Top 5 Reasons You NEED to Be Watching Killing Eve

The series centers on an intelligence officer named Eve Polastri, who’s tasked with hunting down an elusive assassin known as Villanelle. Of course, the show is just as much about Villanelle, who immediately becomes fascinated with the MI6 agent hot on her trail. Both women are determined to get inside each other’s heads, making for a complex psychological thriller that’s both nail-biting and mind-bending. This riveting story plays out like a game of chess in which the final outcome could mean their ultimate demise. “Game” is the keyword in all of this, as Villanelle treats the world as her own personal playground. The question is if she views Eve as just another pawn, or her queen? Either way, we’re eager to see who declares checkmate.

Given the disturbing premise, you wouldn’t expect “Killing Eve” to be heavy in the humor department. With Phoebe Waller-Bridge acting as the developer, though, moments of comedy literally sneak up on us. A key example is when Villanelle breaks into Eve’s apartment to extend a dinner invitation. In the blink of an eye, the scene twists from something out of a horror movie to something out of a screwball comedy, making us laugh even as our hearts race. Another episode finds Villanelle kidnapping/babysitting a bratty young girl, creating a hilarious parallel worthy of its own spinoff. Although the results easily could’ve been tonally uneven, the writing finds just the right balance of thrills and humor, producing a show unlike anything else on TV.

After roughly ten years of turning in consistently reliable work on TV, Jodie Comer delivers a breakout performance as the scene-stealing Villanelle. Wanting to see more of someone that we fear is the ultimate sign of a great antagonist, and few modern villains are as captivating as this seductive assassin. A master of manipulation, Villanelle can essentially slip into any role, infiltrate any location, and kill anybody without an ounce of empathy, doing it all with a cheeky smirk in the end. Even those closest to her are as disposable as a fish you’d flush down a toilet. This makes her attraction to Eve all the more intriguing, bringing out her most human and demented sides simultaneously.

Cristina Yang was Sandra Oh’s most iconic TV character for nearly a decade, but she gives a career-best performance as Eve Polastri. In a role that’s already won her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Series - Drama, Oh portrays a deskbound agent who wishes to prove her worth, but is constantly undermined by her superiors. Ironically, the one who admires Eve the most is also the one she’s hunting. Where so many others overlook Eve, Villanelle is quick to notice her. While Eve is intelligent and resilient from the get-out, the pursuit of Villanelle awakens something inside of her that she didn’t even know was there. An everywoman on the surface, Eve slowly evolves into somebody much more complex and dangerous.

Eve and Villanelle are polar opposites, while also being mirror images of each other, creating a dynamic that’s increasingly mesmerizing. Even when they’re miles apart, you can always feel the connection between them. Their obsession with one another is borderline romantic, working its way into Villanelle’s sexual relationships and leaving Eve at times distant from her husband. Although the show is called “Killing Eve,” Villanelle’s end goal isn’t necessarily to stab the titular character. Rather, you get the sense that Villanelle wants to strip away her morality, figuratively killing Eve and in due course giving birth to a partner she can identify with. Whether this is what the series is building towards or not, it’s a mind game for the ages.