#he just finished s3e8

[theexhaustedqueer]

One of us! One of us! One of us!

[somedayillbepeterpan]

I made a post about a side by side of Pen and Colin's first and last dance (so far) from S1 and S3 and now I'm drowning in the feels of it.

LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE TWO LAST SHOTS

S1E1 - Vauxhall ball dance

Them being such babies. Them jumping around, utterly caught by the energy of the dance. This is the first dance that Pen ever has after she's come out in society and I want to say that this is the first time that she's actually seen Colin as a man after he "rescued her". This is when the rose-coloured tinted glasses are shining brightly on her face as she looks at this boy she grew up with dancing with her in public, laughing and holding her in his arms. This is the first time she was held by another man in her life (I don't think her dad was ever affectionate towards her). Her first physical encounter with a man and it's with Colin no less (Colin really is first in everything where Penelope is concerned).

Even though there is a closeness between her and Colin already at this time, there is always Eloise in the middle. We think that Eloise being away in S3 gave them a chance to be alone together but Pen's 1st season out in society actually also gave the first chance of being alone with Colin (and then Marina came and ruined it all).

I also want to note that Pen is utterly cute in this scene. Ladies aren't supposed to wear their hair out the way Pen has it here. This alone should have told us that she is a rebel but also of how invisible she is.

Last thing to note (and this maybe just because of editing or this very beautiful but challenging height difference these two have blocking wise) is that we don't really see their faces clearly (I checked the actual video and it really is shot like that). We're only meant to feel the amusement these two have over this brief dance and I'm sure Pen went home on Cloud 9, thinking about this dance over and over.

It was her first romantic core memory.

Now we go to this scene:

S3E8 - Dankworth - Finch ball dance (Butterfly dance)

I have so many feelings about this dance. Firstly, their hand size difference!

Their smiles! Them overcoming such a huge obstacle! Colin just blasting every other love confession I've seen on this show! Them accepting each other fully, finally seeing each other for who they are. Them now ready to fully embrace their married life. I could go on and on and I will.

Both looking so ridiculously happy in this slow, intimate dance. Both looking so sexy and powerful, showing their acceptance of their maturity. It took them a while and a whole angsty journey but watching them take each step towards each other spoke to my heart and soul deeply. Their smiles in this dance was such a treat after being subjected to heartbreak.

In comparison with the shot in S1E1, we see both from their heads to their body (heart) but behind other dancers. I'm just thinking that this is the director saying this now will be your POV of Pen and Colin-- at the start of living their lives openly.

(I'm feeling sleepy now but I want to finish this)

It is so rewarding to see the journey that Pen and Colin goes through. I've been rewatching all 3 seasons and catching the growth between these two is so fascinating. The parallels, the clues, the subtle performances that Nic and Luke have been presenting on the table since S1. All so overwhelming at times at how privileged I feel to see their story laid out so beautifully.

What a gift Pen and Colin's love story is. I love their love and I'll stay here just for a little bit.

[queenofyumcha]

The Witcher Netflix's Emhyr Shrine

(RANT INCOMING, NSFW)

Recently finished watching season 3 of the TWN and I took about twenty psychic damage upon seeing what looked like a statue of Emhyr. (S3E8)

one. He looks like a random philosopher. (kinda feels like the statue is mid-shrug saying 'yeah i just invaded the northern realms. what are you going to do about it?')

two. If his men/Impera Brigade have a fan club/gossip sessions, this is the club hangout

three. Uh. my brain immediately went 'hey what if his men fucked him kneeling in front of his own statue? wouldn't that be fun?'

the thought of Emhyr being fucked (desecrated because it’s a SHRINE??) at the base of his own statue is… 🤭 a desperate mess at the foot of the idealised version of him…

And so, like any fanfic writer, I fired up the episode to scour for, ah, details and -

WHAT ARE THESE TABLES, NETFLIX? ARE WE AT A CAR BOOT SALE? THIS IS WHERE THE BUDGET RAN OUT?

(it really irks me that this room looks so low budget because if you were going to imply that the white flame thing is a cult, which fine, I can get behind that for smut reasons, why would they treat their shrine this poorly? surely, it would be richly decorated? this is giving community hall with trestle tables hastily set up for a bake sale!)

no wonder this was the only shot of the whole room!!! it looks so bad!!! it really ruins the immersion!!!

they can't fuck their emperor on that, one thrust and the entire thing collapses!!! think of the health and safety regulations!

(yes, the amount of candles is also an issue but reduce the number of candles and they can have some fun with wax play. what? you're telling me the white flame is afraid of a little hot wax? surely not?

And now I can’t stop thinking about Emhyr having ritual sex in front of his shrine. His men fucking him before they depart to battle like a good luck ritual, Emhyr over sensitised, fucked nearly senseless at the base of his statue, his men kneeling to worship him 🥰🫶

maybe they’re only allowed to fuck their emperor when they win.

maybe Emhyr’s not allowed to get himself off outside of marital sex to create an heir or being fucked senseless on his own altar. (insert flimsy religious reasoning here- orgasms allowed for duty only?)

OH and the flags here look like an afterthought, nilfs, get your shit together and iron those flags!!! during pride month of all things??? why are they propped up on the walls like that? hang em properly! at least emhyr can use them to help clean up i guess, they're not getting more rumpled.

also, the half-arsed stained glass here pisses me off. you can't even see it because there's a little bit at the top of the window and that's it! but that's just me loving the aesthetics of stained glass.

(also, since stained glass in private residences was a way of showing wealth, it would have been really cool to see a depiction of the sun/emhyr/the var emreis lineage/ the empire in stained glass or as a mural!)

and yes, I was trying to get a clear shot of the guards standing behind Emhyr's throne because I'm fully accepting them as Impera Brigade guards.

I do love that Netflix gave the guards stationed near Emhyr unique fancier armour than the other guards in the palace though!

(BUT WHY DID EMHYR NOT GET OTHER OUTFIT CHANGES? HE'S ROYALTY, WHY IS HE LIVING IN PLATE ARMOUR? ALSO, why is he wearing NORMAL TROUSERS with PLATE ARMOUR?)

I did like the roman columns and architecture here though, that was a nice touch but i felt like it didn't quite fit with the rest of the nilfgaardian theme... It just feels like it doesn't belong in this city:

I just... was not a fan. reminded me of brutalist architecture (i can see why they might have been going for that but just didn't like it for nilfgaard) and of mayan temples?? giving house Harkonnen from dune

OH AND THIS THING. This goddamn carriage...

I RECOGNISE THAT THIS IS SUCH A SILLY GRIPE OKAY, such a silly gripe, but I absolutely HATED the carriage Francesca and Fringilla were in. It looked like it was decorated by an amateur drama production. The metal beads, the shoddy paintwork, it looks so CHEAP.

WHY ARE THERE NO WINDOWS? IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD GLASS, JUST MAKE IT SO THERE ARE NO WINDOWS, which would make sense safety-wise for a carriage transporting the queen of the elves and sorceress???

Mimi looked amazing as ever though. Francesca/Fringilla toxic yuri :))) I loved seeing her pop up through the season and I can't wait to see her in S4.

Anyway. All that said, I do genuinely enjoy watching TWN, I appreciate them for making Emhyr so very fuckable even though he looks nothing like what I expected, (why is he so young. and pretty. I like it but. can we take the beard off. please?) and I will be tuning in for the new season.

