“Wide Awake” – aired on May 19, 2019
Writer: Emerald Fennell
Director: Damon Thomas
Grade: 3,5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
I am not certain if the expression “the curse of the penultimate episode” — penultimatepisode-itis? — exists anywhere in television landscape but I am almost tempted to register it as a trademark in case it catches fire. For some odd reason, I have watched one lackluster penultimate episode (of a season or series) after another of otherwise highly successful TV shows over the recent years. Such shows usually maintain a high level of creative storytelling. To that end, they succeed in keeping the viewer’s attention throughout the season/series by tweaking the nuts and bolts (character growth, blending the various A and B stories, twists, right balance of action and dialogue with corresponding camera work, etc.) of their narrative just enough to move forward at a reasonable pace. Except when it comes to penultimate episodes, it seems.
Well, Killing Eve is one such show, and “Wide Awake,” one such penultimate episode.
The hour’s main objective, I assume – judging from its title and content –, is to underline Eve’s self-awakening and the magnitude of its ripple effects. She confesses to Martin, the psycho expert whom we met in “Smell Ya Later,” that she feels “wide awake.” Her gradual awareness of this awakening later culminates in her spontaneous decision to have sex with Hugo (or, as Hugo says, a “threesome”) with Villanelle talking to her through an earpiece and prompting her to let herself go “once in a while.” An intriguing proposition to say the least and when Villanelle says, “I can help you,” Eve does not hesitate to act on it.
It is undeniable by now that Villanelle’s presence has had a profound impact Eve’s life. Finding herself in close proximity to Villanelle (or too far from her) plunges Eve into turmoil, one that she feels mentally and physically with every fiber of her being. She appears to have trouble keeping her emotions in check and her steamy urges under control. The question is, does she even want to? Taken strictly from this perspective, “Wide Awake” works quite well, largely thanks to Sandra Oh’s superior dexterity in portraying her character.
Yet, is that concept alone enough to build a whole episode around it, a penultimate one for that matter, considering that things have recently been moving forward at a steady (and thrilling) pace? It is not. Despite the short running time of less than 40 minutes, the narrative struggles to advance with aplomb in “Wide Awake.” In terms of major plot development, Eve and Villanelle go from London to Rome, Villanelle gets close to Aaron, and that’s it! A couple of interesting dialogues take place in the process, along with an expected murder and a few too many contrivances.
Take the two women that Villanelle stalked and befriended at the end of the last episode for instance. Afraid of being stalked in the dark alleys of London, the women had asked Villanelle to walk with them because there is safety in numbers. The ensuing shot of Villanelle’s evil smile ended the hour. It was a nice sequence, leaving the viewers wondering where (or how) they would end up. Also consider as a second example from the same episode, Aaron’s creepy verbal attack on Villanelle which left him with a bloody nose following Villanelle’s smacking of his face with a book. It was a wonderful scene that complicated the matter of Villanelle trying to get closer to him.
Well, as soon as “Wide Awake” begins, both storylines get wrapped up in blazing speed without any brio. First of all, the two women were apparently not much more than plot devices designed to squeeze a jealousy tantrum out of Eve. They are in Villanelle’s loft when Eve visits her and one of them thanks Villanelle for “the sex.” Eve turns jealous as a result. Great! And as for Aaron, the baleful control freak who is paranoid about meeting anyone and everyone new, you can forget about him being angry at Villanelle for nailing him in the face. Instead (get ready for this), he actually writes an apology note to Villanelle, inviting her to lunch, along with The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy offered as a gift, the same book with which she made his nose bleed.
Just like that, the dynamic so painstakingly set between Aaron and Villanelle in the previous episode gets brushed aside without much digging into why he would make such a 180-degree turn. Then, during lunch, he swoons while watching her eat, listens to why she loves money, and boom! He invites her to Rome! Again, just like that, Villanelle’s goal is accomplished. It’s all a tad too neat, too convenient, and depending on your perspective, none of it may even reconcile with how Aaron was portrayed up to that point in time.
In the “last-minute thoughts” segment of my review for “The Hungry Caterpillar,” I mentioned how overly tolerant Carolyn has been with Eve who clearly struggles with the concept of following orders. Carolyn goes even further this time around by somehow finding it acceptable to send Eve alone with Villanelle to Rome. “Think you can manage her in Rome, honestly?” she asks Eve. And I yell at my TV screen, “Are you kidding me, Carolyn? You still trust Eve?”
I am assuming that there is an explanation behind this trend of bizarre decision-making by Carolyn when it comes to matters concerning Eve – there better be one – because it is becoming harder and harder to reconcile it with her otherwise cool and calculated disposition in all other matters. And there are indeed signs hinting to a secret agenda on Carolyn’s part.
For starters, you probably remember Jess’s warning to Eve back in “Smell Ya Later” in their ‘paper-trail conversation.’ In that same episode, we also learned that Carolyn had Martin pull the psycho-expert slide-show act in front of the whole team just to learn more about Eve’s state of mind (remember Martin subsequently meeting Carolyn by the bookshelves to offer his expert opinion on Eve). Martin confesses to Eve in this week’s episode what we suspected back then. Carolyn ignored his recommendation that Eve be taken off the case.
Last but not the least, in a key moment in this episode, Kenny attempts to warn Eve about Rome – “Don’t go to Rome. Get out of it. The operation I’ve been switched to…,” – but can’t finish his sentence because Carolyn joins them. What was Kenny warning Eve about? Why can he not say it with Carolyn present? Will the upcoming second-season finale bring an end to the ambiguity surrounding Carolyn’s intentions?
