Killing Eve’s funny, frightening third episode shows why it’s the best TV surprise of the year

Every week, we pick a new episode of the week. It could be good. It could be bad. It will always be interesting. You can read the archives here. The episode of the week for April 22 through 29 is “Don’t I Know You?” the third episode of BBC America’s Killing Eve.

I can’t stop talking about how much I love Killing Eve. It spills out of me online, at dinner, to passing strangers idly wondering what’s good on TV these days. It’s taking all the willpower I have not to empty my checking account to skywrite “KILLING EVE 4EVER”; that’s how important this show has become to me.

To be honest, I should’ve probably seen this coming. Created by Fleabag mastermind Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Killing Eve is a thrilling, sexy drama about a restless agent (Sandra Oh) chasing down an unpredictable assassin (Jodie Comer) — or, as it often happens, the other way around.

I mean, literally everything about that sentence is catnip to me. How could I resist?

But after seeing seven of its eight episodes, Killing Eve managed to far surpass my already high expectations. Oh and Comer are brilliant, Waller-Bridge and her writers are deft and incisive, and the directing is consistently gorgeous.

And as a fun bonus, the show even acknowledges the tension between Eve (Oh) and Villanelle (Comer) for the electric mutual attraction that it is, as they constantly live on the knife’s edge of admiration and repulsion. As I wrote for my overall review, it’s not exactly a cat-and-mouse game because “both are cats — Eve domestic, Villanelle feral — recognizing the other from across a crowded room, slinking around the edges, waiting to see who pounces first.”

Since I first devoted myself to the church of Killing Eve, I’ve managed to convert quite a few others to worship the twisted beauty of its nefarious ways. But if there’s one episode that neatly sums up exactly why this show has become my favorite TV surprise of the year, it’s “Do I Know You?” a taut hour that exemplifies the best that Killing Eve has to offer.

And so, without further ado, here are three ways Killing Eve has quickly set itself apart, as seen in this excellent third chapter.

Onscreen spies tend to be of two extreme molds: dark and gritty (see: the Jason Bourne franchise, The Americans) or goofy and satirical (see: Get Smart or, well, Spy). Killing Eve manages to live in the Venn diagram overlap between the two, occasionally swinging from one to the other, but never so fast that it induces whiplash. As Fleabag proved time and time again, Waller-Bridge is very good at being very funny when the occasion might not seem to call for it, and that serves Killing Eve remarkably well.

The quickest (and best) way the show manages this is by giving its characters actual, distinct senses of humor. Eve is dry and scattered, putting her foot in her mouth more often than not. Villanelle is pouty, sarcastic, and rarely gives up the chance to play with her prey before she kills it.

But Killing Eve doesn’t concentrate so much on its central pair that it ignores the people in their orbit. As Villanelle’s handler, Kim Bodnia’s Konstantin deals with his charge with an amused eye roll that communicates how much he cares about her even as she constantly tests his patience. As Eve’s superior Carolyn, Fiona Shaw’s delivery is as dry as burnt toast, as seen in a wonderful, quick moment in this episode when Carolyn, at a particularly stressful moment, asks Eve if she smokes. When Eve responds in the negative, Carolyn nods. “Me neither,” she says. “Shame. Would be good right now.”

But one of the best moments of “Don’t I Know You?” comes in the first couple of minutes, courtesy of a single look. The episode opens with Eve describing Villanelle to a sketch artist, but as shot in close-up by director Jon East, it’s romantic as hell.

“Her hair is dark blonde, maybe honey? It was tied back,” Eve begins, Oh’s face relaxing in wonder. “She was slim. About 25, 26. She had very delicate features. Her eyes are sort of catlike — wide, but alert. Her lips are full, she has a long neck, high cheekbones. Her skin is smooth and bright. She had a lost look in her eye, that was both direct and also chilling. She’s totally focused, yet almost entirely inaccessible.”

As her voice trails off, there’s a beat of silence, then —

“Uh, so is that, like, a square face or an oval face?” the sketch artist asks.