I'm quite excited for Liam as Geralt, rooting for him.

[waffietato]

No actually though while I'm on a roll ranting about the funny monke show

THIS FUCKING SCENE IN PARTICULAR GETS ME SO BAD. I THINK ABOUT THIS SCENE SO OFTEN

The timing of MK's words and what we see on screen.

"I'd never abandon her when she needs me"

When MK says this, the shot is focused on Wukong, as he listens in and starts to glance back at Macaque.

LIKE WE KNOW. WE K N O W WUKONG ABANDONED MACAQUE. Those two have SOME shit going on in their past. Macaque needed Wukong, and he left him (either intentionally or unintentionally) and that left Macaque bitter and sad, and that bitterness was prolly left to rot after hundreds of years (not to mention that whatever happened between them got worse and worse and. Yknow jttw. Wukong ends up killing him.)

BUT WHAT GETS ME IS THE NEXT PART AFTERWARDS.

"We're heroes, it's what we do!"

Macaque and Wukong have ALWAYS been compared to the sun and moon. Like, canonically. Wukong calls Macaque his shadow, Macaque compares him to light-- they're opposites.

When MK talks about them being heroes, it's focused on Macaque because- well, he's NOT a hero. Not to himself, anyway. And this is brought up again and again; during his shadow plays, he specifically refers to Wukong (and MK) as "the hero". And they are! But Macaque doesn't see himself like that-- he refers to himself as "the Warrior". He doesn't feel like a hero. And this is brought up again in the s3 specials. "I'm not a hero, bud-" and "then be a warrior".

He's so used to living in everyone's shadows and being at the bottom of the barrel-- he's got a "worse version of Wukong's powers" (in Wukong's own words), he's revived by LBD only to be forced to do her dirty work, he's punished when he doesn't fall in line with her- he loses no matter what.

AND LBD SAYS IT HERSELF.

As soon as Macaque was given the chance (or, a "breath of new life") he tries to fuck off and do his own thing! He tries to stay far away from everything else.

But he doesn't get to.

He's threatened and shoved down into the dirt again and again and again and it's no wonder he was so desperate in s3e8-10. He tries to freak Tang out, tries to compare them to each other, but it backfires. LBD immediately tries to off him, but he desperately screams at her about a weapon MK and the others are planning to use- he doesn't care that he's giving her information, he just doesn't want to DIE. He begs MK and everyone else to stand down, that he just wants to take the Samadhi Fire and leave. He sounds just so DONE with it all during that scene. And when Tang does finish the ritual and the Samadhi Fire is reawakened-- what does it do?

It gets rid of LBD's hold on Macaque. He's no longer being trapped in crystal.

And he says, all happy, "it worked!"

You see the same thing in s3e8. After Tang tells him "don't you see the Samadhi Fire is our only way of helping humanity?"

Macaque tells him, "the Samadhi Fire is MY only chance at getting far away from the Lady Bone Demon"

He never wanted to help her. All he wanted to do was get away from her. He never intended to give her the Samadhi Fire, the rings-- nothing.

He's selfish, and honestly, who can blame him? Given everything we know about him, he owes everyone here nothing. He doesn't want to help them, he doesn't want to help or listen to WUKONG, who (again, either intentionally or unintentionally) abandoned him and later killed him, he doesn't even want to rlly hurt MK that much ("stand down, or I will PUT you down" implies that he doesn't want to fight him if he doesn't have to, but at this point he's so desperate for his own survival that he will if MK won't get out of his way).

Macaque doesn't see himself as a hero because he can't identify himself with that kind of title.

Just.

This scene, man. There's so much behind it.

[skullhaver]

It's 2021, and I'm watching Buffy for the first time.

The Virgil on my Buffy journey is my long-distance girlfriend, who has loved the show for years. We just finished season 4, and I wanted to write about my favorite episodes so far. I suspect some of my faves are beloved by most fans, but others are weird, personal picks. Buffy fandom, please don't come for me.

I thought this post would be short but I was wrong.

Hono(u)rable Mentions: "Band Candy" S3E6 and "Halloween" S2E6

Both these episodes have fun premises where the Scoobies run around Sunnydale after it was upended by zany, chaotic dark forces. "Band Candy" is fun for devil-may-care teen Giles. "Halloween" is fun for 18th-century-ditz Buffy. These are both very good, and are the sorts of episode I can imagine happily rewatching in the future. I just have more to pontificate upon for the other episodes on this list.

10. "Ted" S2E11

I can’t say I enjoyed this episode, but it did take me for a wild ride. Probably nobody else has strong feelings about this weird story where Buffy's mom dates a stereotypical cheesy family man, who turns out to be a controlling abuser, who turns out to be a robot. I remember shouting at the screen, "Did Buffy just kill a human man?? Is it okay in the moral logic of this show for Buffy to kill a human if he's a direct physical threat to her??" I knew Buffy would have deeper stories than the monster of the week formula we'd seen so far, but this early in season 2, I had no idea when or how that would happen. This was the episode that finally taught me that Buffy is largely not interested in moral ambiguity, or in exploring what it means to be good or bad. Except for season-defining exceptions like Faith and Angel, evil characters are simplistically, essentially evil. But it was wild to believe for a moment that Buffy murdered her mom's abusive boyfriend and would have to live with the consequences.

9. "Helpless" S3E12

When Buffy tries to be genuinely scary, it succeeds with aplomb. The premise of this episode is dumb and contrived ("Giles has to remove Buffy's powers without her knowledge for a seeeecret test by the Watcher's Council") but the chase and fight in this episode are some of the most tense and spooky scenes of the whole series so far. Buffy's vulnerability makes the stakes feel real in a way few other episodes manage. And Buffy's victory is all the more satisfying because she can't punch her way out of this problem, she has to be smart and creative. The fridge horror, of course, is that Giles would endanger her like this in the first place, but that gets sorted out over the emotional arc of the next few episodes.

8. "I Only Have Eyes For You." S2E19

Another spooky episode, this one a classic ghost story of forbidden love ending in murder - but with the twist that the ghosts possess people's bodies to have them reenact their final moments. I love stories about breaking a doomed-to-repeat cycle. I love weird shit like the snakes manifesting in the cafeteria. And I really loved the choice to have Buffy and Angel come to understand their feelings about their own relationship by embodying these ghosts - especially how they embodied different genders than their own to better fit the "roles" of the haunting story, thus subverting the expected pattern. I found this episode clever, poignant, and effective.

7. "Who Are You?" S4E16

"Faith and Buffy switch bodies" is a wild premise, but the real joy of "Who Are You?" is watching Sarah Michelle Geller being an extremely talented actress for 45 minutes, portraying a totally different character. Watching Faith confronted by kindness and love from Buffy's mom, Riley, and her friends, then getting launched into an existential crisis over it is so great. Also, I just dig a good church fight.

6. "Hush" S4E10

As stated above, love an episode that reminds me that these people are talented actors! Featuring demons that render all of Sunnydale unable to talk, we get to watch great physical comedy right next to tense, silent fight scenes. The visual creepiness of the Gentleman and their straight-jacketed weird little helpers is hard to beat. "Hush" is such a clever episode that it ascends monster of the week status to become almost Twilight Zone-esque. Also, for the first time, Buffy sees Riley doing his Initiative thing, and Riley sees Buffy being the Slayer, but they can't talk about it?? That's good shit.

