“Are You Leading or Am I?” – Aired on May 31, 2020
Writer: Suzanne Heathcote & Laura Neal
Director: Damon Thomas
Grade: 4 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
Third season of Killing Eve comes to an end with an episode that can feel satisfying or come across as a mixed bag depending on your personal expectations. If the Eve-Villanelle romance is the central reason why the show tickles your fancy and all else matters little, “Are You Leading or Am I?” probably delighted you, especially considering its stellar closing scene. If you enjoy the show for its unique brand of quirkiness and humor astutely embedded in otherwise contentious story arcs, you are likely to be satisfied with the outing assuming you can overlook couple of mediocre scenes. If your main interest lies in the intricacies of storytelling and sensible pay-offs to the various plotlines, you may find yourself near the mixed-bag end of the spectrum.
Although I deem all three components mentioned above essential to the success of Killing Eve and gladly pay attention to each, I stand somewhere between the second and third components in terms of my personal staples of interest. “Are You Leading or Am I?” is a passable hour of TV by the show’s high standards, assembling the storylines explored throughout the season in a plausible manner. In doing so, however, it resorts to shortcuts more than once, resulting in jerry-built resolutions to some narratives that showed promise earlier in the season. The best thing that the finale has going in its favor – and this is paramount because first and last impressions carry clout in forming opinions – is that it’s bookended by a pair of top-notch scenes with regard to acting, directing, and cinematography.
As for the third season in its totality, I expressed my early thoughts after watching the episode 1 – see the beginning of my review for that one – and they were confirmed by mid-season, as noted in my episode 4 review. I will not repeat them again but now that the season reached its conclusion, I stand by them with the utmost conviction. Simply put, hats off to showrunner Suzanne Heathcote!
The outing kicks off with a surprise meeting between Carolyn and Villanelle at the upper lobby of an opera house. Carolyn is aware of Villanelle’s activities, including her association with Hélène. Villanelle apparently initiated the meeting because, she states, she is “looking for a new challenge.” She is not interested in killing anymore and expresses her desire to do “spy stuff, fake moustache, codes, information.” She is ready to accept Carolyn’s job offer – reminder: we learned from Carolyn in last week’s “Beautiful Monster” that the job offer was the reason why she met Villanelle at the Russian prison back in “I Don’t Want to Be Free.”
Except that not only does Carolyn swiftly dismiss the idea but makes Villanelle feel like the village idiot seeking a job downtown at a prestigious firm’s ritzy penthouse office. In the snidest way possible, as only Carolyn can, she tells Villanelle, “You’re trained to do one thing and one thing only. If you can’t do that, what use are you to me? To anyone?” She has to leave a few moments later because, you see, Mahler’s 10th symphony is on and she cannot not miss “the end of the first movement.” Donning a smug little smile, she wishes the fuming Villanelle “good luck.”
This excellent opener represents the best that Killing Eve has to offer to its fans and viewers. By that I mean, well-scripted and substance-filled one-on-one dialogues foregrounding and exposing the characters’ intricate temperamental traits that they otherwise manage to shield skillfully, coupled with five-star performances by the actors charged with conveying those complex inner substrates across the screen. Director Damon Thomas’s tailor-made camera work and the opera functioning as the score provide the icing on the cake for this beautiful introductory scene lasting 3 minutes and 20 seconds.
It’s unfortunately followed by a stale one in which Konstantin decides to leave the hospital while Dasha, seemingly coming in and out of consciousness (is she heavily dosed with medicine? too injured? one cannot tell), utters a few sentences that delay his leaving a couple of times. Ultimately, he turns around to leave for the third time at which point Dasha dies from a heart attack, or something, I guess. Talk about building a fascinating character throughout the season only to fizzle her out of existence in a dull scene at the heels of a pedestrian conversation.
Villanelle and Eve meet at a retro-looking dance room where the former, once upon a time, launched her career as an assassin by killing a high-ranking police officer. Villanelle, seemingly in the mood to philosophize about life choices, asks Eve if she ever thinks about the past. Eve’s answer, “All the time. That’s all I think about,” comes across a bit ironic considering that she is talking to the very killer who brutally murdered her best friend in front of her eyes back in “Don’t I Know You?” Not sure if remembering that had an impact on my viewing experience of this scene, but this particular exchange between Eve and Villanelle did not resonate with me as much as past one-on-one scenes involving the two. Howbeit, their ensuing dance struck all the right chords. Until Rhian arrived to crash the party, that is.
