it is.

– What was Kasia on during the interrogation scene? Wow!

– I love how every minute detail is meticulously considered by the writers and the director. Eve faking the “poor thing” line and telling the guard to get Kasia some tea, so she could interrogate her without his presence, is brilliant! Villanelle, carefully flattening out the bed spread before laying on it to add to her methodical and obsessive nature, is also brilliant!

– When the writing and the directing are phenomenal, you don’t need lines by characters to feed viewers information so that they understand what is happening. Nor do you need their monologues to hold them by the hand. You show them, they get it. That is what “Nice Face” does, that is how good TV works. 

– A lot of Polish was spoken in the episode, but I only retained one expression: “ale decha.”

– Speaking of ale decha, Elena telling Eve on the phone that the female killer on file “appears to have massive, pendulous breasts” and then asking her, “Does that do it for you?”, is the second funniest moment of the episode.

– In case you missed it, BBC America has made “Nice Face” available on its website.

– Apparently, the network feels so confident about Killing Eve that it has already given it the green light for a second season.

Until next episode…

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