tv

Killing Eve Season 2 is here to show us what a monstrous villain really looks like.

 

Killing Eve will forever be known as a TV show that achieved the near impossible.

In an era overflowing with must watch, prestige TV shows and multiple streaming services heaving with new options fuelled by huge marketing budgets, the success of Killing Eve proved it is still possible for us to be surprised by a sleeper hit.

In a rare move, the ratings for Season One of Killing Eve actually grew every week throughout its eight-episode run and Google searches for “ways to stream Killing Eve” rose to feverish heights after news spread across the world about the BBC American drama.

Luckily for everyone who calls Australia home, ABC iview obtained the rights to the show and we were able to watch in fascination as Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh), a desk-bound MI5 officer, began to track down the beguiling but completely psychopathic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer), with both women becoming dangerously obsessed with each other over the course of the season.

After the success of the critically acclaimed first season, there has been a lot of pressure on Season Two to be as sharply funny, stylish and expertly written as its first outing.

In response to the anticipation, new show-runners Emerald Fennell and Sally Woodward Gentle, who have taken over from creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, have opted to kick off the second season in a blaze of bloody glory.

The first episode of Season Two starts exactly 30 seconds after Season One ended, and we are immediately let in on the fate of Villanelle as she stumbles through Paris nursing the gaping stab wound inflicted by a now regretful Eve in her apartment.

"Jodie Comer's Villanelle really dominates the second season." Source: ABC.
ADVERTISEMENT

Eve quickly flees the scene and heads back to the UK to face her husband after last seasons blow-out fight between the couple and the wrath of MI6’s Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw), a woman who Eve is still not convinced she can fully trust.

I don't think it's a spoiler to let who all know that Villanelle survives the stabbing, pretty much because as she's holding her stomach together with one hand she hurls herself in front of a passing cab so that the driver will panic and drive her to hospital.

Sandra Oh received the lion's share of critical acclaim and fan adoration following the Season One run, winning both a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress, but in Season Two it is Jodie Comer's Villanelle whose presence really dominates the screen.

ADVERTISEMENT

Villanelle is a compelling villain because, just like every well-crafted 'bad guy' found on the screen or within the pages of a book, her motivations are not evil. She does not act with the purpose of solely causing pain or gaining power, which would make her much more predictable to watch. Instead, she is very much living by her own code of morals, a code that as twisted as it appears to be from the outside, makes perfect sense in her psychopathic mind.

She kills in order to earn a paycheck and to preserve her source of income, to settle a debt or even in some cases to be merciful. If you watch her in action very closely, she never uses her beauty to get what she wants, and in some twisted way all of her wrongdoings slowly begin to make twisted sense.

In the Season Two premiere episode, Villanelle is in such a weakened state that it lulls you into a false sense of security of what she really is. Until one truly chilling moment that she shares with the young boy who is occupying the other side of her hospital room.

It's a moment you won't see coming, but it's a timely reminder that Killing Eve is back to show us what a true villain really looks like.

New episodes of Killing Eve will drop every Monday on ABC iview following the premiere on April 8, you can watch the full first season on ABC iview now. 

For more stories like this, you can follow Mamamia Entertainment Editor Laura Brodnik on Facebook.  You can also visit our newsletter page and sign up to “TV and Movies”  for a backstage pass to the best movies, TV shows and celebrity interviews (see one of her newsletters here).