Villanelle quickly slips into Eve’s hands the piece of paper (the money trail) that she got from Konstantin at the train station and tells her to leave. Few seconds later, she is spotted by Rhian and the two head for the tube station. It’s not important where they are going, nor is it mentioned. Why should it be? It’s irrelevant because the purpose of this sequence is quasi-telegraphed the moment Rhian crashed the party. In my review of last week’s “Beautiful Monster,” I questioned if Rhian would serve any purpose other than being a plot device to kill Mo Jafari. Negative! Not only is her character somewhat botched (her frenetic and insecure portrait put forth in the finale conspicuously contradicts the one painted in “Beautiful Monster”), but Villanelle disposes of her following an infantile scuffle scene that ends with Rhian backing up and accidentally falling to the rails as the train approaches. The only worthwhile shot in this lackluster sequence is Villanelle’s confident strut in the station to the tune of “Get Out of Town” by Fireflies.
Next, the umpteenth encounter between Carolyn and Geraldine takes place, in which the daughter attempts yet again to “reach” her mother on an emotional level only to be rejected in return. I cheered – not out of appreciation but out of relief – when Carolyn finally told Geraldine, “it’s time you left,” and solidified it later with, “you’re no longer welcome here,” which probably all sounded to Geraldine like, “Enough is enough. Get the fuck out of my house.” I was hoping the writers would spare us another dose of this cloying dialogue in the season finale, but alas.
Fortunately, the outing improves significantly from this point forward. It starts with a side-splitting sequence at the betting shop that I can only refer to as “Bruce 100 meets Tallulah Shark,” when Eve collects a package kept by Konstantin in a box.
Jamie and Bear invite Carolyn to Bitter Pill to show her the footage captured fro Bear’s secret camera that he installed to catch the culprit who’d been stealing his tangfastics (go ahead, click on the link, Carolyn did not know what that meant either). The “pilfering bastard,” in Bear’s words, is – was – Kenny!! But the bigger revelation is Konstantin appearing in the footage and leaving the room with Kenny on the day he died.
Speaking of Konstantin, he meets Eve to collect his package. She refuses to hand it to him, as if anyone expected otherwise, which gives him another mild heart attack (I lost count). He wants Villanelle to come and convince her “friend” to change her mind.
Villanelle, however, is on a mission of her own searching for Eve, which leads to a riotous set of dialogues at Bitter Pill between her and the trio of Audrey, Jamie and Bear. They are petrified once they recognize her and Villanelle milks every second of it. Bear wonders, from inside Jamie’s office as he stares at Villanelle, what she does with all the penises as Jamie shushes him. When they muster up the courage to talk to her in the waiting area, the image of Jamie approaching Villanelle with one shoulder hanging forward, and Audrey and Bear cautiously following him with trembling legs, is a sight for ages, not to mention that I guffawed at Bear and Jamie’s faces when Villanelle described what she does with the “good ones” and the “bad ones.”
While Danny Sapani and Turlough Convery are splendid in this scene, the fact that their characters have been reduced to the function of comic relief in comparison to how they began the season, especially in Jamie’s case, represents one of those times where I wish some series were more generous with the number of episodes per season (also looking at you, dear showrunners of Star Trek: Picard and Barkskins). I believe that in a season such as this one, where storylines are no longer restricted to the narrow radius of the Eve-Villanelle relationship, as was the case in seasons 1 and 2, Killing Eve could have benefited from airing ten episodes instead of eight.
Konstantin gets a call from Paul telling him to come to his house. He knows that the Russian is the one who stole the Twelve’s money from his account. Except that, as we quickly find out, he is held at gun point by Carolyn and that is how Konstantin and Eve find them when they arrive. Villanelle arrives shortly after to complete the circle and begin the denouement. As for the reactions of everyone as they see each other arrive… priceless!
The conversation veers in all kinds of direction with Carolyn standing up and holding the gun while everyone else is seated. Konstantin outs Paul as part of the Twelve. Villanelle asks Paul if he knew Hélène, and Eve demands to know if he ordered Dasha to kill Niko. Paul scoffs at the Twelve reference and does not seem to recognize any of the names mentioned.