5. "The Wish" S3E9

Both "Something Blue" and "The Wish" feel like the writers decided to use fanfic premises on their own show... so obviously I like them a lot. But getting to watch a dark timeline AU with interesting world-building and attention to detail, a hilarious and horrifying Cordelia POV, AND a smirking kinky vampire Willow? Hello?? And the fact that the Wishverse comes up again in "Doppelgänger" (another truly fun episode) only improves my opinion. I imagine this is the kind of episode fans simply love coming back to.

4. "Restless" S4E22

This David Lynch-ass dream sequence was a weird choice for a season finale, but an extremely ambitious and cool episode. I should say up front that I love David Lynch-ass dream shit. There were creative and well-executed scene transitions as characters moved seamlessly from one dream room into another. Several memorably neat shots - Willow running between endless curtains as she tries to get onstage, Buffy alone in a vast desert with a weirdly high camera angle. And I got myself all excited thinking that the First Slayer would maybe become a different kind of antagonist - maybe not even fully revealed in this episode, or maybe an Id-like aspect of Buffy herself. But I forgot Whedon gonna Whedon, so the First Slayer had to be someone Buffy could punch in the end. And the First Slayer is sadly yet another primitive-themed, emotionally-stunted character of color for this show. Most of her lines in this episode are literally voiced by a white woman speaking for her, and of all the dumb quips to make, Buffy had a line about her hair being unprofessional? Also, I'm a lesbian, so the fact that the most explicit act of intimacy between Willow and Tara this show has allowed us to see occurs in Xander's horny dream sequence... it’s unforgivable, Joss. This episode was one of my favorites ever, deeply marred by some bad writing choices.

3. "Lovers Walk" S3E8

Spike, perhaps the best non-Willow character in this show, is back in Sunnydale, a hilariously heartbroken mess of a man, hell-bent on getting his former girlfriend Drusilla back. (Drusilla left him for a fungus demon.) So Spike breaks into a magic shop to get ingredients for a love spell, where he runs into Willow, who is getting ingredients for a de-lusting spell, because she is worried she and Xander will be too thirsty to behave appropriately in public with their actual partners, Oz and Cordelia. This is a hilarious moment just to exist. This is all the episode needed to do to satisfy me. But the fact that Spike then kidnaps Willow, and it ends with tragic stakes of everyone's relationships coming apart, not to mention me genuinely thinking Cordelia was dead for a minute there - wow. Chef’s kiss. The episode is balanced shockingly well between Spike being an ominous villain, and being the sort of lovable semi-evil (more gremlin-like) side character he'll become in season 4. What a wild ride.

2. "Graduation Day" S3E21-22

I'm counting this two part season finale as one because it's my list and I'll do what I want. "Graduation Day" feels like a quintessential Buffy episode executed to perfection. It has Buffy reaffirming her position as a moral heroine, sacrificing her own blood to save Angel's life even when she thought she had to kill Faith to save him. It has Buffy and Faith (or Buffy/Faith, as I prefer to think of them) getting to square off in a dramatic, tough fight. It has a lot of Mayor Wilkins, a character I truly adore for some reason. Nothing like a public administrator who plays mini golf in his office, wants you to chew with your mouth closed, and will kill a graduating class of high schoolers to gain immortality. The catharsis of the whole school getting to fight back against evil, instead of just Buffy against the world - a real joy. This episode misses the top spot for two reasons. "A special vampire poison and the only cure is the blood of a Slayer" is too contrived for me to let slide, and also I had to see Cordelia and Wesley kiss.

1. "Becoming" S2E21-22

Buffy’s season finales really do have good stories and satisfying payoff. First off, Buffy starts this episode by punching a cop and fleeing from the law. Later, Spike also punches a cop. A.k.a., Buffy said blue lives don't matter. Second - I haven't gotten a chance to comment on this yet, but all throughout season 2, evil Angel is such a joy to watch. As regular Angel, David Boreanaz makes exactly one face ("I am a kicked, angsty puppy") and bless his heart, it gets so tiresome. As evil Angel, he is so expressive, dynamic and terrifyingly creative in his badness. And I love his weird threesome energy with Spike and Drusilla. But also, it's so hard to watch Buffy suffer as she deals with her evil boyfriend doing evil things. Her ultimate choice in this episode, to kill Angel even as Willow's spell restores his soul, gave me some real big feels! Also, this episode marks the first moment of Willow doing big, plot-shifting magic on her own, solidifying her transformation from computer nerd to witch! 

Also, shout-out to the many good smaller moments in this episode: Spike making awkward small talk with Buffy's mom, Buffy constantly dunking on Principle Snyder, and Giles being tortured by visions of Miss Calendar (RIP Miss Calendar, I was your biggest fan.)

"Becoming" is an excellent season finale and the kind of Buffy episode I imagine I will want to re-watch in the future just for nostalgia's sake.

[starring-movies]

Killing Eve: Episode Analysis

*SPOILERS*

Season 2, Episode 8 - You’re Mine

The finale of Season 2 begins with the continuation of the operation in Rome. Hugo comes back with coffee for himself and Eve, after they slept together the night before, and he calls Eve, “Mrs Robinson”. This is a reference to the 1967 film, ‘The Graduate’; which is about a young college graduate (just like Hugo), who is seduced by a much older woman, called Mrs. Robinson (like Eve).

While Eve is in the hotel room, listening through the earpiece, she hears Villanelle say the safe word, “gentleman”; after Villanelle sees that Raymond is one of the buyers coming to look into the weapon that Aaron Peel is selling.

After hearing Villanelle say the safe word, just as Eve is about to tell Hugo, she hears him being shot and she hides from the shooter by lying under the bed in the room. After the shooter has left, Eve goes to help Hugo, but she just tells him to put pressure on his wound and then decides to leave him behind, so that she can go to help Villanelle. As Eve is walking away and Hugo is shouting for her to help him, ‘Her’ by Unloved can be heard in the background. Some of the lyrics of the song are:

“There were no candles lit,

The room was dark as night,

Just like the corners of my mind,

I gave my heart to her,

She has my heart”

The last time this song was used was in S1E4, but in that instance it was used for Villanelle, while she was waiting for Eve to come to the crime scene, but Eve doesn’t show up. When the song was used in S1E4, it was to illustrate how Villanelle had given her heart to Eve, and so Eve was the one who had Villanelle’s heart. Whereas this time, it is used to show how Eve has given her heart to Villanelle, and so now Villanelle is the one who holds Eve’s heart. In fact Eve’s heart belongs to Villanelle so much so, that she is willing to leave Hugo (who for all she knows might die) just so that she can go and ‘save’ Villanelle, who is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

When Eve arrives at Aaron’s palazzo, Aaron tells Villanelle “I’ll give you everything you want”, which echoes when Villanelle asked Eve “will you give me everything I want?”, in S2E5. In saying this (in the same way that we are reminded of what Villanelle said to Eve), Aaron might have similarly reminded Villanelle of what she had previously asked Eve - and in turn, reminded her that Eve is actually everything she wants. So when Aaron asks Villanelle to kill Eve, she knows that if she does kill Eve like he’s asking her to do, she will never be able to have “everything” she wants.

