Eve & Villanelle’s Cat-and-Mouse Game Is Over in ‘Killing Eve’ Season 3

Killing Even Jodie comer
Preview
Des Willie/BBCA

Yes, it’s safe to say psychotic assassin Villanelle (Emmy winner Jodie Comer) maintains her flair for theatrical crimes and disguises in the third season of the globe-trotting, darkly comic spy thriller Killing Eve.

But the clown act above (featuring Stefan Iancu, with Comer, as Felix) is just one highlight of the April 19 episode: Villanelle now knows that clever former MI6 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh), with whom she’s shared an obsession since the series’ 2018 debut, survived the bullet she put in her back. Promises executive producer Sally Woodward Gentle, “We’re not going to leave them out of each others’ orbits for long.”

To recap: Last season, the then–intelligence agent unwisely hired her onetime quarry to help catch a killer. The op went south, Villanelle tricked Eve into hacking a hitman to death, and when Eve refused to run off with her, Villanelle took aim.

Six months later, in the April 12 season premiere, an emotionally scarred Eve was hiding in a restaurant kitchen telling herself she was done with Villanelle and MI6. Then came that jaw-dropping death that awoke her inner investigator. In the April 26 episode, the loss, and what was behind it, continues to “send quite a few people spiraling,” the exec producer says.

(Credit: Des Willie/BBCAmerica/Sid Gentle)

That includes, of course, Eve’s and Villanelle’s manipulative mentors, MI6 bigwig Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) and Russian Konstantin (Kim Bodnia), a handler for the shadowy group known as the Twelve. Coming up, we will see more of the pair’s masterful spy craft and complicated personal lives.

Nothing, though, could be as complex as Eve and Villanelle’s impending reunion. They won’t enjoy the cat-and-mouse game of seasons past. “Eve is no longer deluded that she can control Villanelle,” Woodward Gentle teases. “It’s going to become a lot more personal for her this time.”

The producer also says we’ll see more vulnerability in Villanelle, who’s learned not everyone in her family is dead after all: “She created herself afresh because she didn’t like the memory of where she came from. If she ever dug into [that], it might be quite difficult for her.” But very fun for us.

Killing Eve, Sundays, 9/8c, BBC America and AMC