When pressed by Carolyn who saw the tangfastic footage, Konstantin claims that Kenny died because of Paul. He claims that he and Kenny left the room to go to the rooftop where they could talk in private. He tried to convince Kenny to stop pursuing the Twelve and to work for them instead. Papabear Konstantin was merely trying to save Kenny, you see? He adds that Kenny “got scared” and began to step back. Heck Konstantin even tried to stop him but it was too late as the young man toppled over the edge and fell. “You have to believe me,” Konstantin begs. Carolyn is not buying it. She orders him to kneel and puts the gun on his forehead. After some tense moments during which, frankly speaking, Konstantin should have had his conclusive heart attack, Carolyn switches targets at the last second and shoots Paul in the head. She tells Konstantin to leave, which he happily obliges, but not before grabbing the package from Eve’s purse and asking Villanelle if she is coming. She is not, and her reason is the same one that he gave her in the second-season finale to explain his betrayal: “You’re not family.”
The scene could almost be considered a take-off from dark-crime satire. While the five actors perform at the top of their game, it’s highly predictable (except to the characters, I suppose) that Paul is the one who will not survive this encounter, rather than Konstantin. At the end of the day, it is not clear if Konstantin really killed Kenny or not. His explanation seems far-fetched and he is obviously a chronic liar. At the same time, he has never killed before, at least to anyone’s knowledge. The uncertainty surrounding Kenny’s death is never fully eliminated. Some may find that frustrating or underwhelming, but I am on board with the idea of adding some ambiguity to a regular character who is highly likely to reappear in season 4.
Following Konstantin’s departure, Carolyn also tells Eve and Villanelle to leave. She advises Eve to go cold turkey on her pursuit of Villanelle, I presume (but I cannot be 100% certain), before finally calling Hugh to report Paul’s “suicide.”
The show cannot end on that note, naturally, especially on a scene during which Eve and Villanelle had background roles. The denouement was for the sake of Carolyn and Konstantin who played larger roles in this season. The closing scene is reserved for the two leads, and it’s a splendid one.
Placed on London Bridge and steered by the polished camera work of Thomas, the final scene begins with Villanelle and Eve delving into the meaning of their existence in function of each other. What is nice here is that much of what is said only qualifies as foreplay to what remains unsaid, yet intuitively understood, by both women. They appear calmer than in their past one-on-one encounters as they pause to contemplate the consequences of their bond, and whether to keep it intact or not. This serene discussion is a stark and welcome contrast to the two disastrous (and bloody) endings of the two previous finales. They finally decide on a plan (walking away from each other), knowing entirely too well that they will never be able to bring that plan to full fruition (the last shot). And they do not appear scared of that outcome either. These closing shots seem to usher in a new phase in their relationship, one that I hope to see probed deeper during season 4.
I noticed a couple of naysayers around social media ask, “What was this season about?” What an unfortunate question! It makes me wonder if they only watched a portion of the season. Consider the following taken from the prism of the two leads for instance. The first season centered on a cat-and-mouse game between Eve and Villanelle that led to calamity at the latter’s Parisian apartment. The second one marked their attempt at working together, a chaotic partnership that culminated in the catastrophic shooting in Rome. This season saw them trying to pursue other avenues at first, only to come to the realization that they cannot remain apart forever and that their paths will eventually cross. They must accept living with that reality. This season was also about developing Konstantin and Carolyn, two main characters, and allowing Killing Eve to let loose of the constricted narrative space in the immediate surroundings of the two leads that was extensively dissected for two seasons. Kudos to Heathcote and the writing room for overcoming that tremendous challenge – again, for more on my thoughts on the season, see the third paragraph above.
Last-minute thoughts:
— Kate Bracken appears for the second time playing the doctor at the hospital without being named, although end credits indicate that her character’s name is Dr. Greer Barrie.
— As wonderful as the closing scene was, I would have loved it even more if it did not include another pretentious gripe by Eve about “what happened” to her, as if she did not know exactly what she was doing when making one selfish decision after another throughout three seasons. Don’t get me wrong, I love the character, but it’s hard to overlook her repeatedly feigning concern for herself and people around her when she consciously chooses paths that she knows will put herself and close ones in the line of fire (literally and figuratively).
— Is Hugh coming back next season?
— When the camera shows Paul being held at gunpoint, the frame only shows him and the barrel of the gun before cutting to another scene to create suspense, I presume. Did anyone doubt that it was held by Carolyn? Probably not.
— See the contrast between Eve and Villanelle during the denouement scene as they sit together on the couch and observe. Villanelle’s facial expression during the tense moments resembles that of a curious child, almost excited, whereas Eve remains panic-stricken throughout.
— Jack Chissick was fabulous as Bruce at the betting shop.
Until the next season…
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