After Villanelle kills Aaron, she and Eve decide to split up because Eve needs to get the recordings from the hotel room and Villanelle needs to find them a way to escape. When Eve arrives at the hotel room, everything has been cleaned up and Carolyn is waiting in the room to speak to Eve. Eve tells her that Aaron is dead and Carolyn asks her “did you kill him?”, indicating that she has obviously been observing Eve’s behaviour and thinks that she is capable of killing. Eve indignantly, and rather taken aback, tells Carolyn “of course not” when she is asked this, which foreshadows the argument that she and Villanelle have at the end of the episode - everyone else (Villanelle, Carolyn, The Ghost) can see her darkness, but Eve herself is still unwilling to accept it.

While Eve is speaking to Carolyn, and Villanelle is speaking to Konstantin, we can see the trust that Villanelle and Eve have in one another, as well as how they both are aware of how much they mean to each other. The two paralleled conversations are almost mirrored with one other: Eve says “you don’t know that” to Carolyn, when she tells Eve that Villanelle “wouldn’t do the same for you”; and Villanelle says “she wouldn’t”, when Konstantin says “what if she’s left with Carolyn already?”.

The entire goal of Villanelle and Eve’s characters’ journeys in this season is encapsulated when Konstantin asks Villanelle “what is it about her?”, and Villanelle tells him that it’s because “we’re the same”. For the entirety of Season 2, we have been shown how Villanelle and Eve are two sides of the same coin, and especially how Eve has been becoming more like Villanelle in her behaviour; so Villanelle saying this, just ties together everything they’ve done throughout the season that has made them become more “the same” as each other.

As Villanelle is waiting for Eve outside of the hotel, she gets anxious and goes to look for Eve inside. When Villanelle climbs the stairs of the hotel, she finds that Raymond has been waiting for her so that he can kill her (like Konstantin warned her). A fight ensues and Raymond starts choking Villanelle, nearly killing her. But when Raymond sees Eve with his axe, he says to Villanelle that “she’s not going to do it is she? She doesn’t have it in her”, which parallels when Villanelle said to Eve in S1E8 “you can’t”. In both of those moments, Eve was being underestimated and surprises the person who was underestimating her by following through and doing what they claimed she couldn’t - by stabbing Villanelle in S1E8 and killing Raymond in this episode.

While Villanelle is trying to encourage Eve to finish killing Raymond, she shouts “imagine he’s a log” at her. In S3E5, Villanelle tells Pyotr “I used to do woodwork”, so her knowledge in woodworking is probably why the first things that comes to her mind is to tell Eve to imagine Raymond is a log.

When they escape to the Roman ruins, after Eve has killed Raymond, Villanelle tells her that they could go to live in Alaska and that “we’d be normal”. We can see that normality and a mundane life, like that which Eve lives, is something that Villanelle has been yearning for since Season 1. In S1E5 she tells Eve “I know I’m not normal”, in S1E8 she says to Eve that she wants “normal things” and in S2E1 she tells Gabriel “I’m not normal you know”. She also offers to make dinner for her and Eve, and tells her “I’ll look after you”, which similarly shows her desire to have a normal and domestic life with Eve.

After Eve finds out that Villanelle manipulated her into killing Raymond, Villanelle tells her “I wanted you to know how it feels, how did it feel?”. In doing this, Villanelle is actually answering one of the things which Eve tells Villanelle that she thinks about in S1E8. In S1E8, Eve says to Villanelle, “I think about your eyes and your mouth, and how you feel when you kill someone”. So by getting Eve to kill Raymond, Villanelle probably thinks she’s being caring and doing something helpful for her, so that now Eve will have an answer and get to know for herself “how you feel when you kill someone”.

Eve goes on to tell Villanelle that “I’m like you now”. This is probably true, as although Eve had already been displaying a number of similarities to Villanelle, she had not gone as far as to cross the line to kill someone. But crossing that line is most likely what allows Eve to start to accept her “monster” and the existence of her “darkness”, becoming the most like Villanelle, in Season 3 - while she is holding onto denial regarding these aspects of herself, she can not truly be like Villanelle.

We also see Villanelle’s confusion at Eve’s reaction to killing Raymond, which is what she thought would help Eve, telling her “it’s what YOU wanted”. Villanelle can see Eve’s darkness (and has done for a long time), just like The Ghost did in S2E5 when she asked Eve “do you want to do it yourself?”; and so Villanelle can also see that this actually is what Eve wanted, and in turn she can’t understand why Eve does’t see what she sees. However, because Eve hasn’t come to terms with, nor accepted her darkness, she rejects Villanelle (and therefore also rejects her own darkness) - which is a problem we see repeated in S3E5, and why Villanelle similarly decides to kill her mother just like she shoots Eve in this episode.

Villanelle goes on to tell Eve that she loves her, but Eve says to her that “you don’t understand what that is”. Villanelle then possessively tells her “you’re mine”. Villanelle saying this proves that, although she may have deep feelings and an obsession for Eve, it’s not until S3E8 that we can see that Villanelle has found out what loving Eve really is - when she’s willing to let her go and never see her for the rest of her life, rather than claiming Eve as an object which belongs to her (like her clothes or money).

Villanelle also says to Eve that she “thought you were special”. Villanelle thought that Eve was different from her mother, Anna and Nadia; all of whom either weren’t able to do the things that Eve can or wouldn’t accept the darkness they had inside of them - Anna and Nadia weren’t able to shoot Villanelle like Eve was able to stab her, Anna wasn’t able to admit her feelings for Villanelle to herself and Villanelle’s mother wasn’t able to accept her darkness (like Villanelle thought Eve would be able to accept her darkness). Konstantin’s prophetic warning about Villanelle to Eve in S2E3, that “she’ll love you to death”, has indeed come true.

You can read my previous Killing Eve posts here:-

First Introduction to Villanelle

First Introduction to Eve

S1, E1 - Nice Face

S1, E2 - I’ll Deal With Him Later

S1, E3 - Don’t I Know You?

S1, E4 - Sorry Baby

S1, E5 - I Have a Thing about Bathrooms

S1, E6 - Take Me to the Hole!

S1, E7 - I Don’t Want to Be Free

S1, E8 - God, I’m Tired

S2, E1 - Do You Know How to Dispose of a Body?

S2, E2 - Nice and Neat

S2, E3 - The Hungry Caterpillar

S2, E4 - Desperate Times

S2, E5 - Smell Ya Later

S2, E6 - I Hope You Like Missionary!

