Killing Eve Season 3 Episode 2 Review: Management Sucks

This Killing Eve review contains spoilers.

Killing Eve Season 3 Episode 2

After the shocking opener, Killing Eve season 3 comes back down to earth as everyone grieves Kenny’s passing, Villanelle trains a new recruit in a clown costume, and we learn more about Bitter Pill. Oh and both our leading ladies find out the other is still alive. NBD.

Carolyn’s grief is a telling prism for understanding not only her, but the characters around her. Her daughter Geraldine can’t see her mother’s grief because it doesn’t look like her own, so it frustrates and worries her. That jerk at work who snaked Carolyn’s department out from under her doesn’t know Kenny’s death needs to be investigated, but barring that, it’s not so unusual for a person to throw themselves into work as a welcome distraction from grief, an escape into a semblance of normalcy to keep from breaking down. While some folks get all their feelings out right away, it’s entirely conceivable that for Carolyn, who’s son’s death was young, sudden, and not entirely unconnected to her (for the guilt-ridden mind anyway), the best thing for right now is to soldier on.

For Carolyn, that quiet moment in the car with her sandwiches, or her admonition to Eve that Kenny’s death is not like any other compatriot’s death in the field, those are the moments when the mask slips. That’s when she shows how she’s really feeling. Women are often expected to perform feelings in very specific ways – while at the same time we’re criticized for being too emotional. 

Carolyn “shouldn’t” be at work because she would presumably be too overcome with her son’s death, yet everyone is looking at her like she’s a monster for seeking out some semblance of normalcy, routine and privacy when she shows up to work rather than staying home or sobbing uncontrollably. With Carolyn’s scrutinized grief, Killing Eve show’s that when it comes to emotion, women are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. 

Eve, on the other hand, is grieving in a differently unacceptable way. She’s visibly, disruptively drunk. She yowls at Carolyn like an animal, and however much the funeral-goers might judge Carolyn, the optics of yelling at a woman at her son’s wake are Not Great Bob. 

Have we always known Kenny has a sister? It has always felt like Kenny and Carolyn were a little world of two, to the point where attempts to identify his father felt strange – surely Carolyn Martens had no use for an actual human man to conceive a child? The rather boring Geraldine seems to be hitting on Konstantin, and boy howdy do I hope I’m wrong about that. The magnet Konstantin gave Geraldine is a bug, which is cool, but how did he like plan for that? She seemed to run into him, and he would have had to place the bug in it beforehand. Was he really lying in wait for her? I’m going to need to see the spycraft on this one, which feels a little too neat. 

We got a bit more of the world of Bitter Pill here, and it certainly feels like they’ll be sticking around for a while. This is theoretically the main story, but it’s moving at the slowest pace and in the most predictable way for now. At least we have Sandra Oh giving a master class at all times, including being grossed out by Shitty Media Men saying at least Kenny was “getting some” when he died. 

Dasha continues to be my new favorite person, with her powerclashing animal prints and ‘80s Mom look, complete with visor and light wash mom jeans, which are actually back in right now. Her incredulity when V says she can look 10 years younger sounds like something Phoebe Waller-Bridge would have written. Getting to see that, apparently, The Twelve really do value “character work” in a kill is a delightful insight. 

It’s pretty wild that characters on the show are openly addressing Villanelle’s desire to have a sort of domestic life with Eve. Even though Dasha is telling V she can’t have it, and our petulant assassin is insisting that’s not what she wants, we all know shows always swerve back in the opposite direction, so even putting those words out there feels like a big step. 

Villanelle’s relationship with Felix, on the other hand, falls into a pattern we’ve seen before. She’s annoyed at first, begrudgingly learns some details about his life, including things that make him vulnerable and particularly appealing to the audience. In the end, just when we think she has a soul or something, she kills him anyway. Early in season 2, she did it to Gabriel, the boy in the hospital. It’s not bad, per se, but for a show that’s so original to stay fresh, we probably shouldn’t be able to pick up on the patterns quite so easily. 

Perhaps we’re due for a remix on this particular pattern, which is why Dasha is interesting. The dynamic she has with Villanelle isn’t the same as Konstantin’s, and it still feels like it could go sideways in several directions in any given episode, coming from either party. 

For our lingering questions file: Konstantin asked Villanelle if she trusts Dasha after what she did, to which we all raise our perfectly manicured eyebrow. Will there be consequences for Killing Felix, and will they keep sending more assassinterns?

Other notes

• Only Carolyn could wear a crisp white coat at a wake and make it look stunning
• Carolyn refusing to acknowledge that she misbuttoned her shirt and insisting on wearing it that way for a whole meeting’s worth of manterruption chicken is a whole mood. Long may she reign.
• Kenny singing S  Club 7 to himself on the toilet is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.
• Villanelle style highlights: the blue maxi dress with the statement shoulders and red flowers in her hair in Barcelona, the gold silk jammies, her clown wig and suspenders (moar suspenderz pleez!), the golden yellow 60s mod dress with bell sleeves and cowboy boots, and her entire gorgeous apartment.
• Seeing a person like Carolyn grieve hurts more – and feels more intrusive – than it does when someone like Geraldine does it. That speech in the car was brutal.
• Konstantin surprising Villanelle was so validating. I hope Kim Bodnia and Jodie Comer enjoyed playing it as much as I enjoyed watching it.

Keep up with Killing Eve season 3 news and reviews here.