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'Killing Eve' season 2 episode 4 finally reveals 'The Ghost,' but Eve and Villanelle are nowhere done with each other

As Eve struggles to put a finger on who the killer might be, Villanelle tries her hardest to establish that she is still very much relevant in Eve's life.

This article contains spoilers for season 2, episode 4 'Desperate Times.'

The best part about BBC America's 'Killing Eve' is that the closer you think you are to figuring out a crucial twist in the tale, the bigger the curveball coming along your way will be, as it is proven once again with the fourth episode of its second season, titled 'Desperate Times.' There's a new killer in town, which has been established over the last three episodes, but that doesn't diminish the significance of our serial assassin Villanelle, played by Jodie Comer. As the titular MI6 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) struggles to put a finger on who the killer might be, we see her going through equal amount of torment and bitter realization as Villanelle who is on her way to establish that she is still very much relevant in Eve's life.

The highlight of this week's episode was clearly the dynamics between the mentor and the mentee, which we saw in the form of a wonderful parallel drawn between Eve and her boss, Carolyn Martens' (Fiona Shaw) relationship, and that between Villanelle and her handler Konstantin (Kim Bodnia.)

The episode kicks off with Carolyn getting intensely reprimanded by her own boss for being unable to have figured out who The Ghost - aka the new killer is, as the dead bodies keep piling up. And this, in turn, reflects on her relationship with Eve. Carolyn knows just how Eve is invested in finding out more about Villanelle, which is probably why she keeps an anonymous postcard sent to Eve, to herself. But when it comes to Konstantin, his demeanor towards Villanelle is that of a fatherly figure trying to tell his ward to make peace with her predicament.

Konstantin tries his best to help Villanelle accept that Eve has moved on to another case, while Carolyn tries her best to convince Eve that Villanelle is not in their vicinity, and together it almost looks like each of them is trying to keep their mentees away from the other - probably to protect them - but there's also the underlying possibility of the two mentors involved in something far darker than either of their mentees know about.

For those of you who have felt teased enough by this new killer, relief arrives in the form of Eve finally being able to figure out the assassin at the end of the episode. But that comes after witnessing a blood and gore packed episode where Villanelle is able to prove just how significant she still is in the whole professional assassin game. She might have gone down to the levels of 'scorned wives' and their 'scumbag husbands' as she so accurately puts it, but her touch is still there. While the other assassin is always clean, and quiet, without the faintest trace of blood in her murders, Villanelle only keeps getting more and more elaborate and creative - almost as if each murder is an artistic performance that she is putting up to attract Eve.

Speaking of attraction, it was once again pretty wholesome to see that the flame is still alive between Eve and her husband, Niko Polastri (Owen McDonnell). As she keeps getting more and more involved in The Ghost's murders, the MI6 agents are offered protection for their families - something that Niko thinks is neither normal nor safe. In what starts off as a heated argument between the two, we get to see Niko's love for Eve coming out even though he feels she is gaslighting him into thinking all of this is under control.

He calls her the best person he knows and as Eve tears up, one can't help but draw a comparison between this Eve and Niko, and the sour note the two had ended things on in the season finale of the show's first season. Niko's faith in Eve keeps her grounded in the moments where her obsession for Villanelle tries to get the best of her, and that is all the confirmation we need to know that the two aren't giving up on each other any time soon.

But Villanelle isn't giving up on her hunt for Eve anytime soon either as is clear from the very final moments of the episode, where she stares longingly into the mirror after a night of reckless indulgence in drugs she herself isn't aware of properly. Comer's performance in those last moments is shown side by side Eve's as she prepares to interrogate the suspect whom they have brought in as The Ghost and while that would look like closure for Eve, it's only an opening for a far bigger case in hand: Villanelle. As Eve emerges triumphant in her job, Villanelle also looks like she is finally accepting the fact that Eve might have lost all interest in her, and in its own complicated way, that is just poetic. For all we know, there might be a role reversal approaching as Villanelle accepts her defeat the very moment Eve's hunt for her begins.

'Killing Eve' airs on Sundays only on BBC America.