S2, E7 - Wide Awake

S3, E1 - Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey

S3, E2 - Management Sucks

S3, E3 - Meetings Have Biscuits

S3, E4 - Still Got It

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 1]

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 2]

S3, E6 - End of Game

S3, E7 - Beautiful Monster

S3, E8 - Are You Leading or Am I? [Part 1]

——————————————————————————

[panevanbuckley]

Casmund/911 anon back again, first off, never apologize for rambling because thats what I'm about to do. On casmund, I didn't ship it right away, but I rewatched prince capsian and after and was like, oof i see some pining in there, and it just got so much more intense in VOTD, but like, its such a quiet unappreciated ship that I am always excited to see someone else shipping it just as hard as I do. on 911, I AM NOT READY. I just finished season 3 on Hulu to find out season 4 will be removed soon and Im like, i need to process season 3 first please before watching season 4 . Oof i just got into 911, ive seen it trending a few times for buddie, and was always like, huh cool they chased turkeys in that one episode, and then there was a gunshot scene and the whole internet broke but now that im into it OMG I CANNOT WAIT. CAMELS IN LA!? the behind the scenes stuff is killing me slowly

omg sorry for the late reply, life went a little hectic for a second there 😂

honestly, I was surprised to see that casmund is pretty much the most popular ship in the fandom? but also, how could it not be like look at them 😅 my problem is I've been craving some soft fluff for them and can't seem to find anything that hits the spot. if you have any fic recs I'd be so grateful!

please, omg, it's been how long since s4 ended?? 2 1/2 months?! all I had to do was watch s3 so that I'd be all caught up before s5 starts and I swear- I've only just seen s3e8.... I miss lockdown when I could just binge watch my shows 😭 s4 is so amazing! so much sassy Eddie omg. before this, I was never really into any trending fandoms so the experience of watching new episodes with everyone was so much fun, I honestly miss the hype - I can't wait for it to return and my dash to be filled with so much new content!!

Ryan's face when he pets that camel still cracks me up 😂 that episode is gonna be so chaotic and I cannot wait 💕

[buthappysoverrated]

I posted 2,119 times in 2021

62 posts created (3%)

2057 posts reblogged (97%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 33.2 posts.

I added 1,298 tags in 2021

#obi wan kenobi - 322 posts

#anakin skywalker - 290 posts

#lmao - 102 posts

#dinluke - 94 posts

#star wars - 92 posts

#luke skywalker - 91 posts

#obikin - 86 posts

#pedro pascal - 81 posts

#the mandalorian - 72 posts

#din djarin - 68 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i'm not aromantic myself but the fact that jedi order don't think romantic love is not the biggest goal of life really makes me feel very go

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Part of a collaboration (I'm the host so I post my part wherever and whenever I want) for my own birthday next week. I guess it's better unmute this, but it's rubbish so it doesn't matter.

11 notes • Posted 2021-03-02 09:45:00 GMT

#4

This is part of a fanvid collaboration with my best friend! This part will be the only part contain Narcos though. Please open the sound.

11 notes • Posted 2021-08-24 08:49:52 GMT

#3

This is sopposed to be fore inception trick or treat? It’s kind of bad but still...

22 notes • Posted 2021-10-31 03:45:46 GMT

#2

Narcos S3E8

I just finished Narcos. I’m not sure why but in this scene Javier is suddenly super hot to me.

39 notes • Posted 2021-02-06 15:17:33 GMT

#1

I’m thinking about an au where Din is a Sith lord. He’s force sensitive and he’s snatched by the Empire which probably butchered his whole family. However he’s still relatively kind and sentimental, like, when he’s sent to kill someone he make sure it’s quick and mostly painless, therefore the Empire can’t really use him as a general. When someone brings in Grogu he’s just very protective and tries to calm the kid, and he does that by trying to find the Jedi, Luke, and let Luke train him.

This doesn’t make much sense and I’m not sure if anyone has done this; I’ve never read it. And I’m too uncreative and shy to talk on Discord. I don’t know if I should try to write it because my writing is really poor but is there anyone willing to listen to my dumb ideas?

63 notes • Posted 2021-02-15 15:04:39 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[dirigibleplumbing]

writing update, Will/Hannibal edition

“I didn’t know you wrote Will/Hannibal, Naomi!” you might say. but that’s just because I haven’t finished any yet.

these lists are for myself and self-accountability though obviously anyone who is interested is welcome to read. questions / thoughts are also welcome!

Will/Hannibal fic I’m actually in the process of writing: 

yeah I’m writing a multi-chapter post-season-3 slow burn from Will’s POV. we can never have enough of those, right? (well, it’s medium burn tentative friends to best ever murder bros, slow burn tentative friends to murder bros to murder husbands)

um I’m also writing a kind of poetic / surreal / purple prose / YMMV multi-chapter post-season-3 story with Hannibal POV and excessive references to classic literature and art 

crossover with the Magicians TV show. a Marina is stuck in a universe where magic works a little differently than it does in hers. murder husbands meet her and -- once Will is sure he’s not hallucinating -- they help her get back to her own reality. (for those who don’t know the Magicians, Marina and Abigail are played by the same actress, and holy shit, if Hannibal could see his surrogate daughter like that he would be overjoyed.) 

Season 1 AU crack wherein no one has any idea Hannibal has been turned into a dog and Will adopts the dog and the dog leaves him increasingly large mangled and bloody animals and everything goes pretty much exactly as you think it would but hey, someone has to write it, right? 

Hannibal x Killing Eve crossover. Murder Husbands meet Murder Wives. I’ve written Will meeting Eve but am fiddling with what happens during  the double-date at an excessively extravagant 

similar concepts have been done and now I’m doing my take on it too: post-s3e13 Will finds he has travelled back in time to a year or so after s3e7, and decides he’s going to kick things off early and not throw them off a cliff this time. Hannibal, who does not have any knowledge of s3e8 thru s3-13, is intrigued and delighted by whatever Will is up to. Hannibal POV. 

Will/Hannibal fic ideas that are not far along but I want to make happen: 

crossover with the X-Files. Mulder is disappointed to discover that the unreasonably huge number of serial murders in the Baltimore area have nothing to do with ley lines, but becomes instead convinced that Will has latent psychic powers that could be developed much, much further. 

Scully is Bedelia’s second cousin and it is awkward 

biggest stumbling block so far is figuring out how Mulder survives taking such an active interest in cultivating Will’s skills

crossover with Bones where the main characters are all investigating the same case. there is a strange dinner party, wherein Brennan somehow gets on the topic of cannibalism and shares many fascinating anthropological facts about it! 

iZombie crossover. Will thinks Liv is like him. Liv thinks Will is like her. Hannibal thinks Liv smells... wrong. 

Archer crossover. Archer and the main characters don’t appear at all. instead, murder husbands in Cuba meet Rudy and Charles! 

crossover and sort of fusion crackfic with My Favorite Murder. Will is Karen and Georgia’s research assistant. He appears on an episode about the Chesapeake Ripper. Hannibal has a google alert, listens, and is immediately smitten with how Will talks about the Ripper’s kills. He appears on an episode as a special guest expert in serial killers and... well honestly I’ve never written anything remotely like RPF before and I feel weird about it because I was going to have Hannibal kill Steven, the podcast’s sound engineer, but that’s a real person whose voice I listen to and I don’t know I feel deeply weird about that?! I might need to change the RL characters into obvious stand-ins with different names. The main thing stopping me is I was going to title it “My Favorite Murderer” because c’mon, we all know who Will’s favorite is!

Other: 

I’m working on a fanmix. Because I am... me... it’s going to have 52 songs (13 for each season and 13 for a murder husbands season 4!) and possibly some bonus tracks. I actually have nearly all of the tracks picked out, but want to get links to them on multiple platforms, plus lyrics, and write and edit notes about why I picked them. There are some songs that are on everyone’s Will/Hannibal playlists and at least one that is one everyone’s playlist for any ship ever, but with that number of tracks I hope there will be something new for everyone. 

