“Beautiful Monster” – Aired on May 24, 2020
Writer: Laura Neal
Director: Damon Thomas
Grade: 4,5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
The episode begins with a stunning front-face shot of Villanelle with medieval-period lances and spears hung on the wall behind seemingly darting from behind her head in the same way that rays of sunlight do from behind the heads of god figures in ancient drawings. This mesmerizing shot launches another solid hour of Killing Eve, one that does not suffer from penultimatepisode-itis and advances the plot forward at a steady pace. It meticulously pushes characters toward crossroads in their storyline and creates the potential of meaningful revelations looming large in the season finale to come.
“Beautiful Monster” is not a home run by any means, not that any episode this season can be characterized as such, unlike the one or two perfect ones each of the previous two seasons had. It even has a couple of mundane dialogues, an area considered to be the show’s strength otherwise. Luckily, those scenes come and go early in the hour, allowing the last 30 minutes or so to provide bona fide entertainment, showcasing five-star acting from the entire cast.
“Beautiful Monster” adequately checks the box in its contribution to third season’s overall consistency in terms of quality storytelling while maintaining its refreshing approach to an already successful formula. I know that I have beaten this drum before but I cannot underline enough how delicate (and risky) a task Suzanne Heathcote and co. have undertaken, and I can only admire how well they have pulled it off so far. If they can stick the landing in the season finale, I will gladly view this season, for my part, at least as successful as the first two.
Let’s get back to the beginning of the episode…
Villanelle is waiting to meet Hélène who is accompanied by another assassin named Rhian (Alexandra Roach). It’s not crystal clear why Rhian is present for this meeting because she remains quiet for its duration. Is she Hélène’s apprentice? A trusted right-hand assistant? What purpose does her presence in this meeting serve? I’ll bite. It’s a plot device for the sole purpose of introducing her so that the next half-a-second-long glimpse of her is enough to portend doom and gloom for another character (Agent Mo) in a related scene much later.
The dialogue between Villanelle and Hélène features several sensational – but empty in substance – phrases such as Hélène asking, “What are you doing?” and Villanelle answering, “Working out how I’d kill you.” Hélène also refers to Villanelle as “agent of chaos” and “beautiful monster,” and hugs her head to her bosom. It ends with Villanelle convincing Hélène to give her another job and promising to take Dasha with her when Hélène expresses doubts about her injury.
Once past this scene, it’s a stellar ride the rest of the way, beginning with the second-ever coup d’œil at the opening-credits theme after the initial time back in “Management Sucks.”
Mo Jafari joins Carolyn for breakfast to give a report about his surveillance of Paul over the last week. He has not come across any evidence that the annoying degenerate belongs to the Twelve. Carolyn is not only far from being convinced, but also makes Mo feel stupid by insinuating that Paul has pulled the wool over his untrained eyes. She sends the crestfallen Mo away, instructing him to do a better job.
Eve joins Carolyn at the table not long after Mo leaves. After a few wisecracks back and forth between the two, Eve wants to know what Carolyn said to Villanelle at the prison in Moscow when she saw them meet on camera back in season 1’s “I Don’t Want to Be Free.” Carolyn replies that she offered Villanelle a job, and she refused. Carolyn’s had enough with Eve’s patronizing tone, so she launches one last taunt Eve’s way as she gets up and leaves: “Eve, you’d do well to remember, heroes only get the girl in Hollywood.”
As if Konstantin’s world didn’t crumble enough over the course of last week’s “End of Game,” his problems continue to compound in this outing to the point where he begins to experience the occasional chest pain from the stress. Irina being held at a juvenile detention center in Moscow following her murder of mom’s boyfriend does not help matters because he is unable to check her out for their planned escape to Cuba. Hence, he will head back to London for a couple of days to take care of ‘something,’ an idea not welcomed by Irina to say the least. In any case, nothing seems to satisfy or amuse Irina lately except killing her mother’s boyfriend. The character who came across jocular and witty the first time she appeared back in season 1’s finale has by now transformed into a unpleasant, senseless psychopath.
At the parking lot in front of Bitter Pill, Bear finds Eve inside the bin dumpster going through an enormous pile of trash, with herself buried in it, searching for the box of the birthday cake sent to her by Villanelle in “Still Got It.” This leads to a couple of punchlines so exceptionally delivered by Bear that you cannot help but chuckle. When Eve asks for his help, he replies, “I don’t know. I mean, are you gonna tell me why you’re in the bin? ‘Cause I don’t want to enable a mental health crisis.” When Eve tells him that she is looking for her birthday cake, his dry-toned response is, “You know, I could just give you money for a croissant. It might be easier? A bit more dignified?” Priceless! Turlough Convery, you are a natural, Sir!
Much to Bear’s relief, Eve finds the box before he ever sets foot in the bin. They go upstairs to Bitter Pill, only to find Jamie devastated and the offices ransacked following a raid by the police. Jamie explains that the police came with a warrant, referring to some power they have thanks to some extension of the Official Secrets Act (he could have easily been talking about the Patriot Act with an American accent and I would not have noticed the difference).
