"Our job is weird but it’s also boring"
Based on the novellas by Luke Jennings and written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, BBCA’s Killing Eve centers on two women; Eve is a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade MI5 security officer whose desk-bound job doesn’t fulfill her fantasies of being a spy. Villanelle is a mercurial, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her. Killing Eve topples the typical spy-action thriller as these two fiercely intelligent women, equally obsessed with each other, go head to head in an epic game of cat and mouse.
In this eight-episode miniseries, our beloved Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy's Cristina Yang, though I think she needs no introduction) plays Eve Polastri, she's bored with her life and finds the possibility of being a spy very enticing though she quickly learns things are less glamorous and it comes at much too high a cost. But she’s a dog with a bone and a lot closer to being her enemy in no uncertain terms, The obsession, that typical almost-falling-in-love-with-the-killer thing is a little overdone, sometimes it seems to be in pursuit of some sort of comic relief that never really works. This is one of the problems I found, it seems to have very little nuance to this, there doesn't seem to be a battle between light and darkness, Eve's just a moth drawn to a flame, sometimes even clumsy.
"I was counting on you not having a life"
There's a lot of miss matched here for me, Sandra as much, as I love her, never seems to be comfortable with the BBC format, she's functional but seems a bit like a fish out of water and has none of the charm and comedic timing we’ve come to expect from her years on Grey's. And as much as I love Phoebe Waller-Bridge too this doesn't seem to be her thing either, she's a lot better with the fully crazy ridiculous and dark (like Fleabag or Crashing), but this is more dark with some patches of offbeat humor.
Now, Jodie Comer (The White Princess) is another story, she's absolutely amazing here, at first she doesn't give us much, but she continues to get better and better each episode. She plays Oksana, our ruthless killer, and I mean ruthless, being a psychopath helps of course. I have to say though, after loving shows like Hannibal or even Dexter, the idea of exploring a serial killer sounds very appealing, but in truth there’s not a lot of exploration of her psyche here, at least not in the first couple of episodes, she’s just your typical psychopath and the only special thing about her are a few quirks here and there, though this doesn't mean it's not entertaining to watch.
There is some action farther down the line and quite a bit of humor to be found, especially in the friendship interactions, in Oksana's relationship with her handler, and the amount of fun she has killing people. She's Overly confident and after a while of getting away with things so easily, so she’s starting to show off, not hiding her tracks well, which gives Eve a fighting chance with her taskforce created by MI6 agent Carolyn Martens played by Fiona Shaw (True Blood, Harry Potter). And when these two women finally consciously meet face to face is one of the most thrilling scenes, as you can see in the promotional pictures, which gives me hope that the pace won't slow down after that.
"I know how big you are on assassins but don't objectify them like this, they're people too"
I'd describe this as a European cat and mouse tale, even though it's from BBC America the format and the location don't do much to separate themselves from other BBC productions. And I say it like that because it makes a difference, European dramas are very different from Hollywood ones. Of course, there are exceptions, but let me generalize a bit so I can paint a better picture. European dramas are usually slower, grittier, and filled with insignificant details that sometimes add to the story but not always. For example, if they show you a character’s hand on a US show it has a deeper meaning, a connection you have to make, while here it can just be the director’s artistic license. So you should keep this in mind when going into this, if you make it past the first few episodes there's a lot of fun to be had but these days not everyone is willing to do that so I guess time will tell how things go for this show.
Killing Eve premieres April 8th on BBC America at 8:00 p.m. Are you excited about this one? Let me know in the comments.