I also have a couple art pieces in progress, one character study of Hannibal and one of Will. There is a 98% chance I will post them here and on AO3, and a 2% chance I will decide to put them in my professional portfolio and brand them as “editorial” illustrations rather than fanart. If I did this I don’t know if I would also post them here... I do children’s book illustration, am mostly trying to get more work doing that, and would like to try to keep my fandom stuff separate from the professional, but idk. 

[rtrixie]

S3E8 - Tomislav Sunić, The Church and Mass Migration

This week we're joined by writer Tomislav Sunić to expand on the thorny issue of the Catholic Church's influence on mass migration policies in Europe and the United States, expanding on a talk given at the London Forum this May.

Also featuring just under an hour of the week's big stories including some good news from the Trump administration, discussion about Germany’s first major city with a German minority, Merkel's U-turn on gay marriage and to finish, a tale of a transplanted womb that you're about to pay for.

Tomislav Sunic was born in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1953. The son of a Catholic dissident, he studied French and English Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb until 1978. From 1980-1982, he worked as a “lobbyist” in Algeria for the multinational company Sequipag – Ingra, before receiving a Master’s degree at California State University, Sacramento, in 1985. He received a doctorate in political science in 1988 from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

From 1988 until 1993, he taught at California State University, the University of California, and Juniata College in Pennsylvania. Thereafter, he served in various diplomatic positions with the Croatian government in Zagreb, London, Copenhagen, and Brussels until 2001. He has also taught at the Anglo-American College in Prague. He currently resides in Zagreb, where he continues to work as a freelance writer, including as a contributor on political semiotics and the spirit of Communist totalitarianism to the French quarterly Catholica.

He has published a number of books, including Homo Americanus: Child of the Postmodern Age (BookSurge, 2007), Against Democracy and Equality: The European New Right (Arktos, 2011), and Titans are in Town (Arktos, 2017).

Support us: www.patreon.com/currentyearreport paypal@commonsensepost.net

Podcast RSS: http://www.commonsensepost.net/feed/podcast/the-current-year-report

[shellfishsteam]

Generator Rex’s timeline

I’m not trying to set up dates for occurrences in the past. Nothing on Alpha’s creation or Rex’s accident.

Just the show.

(For the sake of this timeline, we will assume episodes are in chronological order. The happenings of episode 2 occur after those of episode 1, and so on.)

We have several clues in reference to the school year:

-Episode 3 apparently happens during Spring Break, which would put it somewhere in March or April. -Episode 11 has Noah’s  junior prom as its main storyline. Prom is either in May or June. -In Episode 17, Noah spends several days at Bootcamp. This implies it’s school break, and if episodes are in chronological order, it’s most likely during summer vacation. -S2E1, S2E11, and S3E8 all occur during Noah’s senior year. “Hermanos” must have happened during a break for Noah, Claire and Annie to be available for several days. Given that many seniors (particularly ambitious ones like Noah) spend most of their breaks before graduation studying, the episode most likely occurs during the summer after they have finished high school. So yes, Noah probably graduated during S3, and we completely missed it.

Noah still being in school (during “Guy vs Guy”) after the 6-month timeskip also sets a date on the S2 finale. Depending on which state Noah goes to school in, vacation can begin from late May to late June, so the pre-time travel parts of “Lions and Lambs” could not have happened after January. (I assume “6 months” means somewhere between 5.5 - 6.5 months. Not that much room for inaccuracy.)

Then there’s character’s comments on how long something has been:

In S2E3, Six says Rex only remembers the past 18 months.

The earliest moment Rex can remember is when he first meets Six in the flashback during “Promises, promises”. That is also the day Rex celebrates his birthday, and the one year anniversary of his time at Providence.

You heard me right. Only 1 year went by between the flashbacks and the present. He hasn’t even been around for two years, aka 24 months, by “Waste Land”, and that’s several episodes later.

Even if you ignore the “18 months”, it’s evidently Rex’s first birthday at Providence. Six says he’s “surprised [Holiday] chose that day” to celebrate (why would he say that if Rex has had other birthdays with them?), and the way Holiday says “Rex has changed everything” also strikes me as said change being pretty recent.

And “Promises, promises” contains a further clue as to its date! 

The throwaway line that Rex is about to get his flu shots.

According to most sources, you are supposed to be injected with the flu vaccine by early fall. There’s some debate on whether it’s a good idea to get them by mid-summer, so just to be sure, we’ll be generous and place the episode somewhere between July and October.

Given that Episode 1 takes place a bit before March/April, this gives us at a minimum 4, at a maximum 9 months between Episode 1 and the events of the “Promises, promises” flashbacks. Not a whole lot of time.

An aside on the “18 months” comment:

If Six is being precise, this is at the very earliest the January (July two years ago + 18 months)  of the year after Ep1. However, if E1 was really 5 years after the Nanite Event (aNE), this would put “Waste Land” at almost 6 years aNE. If “Mixed Signals” happens after the episode, it would either make Caesar being lost for 5 years nonsense, or mean he’d already been around on Earth for a year. Yeah, I don’t think so.

Furthermore, remember how I said ‘Lions and Lambs’ could happen no later than January? The earliest possible date for Six to say it’s been 18 months is the same January. And there’s almost an entire season between the two episodes.

What I’m saying is: the only straightforward “fact” we have for the timeline is completely useless. It’s up to you to decide if Six is being grossly inaccurate or to pretend the entire comment is non-canon.

The timeline I’ve created happens to cohere with the continuing comments made on how long it’s been since the Nanite Event (which have always bugged me). So here you go:

In early spring, about 5 years after the Nanite Event, Rex makes his first public appearance.(Ep. 1) About half a year later, he celebrates his “birthday”. S1’s last two episodes and S2 happen in relatively quick succession. The time aNE, when rounded, is still 5. At the latest in January, Rex disappears with Breach. Sometime before the school year ends, he’s found in the desert. From this point on, it is more accurate to say it’s been 6 years aNE.

Basically: E1 (pre-March) E19 (sometime between July and October) S2E19 (at the latest, January)

Season 3 also takes a few months, which would put the finale somewhere in summer or fall.

Given that Rex doesn’t celebrate his second birthday/anniversary, the finale may have happened before whenever that is, in-story. But it’s also possible everyone forgot about it, or they decided against celebrating it because they were busy, or because of Six’s memory loss, or some other reason. tldr; I have nothing certain on “Endgame”.

By the way, this also implies the Nanite Event took place during spring or early summer. I didn’t expect to figure out anything about it, so I’m really pleased.

However, no matter how I look at it, Caesar saying the time-warp took him ahead 5 years still doesn’t seem quite right. It’s five and a half. Nothing else makes sense. He may have been hiding something, but it’s way more likely MoA just can’t do numbers. (or they don’t think half a year matters. Yes it does)

I could attempt to make the timeline even more exact, but the complete lack of specific dates in the entire series makes that nigh impossible. We don’t even have any holiday specials! (I hate that this works as a pun.) And there’s pretty much no way of knowing how much time passes between subsequent episodes.

A lot happens before the series that’s only alluded to. When was Providence founded? How much time went by between Rex selling out the gang and him being found by Six? etc, etc. But that is outside of the scope of this post, which is already long enough as it is.