And as Eve looks to her partner, Bill (the wonderful David Haigh), he raises his eyebrows at her with such “well, well, well” glee that it’s impossible not to crack up right with him.

This simple sequence isn’t just hilarious, but it also speaks volumes about who both these characters are. Bill is laid-back, perpetually amused, always ready to support someone in the form of giving them loving shit. Eve is observant and obsessive, with a fascination with the macabre that borders on the erotic.

Don’t believe it? Allow me:

The first two episodes hint at the fact that Villanelle and Eve aren’t just attracted to each other because they respect each other’s games. In particular, the scene when they first meet — in a hospital bathroom, without realizing who the other is — has a palpable charge of lust. At one point, Eve is messing with her hair when Villanelle leaves a bathroom stall and freezes at the sight of her.

“You should wear it down,” she says before she leaves, eyeing her intently enough that Eve blinks in surprise. (It’s no wonder Eve remembers this moment so vividly when describing Villanelle to the sketch artist.)

But I wasn’t convinced the show was going to acknowledge that it was imbuing this moment with sexual tension until Bill met Eve’s opening monologue with that “oh, really?” smirk. In that beautiful moment, I was Bill and Bill was me.

After that, the show is off and running. Bill — after divulging that he “just fall[s] in love with whoever [he] falls in love with” — asks Eve if she’s ever been interested in women and arches a skeptical eyebrow when she denies it. Villanelle, never one for subtlety, goes out and seduces a woman around Eve’s age with the same curly hair, calling her “Eve” before running away and demanding that the confused woman go find her.

I mean, come on.

The “we’re not so different, you and I” villain-versus-hero dynamic is a tried-and-true trope that, incredibly, rarely acknowledges the obvious erotic subtext driving it. Killing Eve doesn’t just recognize it; it relishes it.

But even though this all made my queer lady heart grow three sizes, there was one part of “Don’t I Know You?” that stood out above all else.

For as much as I love Eve reciting Villanelle’s every facial crease by heart, though, the reason I keep coming back to “Don’t I Know You?” is its final, heart-stopping sequence.

This episode isn’t subtle about the fact that Bill is probably going to die. He tempts fate right at the start when Eve begs him to chase a lead with her in Berlin, and his response is to look at his new baby and coo, “Daddy’s going to die!” Every scene he and Eve share thereafter hammers home the fact that they aren’t just co-workers but genuine friends who respect each other to pieces.

So when Villanelle starts to get sloppy as she stalks Eve, the fact that her “slip-ups” always include Bill catching a glimpse of her hardly seems coincidental — especially because she always walks away from them with a sly grin. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Poor Bill, not so much.

The final set piece starts with Bill recognizing Villanelle on a subway platform, where she’s spying on Eve so obviously that she might as well be standing underneath a neon arrow. Bill, realizing who she is, follows her when she leaves, unable to see the fact that she’s smirking the entire time.

She eventually leads him to a packed nightclub pulsing with bass. (Bill and his fedora, bless them, don’t exactly blend in.) He cranes his neck to find her, and grins triumphantly as the crowds part just enough to give him a glimpse.

Then she turns around, locks eyes with him, and smiles.

That’s when he — and we — know he’s fucked.

At this point, Villanelle charges at him with the laser focus of a shark, expertly swimming through the writhing bodies. Bill maybe moves a foot before she catches him and stabs him over and over again, so quick no one around them even notices until she’s gone and he’s bleeding out on the floor.

Comer and Haig play this horror climax perfectly, as Villanelle’s bloodlust rises in tandem with Bill’s panic. As East described to me on Twitter, getting that shot of Comer making eye contact with the camera required some serious choreography and even some slow motion — but man, was it worth it.

It’s a testament to how good this sequence is that it doesn’t matter that the episode practically spells out Bill’s impending death in lights. Everything comes together so spectacularly that the bait and switch is still terrifying — and a perfect example of what Killing Eve is capable of.

The first episode of Killing Eve is currently available to stream on BBCAmerica.com. Episodes two and three are available with a cable login.