Jamie lacks motivation to pursue anything, but Eve couldn’t care less, and this leads to a riotous sequence with the three characters that manages to move the plot forward in the most entertaining way possible. Against Jamie’s advice, Eve convinces Bear to use his laptop to go through the bakery’s list of phone orders, in order to see if they can locate the credit card used to complete Eve’s birthday-cake order. Once located (because the order is phoned in from Barcelona), they search for the recent activity on the card and notice that it was used 20 minutes earlier in Aberdeen, Scotland. Never mind that they ironically engaged in illegal activities hours after the office got raided because, according to Eve, “You can’t get raided twice in a day. It’s a rule.” Ha!
In Aberdeen, Dasha and Villanelle check into a hotel reminiscent of the Renaissance period. In the elevator, they throw verbal brickbats at each other with regard to their future in a riposte session that remains well south of the high bar set by the quality of their previous such dialogues this season.
Konstantin arrives at his apartment where he is startled (causing his heart to burn again) by Geraldine who is there to surprise him with a bottle of wine and steak. She apparently entered the apartment using the key that Konstantin left with his neighbor, and she explains this as if it were no big deal. I am unsure as to how other viewers felt about this scene, but I found it awkward narrative-wise to see Geraldine surprising Konstantin in his house with steak and wine dinner, because I had no idea that their relationship was past the level of the occasional run-in and chat around the neighborhood.
Konstantin is not interested in having dinner with Geraldine, causing her to revert back to her insecure self, until the moment she mentions that her mom is “on the verge of discovering something big” as she is excusing herself to leave. Konstantin’s interest is suddenly piqued and wants to know more about the steak after all. Except that Geraldine was testing him, and he flunked it! She scolds him for taking advantage of her vulnerable state in order to fish for information about her mother’s activities. Caught red handed, Konstantin is not about to deny it either: “I’m a shit. Okay? I used you to spy on your mother. Happy?” Geraldine’s response doesn’t exactly portend things to come but comes pretty close: “I hope you die.”
Villanelle and Dasha are playing golf and eyeing an American golfer on the other side of the course (Sam Douglas) who happens to be their target. Dasha takes a trip down memory lane about how many Americans she killed during the Cold War, which prompts Villanelle to offer her the pleasure of killing this one too. Dasha takes it as a sign that Villanelle has “lost it” and that she is afraid of no longer being able to kill herself, and begins taunting Villanelle about being “a dud,” as if there had not already been an exorbitant amount of taunting between these two. I believe this is the first episode during which I found myself underwhelmed by Villanelle-Dasha sequences.
Eventually, they move forward with their plans. They pretend to have lost a golf ball in the bushes and ask for the American’s help. The dude is your emblematic brazen, misogynist adult male who feels like a king when he spots two women in distress. The best portion of the scene consists of Villanelle’s subtle expressions of fake approval and genuine disgust as she listens to his codswallop, during which she whispers to Dasha that she changed her mind. She wants to kill him herself!
She gets her opportunity when he is on his knees to retrieve the ball from the bushes. She appears to get ready to swing her golf club and strike down on his back, but instead, deliberately nails Dasha standing next to her on the head, making her collapse to the ground. Villanelle shooshes away (hilariously) the horror-stricken American who runs in opposite direction as fast as his unshapely body allows him to, without looking back and with his pants halfway down his butt crack!
He eventually ends up on the road and manages to stop the very cab – lo and behold – that Eve is riding to Castle Stuart in hopes of finding Villanelle. The panic-stricken dude spits out a few incoherent words, but enough for Eve to realize that he is referring to Dasha and Villanelle. She asks him where they are before leaving him stranded in the rain. His parting shot is priceless as Eve shuts the door on his face and the cab leaves: “What is this vile country?!?!”
Eve finds Dasha in the woods, barely alive and bleeding from the head. She asks about Villanelle but Dasha whispers back: “He has lovely mustache. Like Stalin.” Eve comes to the horrific realization that she is staring at the one who pitchforked Niko through the neck, and rapidly transforms into psycho Eve (which comes naturally to her at this point, I reckon). Sandra Oh’s performance in this fleeting scene is mesmerizing, with her face radiating luminous pleasure as Dasha’s ribs begin to crack under her pressing shoe. Unfortunately for Eve, she must stop shy of climax, so to speak, because approaching police sirens remind her that she needs to escape the scene in a hurry, leaving Dasha alive.
In a surprising development (at least for me), Konstantin also shows up in the area around the same time to pick Villanelle up from another spot on the road because – apparently, they had this planned all along – they need to collect some money in London before leaving for Cuba. Call me nitpicky but this is a bit convoluted from the standpoint of the plot. If Konstantin needed to come to London to get the money for the trip, was he then planning to also stop by there with Irina before conclusively departing for Cuba? I was under the impression that they planned to leave directly for Cuba. This also assumes that Villanelle simply trusted Konstantin to pick her up on the way to Cuba while he is in England to get the money, which is an outrageously giant leap on her part considering how easily Konstantin betrayed her in the past when it concerned himself or his family.