[tgaoe]

Andy’s 2017 Television Report

I love watching good TV. I still feel there’s a stigma associated with watching as much as I do, but I’m trying to own it. I love TV. I would much rather watch an old West Wing ep than go on a hike or do basically anything outdoorsy. So there that is. And here is an exhaustive list of everything I watched this year.

Not Enough Time and/or Motivation to Watch/Finish Ranked by Level of Intention to Watch/Finish

10. The Vietnam War 9. Godless 8. The Young Pope S1 7. The Handmaid’s Tale S1 6. Search Party S2 5. Rick & Morty S3 4. Halt and Catch Fire S4 3. You’re the Worst S4 2. Better Things S2 1. Broad City S4

Disappointing/Bad The Americans S5 Starts strong, has some nice character development, but the main story was inconsequential and frustrating, as were several side stories.

Preacher S2 Has cool moments and I still love the three leads, but the main plot left me cold. Not even close to as good as the debut season.

Sherlock S4 Stupid and infuriating.

Seasons I Liked, Ranked by Favoritism 32 Curb Your Enthusiasm S8 Same old show, wearing a little thin but still enjoyable.

31 I Love Dick Obtuse, intentionally discomfiting, wonderfully acted; Kathryn Hahn is a goddess.

30 Stranger Things S2 A fun time and not much more, which is fine.

29 Veep S6 Somehow exactly the same cruel, cynical show despite a somewhat significant premise shift.

28 Silicon Valley S4 More of the same. Not sure how much longer this show can sustain the whole “awkward tech bros overcoming impossible odds” premise. Hoping for some risks next season.

27 Vice Principals S2 A hilarious, surprisingly emotional comedy that will always be stuck in the shadow of its predecessor.

26 Love S2 Rock solid cast, writing with a nice balance of comedy, drama, and romance.

25 Bojack Horseman S4 I like this show less than everyone else who likes it, feels like. Still, no other televised depiction of depression rings truer, and remains funny without making light of serious mental illness.

24 Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp Manic, inspired inanity.

23 Brooklyn Nine Nine S4/S5 Comfort food. Love everyone on the show. Every episode is the same and always will be and who cares.

22 Legion S1 In a year that hadn’t also included Twin Peaks: the Return, this would have ranked much higher for its crazy formalist experimentation, dazzling visual style, and sustained weirdness. Wish it had been more character-focused, and I hated the coda. Almost dreading season two.

21 Easy S2 Warm, human, real. Love the whole notion of a serialized anthology.

20 GLOW S1 Spending time with these characters just feels great, even when they’re behaving awfully. It’s the kind of show the predictability of which is a positive.

19 Big Little Lies S1 Reese Witherspoon projectile vomits pure green goop in this show. It rules.

18 Crashing S1 You love Pete or you don’t. I love him, have for years. The show is just more Pete.

17 The Good Place S1/S2 Quite possibly the most imaginative, innovate half-hour sitcom of all time; inspires equal investment in the characters and the ever-expanding mythology and mysteries, which is quite a feat.

16 Top of the Lake: China Girl Full review.

15 Fargo S3 By far the weakest season of the show, yet still one of the year’s best. Willfully disgusting and perhaps a bit too writerly, the last few episodes redeem some early rambling and formlessness. Ewan McGregor was not great in his role(s), and Carrie Coon’s performance was done a disservice by her appearing here and in The Leftovers simultaneously. But Mary Elizabeth Winstead and David Thewlis kill.

14 Ozark S1 Every 2-3 episodes contain enough plot for a full season of most other shows. It is wild. Characters at once inhabit archetypes and subvert them. I love how the main means of circumventing trouble is simply telling the truth.

13 One Mississippi S2 The best pure romance story on TV this year.

12 Future Man S1 Starts rough, slowly gets great. Consummately derivative sci-fi comedy. Couldn’t love it more.

11 Mindhunter S1 Spent most of the season deciding whether Jonathan Groff is terrible or magnificent here. Landed on magnificent, for the way he oscillates between ego states in response to story turns, negotiating his perceptions of both the concept of deviance and his sense of his own masculinity.

10 Dear White People S1 The number of characters this show balances is a miracle, and how it engenders empathy for all parties while maintaining its slick, ultracool visual style and exploring sensitive themes with the utmost nuance.

9 Mr. Robot S3 A vast improvement after the letdown of season two. Takes some weird risks that attempt retrofit current events into the show’s 2015 setting, and while not all of them work, the ones that do pay off massively. Plot mechanics are secondary to atmosphere, character, and theme. The cast is great as ever, and this year Bobby Cannavale joins the fray, which is never a bad idea.

8 Insecure S2 Continues to use top-notch production values and writing to explore lifestyles and perspectives previously ghettoized on TV, relegated to peripheral channels and the lowest of low budgets. Issa Rae’s performance is reliably loveable despite her character’s constant questionable decisions, but Yvonne Orji truly makes the show. Somebody cast her and Tiffany Haddish in something together asap.

7 Better Call Saul S3 Slow, methodical, pulpy, consistent. Another solid season of intricate, character-driven puzzle-piece storytelling.

6 American Vandal S1 The funniest entertainment of any type I consumed all year, and surprisingly thematically resonant as it progresses toward its conclusion.

5 Master of None S2 As funny, romantic, and charming as its creator. Tackles some surprisingly heavy subjects, has gained significant poignancy after cultural shifts that came later in the year.

4 The Deuce S1 An even seedier iteration of David Simon’s expansive storytelling style than The Wire, the period details of this show are casually perfect; unshowy and lived in. The Deuce convinced me that James Franco is one of our greatest living actors, on the level of someone like De Niro in his prime. Franco plays twins, and though they look and sound exactly alike, his slightly varied physicality always makes it clear who each is.

3 The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel S1 Such fun. A romantically stylized 1950s New York period piece starring a woman who should be, and might yet become, our biggest movie star. Nicely balances light comedy and light drama. Watching feels like cuddling up in a warm blanket.

2 Twin Peaks: the Return Mystifying, hilarious, infuriating, horrifying, wonderful.

1 The Leftovers S3 Not just the best season of television this year, but one of the greatest of all time. I have never been more satisfied by a finale. I refuse to write more lest I spoil anything. If you have not watched this show, watch it. The first season is flawed and difficult. The second is perfect, and so is the third. If this show’s premise even remotely appeals to you, watch it.

Favorite Episodes 12 “Amber Waves” The Americans S5E1 Bold start to an ultimately weak season. Features a ten-minute sequence during which a group of characters silently and methodically dig a hole, and somehow it is almost impossibly dramatic and exciting to watch. Here’s hoping the show picks up again for its final season next year.

11 “Chicanery” Better Call Saul S3E5 A courtroom episode rife with familial drama and series history exploited to maximum effect.

10 “Prodigal Daughter” Easy S2E6 A small, deeply humanist story of a high school girl discovering what she values, and how she wants to manifest those values. Lovely.

9 “Chapter V” Dear White People S1E5 Builds tension to a fever pitch using dialogue, editing, and camera techniques  downright orchestral. Directed by Barry Jenkins, of Moonlight fame.

8 “Part 8” Twin Peaks: the Return Several professional writers called this David’s Lynch’s Tree of Life, and I can’t describe it more succinctly than that. Lynch traces the origin of evil in his universe in a way no person who ever lived would except him.

7 “Who Rules the Land of Denial?” Fargo S3E8 For the bowling alley scene alone.

