Killing Eve: Building an imperfect heroine

Killing Eve remembers to make sure that its heroine is as imperfect and interesting as her antagonist. That matters more than you think. 

Much of the buzz surrounding BBC America’s Killing Eve is centered on Jodie Comer’s remarkable Villanelle. Which actually makes a lot of sense. Not only is Comer’s performance magnetic, the existence of her character in the first place feels pretty amazing.

She’s a female assassin, but she’s not a straight out of central casting femme fatale. There’s a lot more going on with this character than meets the eye. And this makes her extremely intriguing to watch.

Villanelle is clever and interesting, messy and fun. Despite the fact that she’s a killer for hire who takes a great deal of joy in her work, her character still feels relatable. She has an incredible wardrobe, an eye for a hot guy and doesn’t take crap from anyone. In fact, if she didn’t enjoy killing other people for money and/or fun quite so much, you’d probably want to be her friend.

However, in our rush to heap (deserved) praise on Killing Eve for Villanelle’s general existence, we’re sort of forgetting about the series’ other lead. Sandra Oh’s Eve Polastri perhaps isn’t as flashy as a female assassin. But the show still handles her character with just as much care and thoughtfulness.

Eve is our hero, but she’s also a regular person with understandable flaws. Incredibly smart and dedicated, she nevertheless feels unfulfilled by her professional life. She’s bored and knows that she’s capable of more than she’s doing.

Most importantly, Eve isn’t perfect or even someone who’s necessarily right all the time.

Her obsession with figuring out Villanelle’s identity and tracking her down actually blinds her to the fact that her boss, Bill (David Haig), makes some valid points about their investigation and the direction in which it is headed. Given how terrible Villanelle is, shouldn’t Eve be equally concerned about the people who pay her to do what she does?

Eve dislikes Bill poking holes in all her theories. But Killing Eve takes pains to remind us – that’s what good detectives do. Follow the evidence; be methodical. Don’t privilege one idea over another because you like it better. Yes, Eve’s obsessed with female killers – and her almost pathological need for this particular assassin to be a woman already feels uncomfortable if you look at it too closely.

Even Eve’s open admiration of her adversary’s skills is also more than little disturbing at times. At  least for the moment, we can (maybe) write it off as perhaps an overzealous dedication to her job. But there’s already a sense that that’s probably not all it is.

Next: Killing Eve episode 2 review: I’ll Deal with Him Later

Killing Eve airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on BBC America.