BBC America’s ‘Killing Eve’ first framed itself as procedural: a show about assassins and the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service that attempts to take them down. More than that, though, the show tangoed through an elaborate cat-and-mouse game between Jodie Comer’s assassin and Sandra Oh’s MI6 agent. This season, that game evolves for the better, and our weekly coverage will keep an eye on how this show’s transforming, and it (along with those kills) is only growing bolder with the passage of time.
This week’s Killing Eve episode, “Meetings Have Biscuits,” follows up on killer clowns and finds its title in a cocky declaration from Carolyn about how nobody one should expect cookies if a meeting’s not productive. It’s a strange episode for Carolyn, who goes on a roundabout date and ends up uncovering a financial-based lead about The Twelve in the process. All of that intrigue is geared toward finding out who killed Kenny, but naturally, there’s a ton going on with Villanelle, who prepares to return to London (and inevitably, Eve) by wanting to smell like power beyond measure.
In the process of this quest, Villanelle unsettles a perfumer, but what, exactly, is the smell of power? Villanelle mentions wanting to evoke a Roman centurion meeting an old foe from a former battle, so maybe she wanted to smell like rusting metal and sweat? The perfumer suggests something “woody” instead, which is probably a better call. Eve must have sort-of been reeled in by the smell, but not for long because it’s headbutt city. As for Villanelle, she looked exhilarated by the encounter after departing the bus.
That meeting’s about what we’d expect from these two after they’ve both tried to kill each other. At this point, Eve has stabbed Villanelle, and Villanelle has shot Eve, and both are pretty awful at killing people that they love. Yet what is more intriguing is that Villanelle planned to send the message to Eve (with that scent) that she’s now an all-powerful emperor. As for Konstantin, he isn’t too hyped by Villanelle’s new smell.
Granted, he wasn’t going to be impressed by much after Villanelle scared the bejesus out of him by hiding in his bed. This might be the most villainous thing that she’s ever done to the poor guy, including shooting him.
Jesus, I know Konstantin’s done some terrible things, and he’s probably double-agenting (and feeling a lot of pressure from The Twelve), but he didn’t deserve this. Their exchange is revealing, though, with him neither being impressed by Villanelle’s power-smell nor her musings about possibly being a cute baby. We get a taste of more to come with Konstantin hinting that he’s aware of Villanelle’s origins because, after all, he saw a photo of her “bulbous, unnatural” baby head. He attempted to make her angry and throw her off the scent by claiming that she’d only let a family down, but this can’t be the end of that discussion. There’s some paternalism there, but Konstantin’s obviously looking out most for Number One, and he’s probably worried about Villanelle’s impulsiveness. Oh, and he’s thinking about his biological daughter in a not-so-nice light as well.
This is definitely not the smell of power: “A little sh*t taking a sh*t on a big sh*t and three sh*ts combined into one enormous sh*t.”
Also not the smell of power: vodka or babies. Dasha — who puts a baby in a damn trashcan because she’s so fed up with Villanelle’s sloppiness putting both of them at risk — is about to lose her mind over her charge’s antics. “All you need is anorak and face like cheese” is probably my favorite quote ever about London, though.
During the course of this episode, Villanelle made three kills, including the below kiss-off. Bye bye, wealthy Spanish wife who tried to tell Villanelle how to treat a piano. She’s definitely better with a dart than Jax Teller was while smashing that skull in during the last Sons Of Anarchy season. No smells here, other than a whiff of disgust.
In addition to scents, this episode also has a thing about bears. Lots of little hints of this went down, including Haribo bears in an office background and Villanelle’s PJs. Other references were pretty blatant, especially when Villanelle sent another message to Eve by leaving a talking bear in her apartment.
The way that Eve held the bear’s “heart” up to her ear? Yup, she’s still in this.
But also, Eve uses a Rubik’s Cube (which spells out “Panda” after some decoding wizardry) proves to Kenny’s Bitter Pill colleagues that he was digging into The Twelve.
So, a Chinese intelligence dude named Fat Panda was tracking a double-agent (watch out, Konstantin) for The Twelve, and that leads to a convoluted discussion about a bank account in a Cayman Islands, which in turn leads to a Geneva account. All of that puts Eve and Carolyn on the trail of Charles Kruger, who’s The Twelve’s accountant with ties (of course) to Konstantin. Well, Villanelle lodges another kill after tracking down Kruger, and Carolyn gets grazed with the bullet.
Some loose ends involving Carolyn:
– She’s understandably a mess, although baths with her MI6 colleague, Mo, in the room probably crosses a line. Hopefully, Carolyn at least learned from her recklessness after her close call with Villanelle during the Charles Kruger stakeout operation. And they’ve still gotta do more work on who’s siphoning from that Geneva account. Also, Carolyn can’t even handle a few beers without enduring a migraine, so maybe she’ll go on the straight-and-narrow path soon.
– What can we gather from Geraldine’s renewed presence in Carolyn’s life? Actress Gemma Whelan recently told our own Jessica Toomer that, of Geraldine, “definitely a latent part of Carolyn in there somewhere.” She also hinted that her character would “harden” in later episodes, so I’m hoping that she really gets her hands dirty soon. Someone needs to straighten up Carolyn a little bit, and Geraldine might be the one to do the job. For Kenny’s sake! Everyone please keep thinking about Kenny.
BBC America’s ‘Killing Eve’ airs on Sundays at 9:00 PM EST with simulcasting on AMC.