6 “eps3.4_runtime-err0r.r00” Mr. Robot S3E5 A bravura, (faked) single-take episode that brilliantly uses transit time to build tension.

5 “eps3.7_dont-delete-me.ko” Mr. Robot S3E8 The opposite of bravura; Elliot walks around with a young boy for most of the episode, and it is even more kinetic and exciting than the one with the single take.

4 “Amarsi Un Po'”/“Buona Notte” Master of None S2E9/E10 Heartbreaking. Aziz Ansari’s tribute to the Before Trilogy, and, let’s be honest, the Elevator arc from Louie, is brutal in its exposure of emotional truth. The chemistry between the leads makes the whole thing work.

3 “Part 18” Twin Peaks: the Return The finale. Mystifying, infuriating, horrifying, wonderful. Decidedly not hilarious.

2 “Thanksgiving” Master of None S2E8 A deeply-moving short film exposing a type of hardship so specific that I’d never seen it depicted before. The ways Ansari marks the passage of time throughout this story… just astounding.

1 “The Book of Nora” The Leftovers S3E8 Perfect. There is a monologue here with more story and gravitas than entire seasons of other shows, great ones. Watch The Leftovers.

[starring-movies]

Killing Eve: Episode Analysis

*SPOILERS*

Season 2, Episode 3 - The Hungry Caterpillar

This episode begins continuing straight on from S2E2, with Eve and Konstantin in Carolyn’s house. Eve asks Konstantin where Villanelle is and Konstantin warns her to stay away from her, saying that Villanelle is like The Hungry Caterpillar and will consume her. He warns her of the path she will go on if she continues to pursue Villanelle, telling her “you still have something worth having, don’t let her take it”. Konstantin is right when he says this, as in S3E8 Eve even says herself that she’s lost what she had as a result of her obsession with Villanelle.

When Eve goes to Niko’s drinks night at the school he teaches at, she wears the blue dress that she ordered when Niko commented that he liked it, when she was searching online to see if she had killed Villanelle or not. The blue dress also has another connection with Villanelle, as it is a reminder of the black and white dress Eve wore in S1E5 that was from Villanelle. It is also notable that Eve doesn’t dress up, and S1E5 was the last time that she wore a dress.

When Villanelle is dressed up as Kim (pretending to be a member of the school’s staff) and talks to Gemma, she asks Gemma if Niko is her husband and she says “he’s married, sadly. Yeah it sucks” and Villanelle replies saying “I know exactly how you feel” - because she does know exactly how Gemma feels as she had the same problem with Anna (who was married to Max) and now Eve (who is married to Niko).

Villanelle also tells Gemma “maybe he just needs a little push. Squirt your perfume in his room so it always smells like you. Flatter him. Make him doubt his wife”. All the advice that Villanelle gives Gemma is probably things that Villanelle did herself when trying to seduce Anna and is also trying to do with Eve.

When Eve goes to speak to Kenny, to ask him to find the location of Konstantin’s family, when Kenny comes out of the toilets he says to Eve “you weren’t listening were you?”. Kenny’s question to Eve doesn’t really make any sense until S3E2, when Carolyn goes to speak to Audrey, and Audrey tells her that Kenny “used to sing to himself when he was on the loo” - so when he came out of the toilets and found Eve waiting outside, Kenny was worried that Eve had heard him singing to himself on the loo.

Eve is also very off hand, condescending and pulls rank over Kenny when he initially says that he won’t help her. One reason for Eve’s behaviour towards Kenny might be from what she tells him in S1E8, that “it makes me enraged how efficient things are when you’re a dick to people”, and she is similarly implementing this approach that she used with the hotel reception worker with Kenny.

However, Eve’s behaviour is more likely to be in line with the question Carolyn asks Eve in S1E7, “any escalation, increased attention-seeking, recklessness?”. From the beginning of Season 2 up to S2E3 alone, Eve has exhibited these things. When Eve goes behind Carolyn’s back to offer Konstantin his family’s location, she has escalated and is being reckless. Eve is also being attention seeking at the teachers’ drinks party, when she asks Niko to take her to his classroom and seduces him after she sees that Gemma likes him (never mind all the things Eve had already done in Season 1).

When Eve goes to Carolyn’s house to make the deal with Konstantin, she also rings the doorbell repeatedly out of impatience. This reminds us of the similarities being made between Eve and Villanelle through their shared impatience, as Villanelle does the same thing when she and repeatedly rings the bell at the hotel desk. This is also just like how they both played with the handle of the glove box of Konstantin’s car.

When Villanelle arrives at the hotel in Paddington, where The Twelve keep their assets in London; Larry, the man behind the reception desk of the hotel, says to Villanelle that she “must be Miss Thomson”. This is referring to the 1953 movie ‘Miss Sadie Thompson’, where the title character gets engaged, but her past haunts her relationship. This is just like Villanelle in Season 3, as when she becomes discontented with her life, she can’t escape what she has done in her past and she also can’t escape her past with her family and mother.

After Konstantin has escaped with Villanelle, Carolyn tells Eve “I don’t normally get angry, Eve. It makes me feel sleepy”; and when she’s finished speaking to Eve she yawns, subtly showing that empire trying not to, she had indeed gotten angry at Eve.

When Villanelle and Konstantin are driving away after agreeing to be 50-50 partners, Villanelle hums and sings along to ‘Listen To Your Heart’ by Roxette, which is playing on the car’s radio. Villanelle is giddie and sings because she knows that Eve is still interested in her and still trying to find her. Villanelle’s singing is again showing another similarity between Eve and Villanelle, mirroring S2E1 when Carolyn tells Eve “don’t get all giddie and start singing to the radio in my car”.

In the final scene Eve puts on the red lipstick from Villanelle and gets cut by the small blade that was inserted into it. Villanelle knows Eve, and knew that she wouldn’t be able to resist putting on the lipstick that she dropped in her bag (just like the clothes she put in Eve’s suitcase), which is why she puts the knife in the lipstick - just to “screw” with her. As the song used in the scene, ‘Screw You’ by Ramases and Selket, reflects.

The knife embedded in the lipstick is also Villanelle’s reminder to Eve of her stabbing Villanelle as well as her own playful little ‘stab back’ at Eve.

You can read my previous Killing Eve posts here:-

First Introduction to Villanelle

First Introduction to Eve

S1, E1 - Nice Face

S1, E2 - I’ll Deal With Him Later

S1, E3 - Don’t I Know You?

S1, E4 - Sorry Baby

S1, E5 - I Have a Thing about Bathrooms

S1, E6 - Take Me to the Hole!

S1, E7 - I Don’t Want to Be Free

S1, E8 - God, I’m Tired

S2, E1 - Do You Know How to Dispose of a Body?

S2, E2 - Nice and Neat

S2, E4 - Desperate Times

S2, E5 - Smell Ya Later

S2, E6 - I Hope You Like Missionary!

S2, E7 - Wide Awake

S2, E8 - You’re Mine

S3, E1 - Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey

S3, E2 - Management Sucks

S3, E3 - Meetings Have Biscuits

S3, E4 - Still Got It

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 1]

S3, E5 - Are You From Pinner? [Part 2]

S3, E6 - End of Game

S3, E7 - Beautiful Monster

S3, E8 - Are You Leading or Am I? [Part 1]

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