Killing Eve
Let’s put it plainly: If you haven’t seen BBC America’s Killing Eve yet, you’re missing out on the greatest show that aired in 2018.
(There, I said it. Fight me.)
Fronted by two powerhouse actresses in Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer, Killing Eve takes everything you know about the cat-and-mouse thriller and flips it on its head – all through the simple act of centering the story around women. (For once!) Oh plays the acerbic and ambitious Eve Polastri, a deskbound MI-6 employee with a bizarre fascination with female killers. Comer plays Villanelle, a psychotic, gleeful assassin who loves her work almost as much as she loves the amazing clothes and posh extras she surrounds herself with.
The two dance around one another with a slow-burn fascination that leaves you wondering whether they’re going to stab each other or make out, or maybe both at the same time. (The scene in which Villanelle breaks into Eve’s house for the sole purpose of having dinner together crackles with tension of every imaginable variety.) Their relationship – which after a season still seems impossible to define – is mesmerizing.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s dialogue is crackling and whip-smart, and plays with every expectation we have about the “good cop chases bad killer” procedural. It revels in Villanelle’s villainy and encourages viewers to do so as well, leaving us – as well as Eve – torn about whether or not we even want to see this master murderer caught.
Hopefully, we won’t have to worry about that for a few more seasons, at least.