'Killing Eve' Season 3 Episode 6 Review: With Eve's soaring vendetta, will Villanelle ever live the 'nice life'?
Spoilers for 'Killing Eve' Season 3 Episode 6 'End of Game'
When people snap, they either get self-destructive or go on a murderous rampage. When a trained professional assassin snaps, she goes on an altruistic detachment from the life she's living, craving for a "nice life, cool flat, and someone to watch movies with" — at least that's the case with Villanelle (Jodie Comer), fresh from a killing rampage at what was supposed to be a family reunion. Villanelle's annual desire to quit The 12 is back again and stronger than ever, but her employers have other plans. Still forcing her to do what they want under the guise of a promotion, The 12 are pushing her to her limits. But that's not the worst storm coming at her. Watching her ex-husband's throat get 'pitchforked' burns a new sense of vengeance in Eve (Sandra Oh) and it is ever growing, waiting to pounce on Villanelle. And as Eve gets persistently gets closer by the second, it really makes one wonder if Villanelle even has a shot anymore at that life of bliss she always wanted?
Episode 6 of Season 3 kicks off with the fateful reveal that Niko Polastri is not dead after Dasha lunged a garden tool at his throat. The older assassin had left behind a note at the crime scene for Eve that read "Still Got It!", and Eve is all too familiar with this peacocking. Her first doubts are Villanelle and she isn't leaving room for any benefit of doubts or brewing speculations — be it at exacting revenge or seeking forgiveness from Niko, who has only two words for her: "Piss off".
It is probably lover's intuition or just an extremely precise skill set, but Villanelle's ache to leave behind this life couldn't have come at a better time. When she finds out her 'promotion' is just a facade for continuing to do the same job she has been doing, her protests completely unheard, she turns to the one constant who has been through it all with her: Konstantin. Humour floats into the episode with Villanelle ambushing Konstantin's daughter, Irina's hockey game under the pretext of her 'loving sports'. The two have a hissyfit over why can't he can't take her to wherever he is planning on fleeing from The 12. The reason? Well, for the lack of a better term, he's pretty f***ed.
Two episodes ago we saw Konstantin put a hit on the accountant's wife after Villanelle took out the accountant. And while The 12 don't exactly know who could have done that, their hitlist now priorities whoever put that hit on the accountant's wife. Konstantin is informed this little bit by a predictable, nevertheless surprising conduit of The 12 — Paul, Carolyn's newly returned condescending colleague. It's ironic that within moments of Carolyn confronting Paul about working for the murderous organization, and him refuting by asking if she does too, he would be passive-aggressively confronting Konstantin about going against their agenda.
But even with Paul breathing down his neck, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and this is a grieving mother of all. She digs out Kenny's phone records and finds a few calls to Konstantin in the hours before his death; Konstanting assures their conversation was the last thing Carolyn would expect. Kenny wanted to know if Konstantin what his father and somehow everything plays out in that scene so smoothly that a viewers shock upon learning the truth is overshadowed by the way Shaw projects Carolyn's heartbreak upon realizing her son died being lied to.
Somehow even with all of these big reveals being bombarded upon us all in one episode, it is Eve's quest for Dasha that keeps getting murkier and challenging. But she isn't one to back down. It begins with Dasha being a suspect in that murder Villanelle recently reenacted and suddenly Eve finds herself changing targets and hunting down an older woman in bowling alleys to confront her about her prized target: Villanelle. Eve and Dasha's confrontation is pretty much a conservative father refusing to give his blessings to his daughter marrying a punk rebel.
Dasha mocks Eve's pleas to get Villanelle to back down by bragging about how Villanelle is moving up in the world, and Eve will never get to touch her now. But there's something quite terrifying about the way Eve looks at Niko through his hospital cabin's glass windows that looks a lot like the calm before a storm. And speaking of storms, Villanelle's latest murder ends badly with her getting stabbed, and Dasha coming to her rescue as an impossibly difficult mother asking her kid to toughen up and do what she was always meant to do — kill.
It brings back memories of Season 1, where Villanelle had proclaimed all she wants is a "nice life, cool flat; someone to watch movies with". For quite a while we thought that someone was going to be Eve, and for faint moments of respite, it still looks three years after that Eve might be Villanelle's escape from this life she can't bear anymore. But with Villanelle planning to flee with Konstantin and distancing herself farther from Eve, who just wants a confirmation that Villanelle isn't the one targeting those she loves, might not be the best plan at the moment. Eve has a lot to avenge, and even Irina bonding with Villanelle and running over her mother's boyfriend for being 'too nice' can't distract us from that.
'Killing eve' Season 3 airs on Sundays at 9pm only on BBC America.