Konstantin, however, seems to have lost hope in everything. Considering how fast his life has come apart at the seams over the last two episodes, the otherwise jovial Russian is busy venting his spleen to Villanelle at the train station about how everyone wants to murder him, and lamenting away on how he perhaps does not deserve to live anyhow. Villanelle’s dripping sarcasm when she replies to him, “Wooow! Bring the mood down, why don’t you?” had me laughing out loud for a good five seconds. Should I thus feel bad when, several seconds later, he collapses to the ground due to a heart attack? I think, not!
Seeing that he collapsed and may die at any moment, Villanelle immediately asks him where to get the money. He points to a piece of paper in his pocket. She grabs it and runs to the departing train, leaving him there with a dozen people standing around and staring at him. Eve arrives moments later and rushes to ask him where Villanelle went. He points to the train as he seems to be expiring and Eve runs after Villanelle. Never mind that the dude is fighting for his life on the ground! Hey, at least Eve told the people standing around to call for an ambulance before she rushed away after Villanelle. Whoop-de-doo!
In a scene putting on display one of the most ubiquitous TV tropes of all times, Eve runs after the train as Villanelle longingly smiles back at her and waves from inside the train. Eve returns the favor as she stops running because she can no longer keep up with the train picking up speed and slowly fading away in the distance.
In the meantime, Mo Jafari found a link between Paul and the Twelve and appears keen to gloat about it to Carolyn, except that Rhian is tailing him and that can only end badly. In this case, that equals to his corpse floating in a pond two scenes later, before he ever gets the chance to reveal the details of his investigative triumph to Carolyn.
The news of his death shakes Carolyn badly who, at first, tries to play it off calmly when Geraldine shows concern (which is no doubt the last thing Carolyn desires on the heels of this bad news). However, Geraldine pushes the issue as one would expect her to – and I mean, she pushes it full-tilt, starting with, “How can you be so bloody calm? What is wrong with you? You’re an emotional iceberg!” and again, after Carolyn refuses her hug, “This isn’t healthy. It can’t go on. You can’t just refuse to feel anything for the rest of your life. What kind of existence is that?” –, finally bringing Carolyn to a boil. The usually coolheaded Carolyn takes out her anger on the vase, glasses and a stack of books sitting on the furniture. It ends with her asking Geraldine, “Is that the kind of thing you were after?”
Let’s put things into perspective here, the otherwise glacial Carolyn breaking vases and glasses in one room of the house out of frustration is probably equivalent to you and I burning down the neighborhood in a similar state of mind. It’s my pick for the pithiest mother-daughter scene of the season between these two, thanks mainly to exceptional performances by both actors. Fiona Shaw’s powerhouse performance as Carolyn is already well-established, so I would count this sequence as a particularly a golden moment for Gemma Whelan playing the unintentionally nagging but genuinely exasperated Geraldine.
Next, we catch up with Konstantin in the hospital as the doctor (Kate Bracken) is trying to explain to him about the serious nature of his heart attack and the lifestyle changes that he must make, except that Konstantin is just busting out laughing at the doctor’s face every time she begins a new sentence. Soon, another laughter is heard from the adjacent bed. Konstantin leans over to see, to his horror, that he is joined by Dasha in the ICU with her head wrapped in bandages. His jovial mood evaporates in the blink of an eye as she continues laughing. He murmurs, “Jesus Christ,” and stares in horror to the ceiling. I can only speculate that I may have laughed just as much as Konstantin did while watching this sidesplitting scene.
This is also around the time I began realizing that we are for the first time witnessing an hour of Killing Eve that does not fulfill the obligatory quota of at least one murder per episode by Villanelle. Stop the press! Alert me if I am wrong, but I believe it is the case. I thought I’d never see the day.
While “Beautiful Monster” may be unique in that context, it stuck 100% to tradition in another. It begins and ends with close-up shots of the show’s two biggest assets. If you are a regular reader of my reviews, you know what I am referring to: the remarkable and ultra-recognizable faces of the two leads. What starts with the stunning front-face shot of Villanelle, as noted in the beginning of this review, ends with the focus on Eve’s bewildered but unrepentantly excited expression upon receiving a phone call from Villanelle.
Bring on the season finale!
Last-minute thoughts:
— The Reykjavik dialogue is another instance that had me busting out laughing. The expressions of Jamie and Eve as Bear babbles on about Reykjavik, Jamie’s remark about being surprised at Bear’s remark, and Bear wanting him to explain why he is surprised… Priceless!
— The American golfer’s name is noted as Rokes in the subtitles but goes by “American golfer” in the episode credits.
— Do you have a question about vintages of Chablis? Let Carolyn be your guide.
Until the next episode…
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