During the briefing, Carolyn tells Eve that they need to know not only what Aaron is selling but also to whom. Eve and Villanelle must get the buyers’ names on tape. At one point, Carolyn inquires Eve about her state of mind: “Any escalation [in behavior]? Increased attention-seeking, recklessness?” she asks. Eve evades the question thanks to Kenny walking in at that precise moment, but we all know the answer: “yes” to escalation, “yes” to attention-seeking, “yes” to recklessness. In fact, Eve more or less confesses that much to Martin in their one-on-one talk. It’s very likely that Carolyn also knows this, which makes it even more bizarre that she is willing to send Eve and Villanelle to Rome without supervision (but again, see above). It is only after Eve brings up the matter of a back-up team – and probably regrets doing so subsequently, until the “threesome” of course – that Carolyn decides to send Hugo along with them as a “bagman.” Eve and Hugo are to stay at a hotel near “Aaron’s palazzo” where Villanelle is staying.
And what a palace it is! Villanelle’s room alone is larger than the presidential suites of most five-star hotels. Cameras cover just about any angle inside the suite because the resident-owner-voyeur Aaron Peel likes to watch (but for the sake of the plot, he is ‘conveniently’ late in switching the angle when Villanelle attaches the new mic to her bra). He is apparently fascinated by Villanelle because she represents a “void” to him, the type of profile with which he can identify. She is the only person in the world about whom he knows nothing. This bit of dialogue takes place late in the episode and it is easily the most interesting portion of several scenes involving just the two of them.
For the rest, he ogles her as she eats, gets a thrill out of calling her a “collector,” blissfully stares at her when she confirms being a void, gets off on seeing her caress her clothes and on controlling what she wears. He decides in which position she sits, what she eats (crema is the desired food item, orange chocolates are not), and how she feels when guests are present. These scenes are designed to foreground how much of a control-freak Aaron is and to supposedly push the boundaries of quirky-kinkiness (yes, I am running out of adjectives in the same way Carolyn is running out of safe words). But with so many of them, all in the same vein, thrown your way in a single episode, it can quickly become cloying for some.
Henry Lloyd-Hughes gets to showcase his talent as an actor when his character Aaron steals the spotlight in the scene with Ivan (Marko Leht), the interested buyer. Ivan expresses concern over the quality of what Aaron is selling. To prove the exquisite value of his surveillance product in the most efficient manner possible, and much to Ivan’s dismay, Aaron spills many of Ivan’s secrets out in the open in an impressive monologue, delivered in a mechanical tone and with machine-gun-like speed. He knows every intimate detail about Ivan such as what is in the backseat of his car, his vulnerability with his mother and daughter, his insecurity about his penis size, the exact times he had sex with his partner Gregor, how Gregor plans to now blackmail him, and much more. Needless to say, Ivan is left dumb-founded, embarrassed, and ready to pay any price for that kind of access to information. It is easily the best Aaron Peel moment of the series so far.
Another guest star whose talent shines in “Wide Awake” is Adeel Akhtar who plays Martin. Eve consults him on how to diffuse the situation should concerns arise with Villanelle’s psychopathic behavior. Martin replies with what could almost sound as a double-entente question: “Aren’t they already putting a violent psychopath, possibly two, in a high-risk situation and hoping for the best?” Eve takes it that he means Villanelle and Aaron, but Martin could have easily been talking about Villanelle and Eve, and his question would have still made perfect sense. He also knows that Eve is deep down curious about herself when consulting him about Villanelle. Through some clever probing, he gets her to confess her obsession with Villanelle and her feeling of being “wide awake” because of it. And from Eve’s expression, you can tell that it feels dangerous, yet oh-so-delicious, to her. As noted earlier, this is also when Martin reveals to Eve that his recommendation for her to be taken off the case was ignored by Carolyn. “Be careful,” he warns, “You don’t want to end up in here” (where he treats other killers). Thus ends, the most thought-provoking scene of the outing.
The episode hints at the fact that Eve has left Niko behind, mentally and physically, in every way that matters. He never enters her mind throughout the hour. She is rather busy calling Villanelle nine times and leaving three voice messages just during Villanelle’s lunch with Aaron. Villanelle, for her part, is in seventh heaven listening to her messages, just like when she observed Eve’s brief jealousy tantrum about the two women sleeping overnight in her apartment. No, Eve and Villanelle are not pre-teenagers, just in case you forgot (!)
Speaking of Niko, he is with Gemma visiting his storage unit in the necessary B story of the hour simply because Villanelle’s quota of one murder per episode must be filled. From the moment Villanelle appears at the entrance of the storage unit, it becomes clear that Gemma’s minutes are numbered (thus the foundering of the intended shock effect in the closing shot). Even the editing points the viewer in this direction. During her briefing of the mission in Rome, Carolyn says to Eve, “I hate to be strict, but she [Villanelle] really mustn’t kill anyone.” The picture immediately cuts to the storage-room scene where we see Villanelle asking Niko, “Do you love her?” indicating Gemma. Since Villanelle cannot kill anyone in Rome, guess who is next.
She spares Niko’s life because she believes that Eve would never forgive her otherwise. Then again, did she not want to wreck Niko and Eve’s marriage anyway? Wasn’t that exactly why she had pushed Gemma to seduce Niko back in “The Hungry Caterpillar”? Now that it all worked out just the way she desired (Niko and Eve split, Niko living with Gemma, Eve’s attention focused solely on her and working together in close proximity), what was the purpose of eliminating Gemma? I sincerely hope there was more to it than the mere continuation of the “Villanelle’s victim of the week” tradition.
No last-minute thoughts this week.
Simply looking forward to season 2 finale!
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