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wearevillaneve · 5 years ago

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Killing Eve S3, E5: “Are You From Pinner?“ should really be called “Killing Oksana.”

With “Are You From Pinner?” in the books, we are past the halfway mark of the Suzanne Heathcote era of Killing Eve and in some circles of the fandom, the hope is this wet firecracker of a season will blow up in the final three episodes.

Based upon what’ has come before, this may be a tad optimistic. As erratic and disjointed as the preceding four episodes, E5 introduced something entirely new and different to Killing Eve. A standalone showcase for Jodie Comer’s Villanelle without Eve or Dasha or Konstantin or any of the other regular cast to block the spotlight. Can you see the fatal error in all this?

Typically when something is dubbed a “shitshow” it’s meant metaphorically, but as one of the set pieces was Villanelle literally throwing shit, it becomes an accurate description.

Before we got to this point, the six-month time jump from the end of last season looked like a combination of a tactical error and a missed opportunity. Instead of Villanelle returning to Russia to drop in on the home folks, there were a many more unanswered questions from “You’re Mine” in dire need of an explanation.

1. Who rescued Eve found and transported her to the hospital? The “lucky some tourists found you” one-liner by the late Kenny Stowton seems pretty flimsy. Didn’t the Rome police have any questions about this Asian woman with amazing hair ended up in Hadrian’s Villa lying facedown in a pool of blood? Was it a robbery? Okay, so then did Eve have any money, passport or ID to get back to England once she healed sufficiently? Did she receive any rehabilitative aftercare? Is she on any pain-killing medicines? What was her mental state after being shot by V? What was her emotional and psychological state after slaughtering Raymond to save V?

2. How did Niko get out of the storage locker? Eve didn’t know where he was and neither did MI6. Even if he was found by someone else, how did he explain away the small matter of Gemma’s rotting corpse? Niko griped to Eve that MI6 intervened to make it look like Gemma committed suicide to cover up the fact that not only can’t a spy agency catch an international assassin who kills British citizens at will, they later hired her to work on an off-the-book mission where a technocratic billionaire got his throat slit.

Why would MI6 go through all that fuss and bother to cover up a murder of a civilian when it could easily be laid at Niko’s feet? His only defense is Gemma was killed by a beautiful blonde psychopath with a crush on his estranged wife. Carolyn told Eve she was on her own after Rome. What changed, because something must have for MI6 to ride to Niko’s rescue. 3. Isn’t The Twelve presented as this immense, almighty, sprawling international diabolical entity of murder, violence, and sowing chaos and espionage against nations with their dirty little fingers apparently manipulating every intelligence agency on the planet? It also deploys assassins and goons too fucking stupid to look under a bed to find an unarmed MI6 agent hiding there quaking in fear OR recognize said agent when a thug asks her out for a sushi dinner. Well, okay then. Killing Eve logic explains it all. Returning back to this sluggish solo flight, Villanelle’s family in Mother Russia are a bunch of dopey dunces with anger management issues, poor self-control, and flat-earthers who break out in spontaneous dance routines while the prodigal trouble child, Oksana, looking like the Whitest White Girl Ever who tried to shake her moneymaker, but couldn’t because both of her feet were super-glued to the floor, stands by bewildered probably thinking, “Who the hell are you people?”

A few weeks ago rumors from not-very reliable sources were floating around that executive producer Sally Woodward Gentle had mused it might be conceivable Killing Eve could conceivably go on without one of the two leads. Perhaps Woodward Gentle is hedging her bets should Comer or Oh not return after the fourth season. “Are You From Pinner” is proof that’s not true. The show is called Killing Eve, not Killing Villanelle. Though she has become the sun to Eve’s moon, there’s a reason for Eve Polastri to inhabit a central place in Villanelle’s life. She is the other half which makes Villanelle whole. Whether together or apart, what keeps the audience coming back is the strange relationship between Eve and Villanelle. Without Eve to humanize Villanelle, she become just another attractive, charismatic killer with a sad back story. Yet Villanelle is not a Marvel super villain and many fans were perfectly fine with not knowing what it was in her past that made her who she is now.

Heathcote subverted expectations of another meeting between the central characters in episode 5 as her showrunner predecessors Emerald Fennell and Phoebe Waller-Bridge had done previously, but she went further by removing Eve completely. Eve was not referenced a single time by Villanelle and weirdly, Sandra Oh and all the other cast members names were removed from the credits. Heathcote’s erred by that omission as it reinforced the notion some KE fans have held that she and Fennell tilted the balance in favor of Comer’s character as Oh’s is diminished. That may not have been the newest showrunner’s intention, but it certainly feeds the impression that it was. The conclusion of Villanelle killing her mother and burning down the house was a wrenching, powerful moment, but taken in totality of the entire show, not nearly enough to compensate for the lackluster and pointless set-up scenes.

What we learned from Oksana's origin story is you really can't go home again. Fine, but why did that require an Eve-less episode to know that. This all could have unfolded in the six-month jump after Rome as a sub-plot playing out over the first four episodes. It didn’t justify a standalone showcase for Villanelle.

All it did was blunt the equally affecting impact of Eve witnessing Niko’s death. A better and much fairer approach would have been devote the first half to Eve grieving for her murdered husband and the second to Villanelle less-than-warm welcome home. Minus Eve, and without Konstantin and no Dasha to exercise some guidance over the nuclear missile that is Villanelle, what you get is an unleashed assassin alternatively being childish, being a smart-ass, being mysterious, being fashionable, before inevitably turning murderous.

Most of the time it works and we forgive Villanelle her many trespasses This time it face-planted despite a sensational closing sequence between Oksana and her mother. Unfortunately, ten riveting minutes do not make up for the uninteresting 32 minutes which preceded it.

Villanelle has become unstoppable in her homicidal tendencies. She has morphed into a female Terminator who occasionally imitates human traits. Nothing can stop her or barely slow her down. She commits mayhem and slaughter like most of us breathe and suffers zero consequence for it. The fact she took out her own mother should neither shock nor surprise.

“Are You From Pinner?” demonstrates Villanelle’s complex charms shine most brightly in her interactions with Eve, Konstantin and Dasha. Remove them from the equation and even Comer’s wealth of talents are not enough to rise above flat, lifeless characters, muddled motivations and a plot which wavers between the comedic for too long and the tragic too late to register. A friend said she didn’t much like “Are You From Pinner” but hoped it would be better after a second or third viewing. I told sometimes a first impression is a right impression and that it was doubtful a third watch would help much. How much subtlety and nuance is there to be found from a turd tossing contest? I can say with all confidence, I can't see myself watching this episode again. Like ever. If you got something out of this misfire and it touched your heart and made you squirt a tear for Oksana, more power to you. All I got out of it was confirmation why the show is called Killing Eve and not Villanelle and Her Wacky Russian Family. Come for the comedy. Stay for the kills. In a new interview for her Elle Canada cover story, Oh spoke of how she had reached a point in her life where she was not looking for the next big blockbuster movie, but interested in roles where her Korean American identity can be explored. “I decided that I’m only going to play characters that are essential to the plot, that conduct the narrative and therefore can’t be cut out.” Eve is an essential character who conducts the narrative, and was cut out of the latest installment of the program that bears her name. And that bothers me. It bothers me a lot more than just a mediocre Killing Eve story. I will never watch another Killing Eve which erases one of the female leads to elevate the other. That is not how women empower women.

FINAL GRADE: C

#Killing Eve #Villanelle #suzanne heathcote #ke s3 #emerald fennell #phoebe waller bridge #showrunner #Eve Polastri #Villanelle x Eve

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