Killing Eve: Niko and Eve’s relationship crosses into seriously toxic territory

The Polastris’ marriage finally hits a breaking point on Killing Eve, but are Eve and Niko over for good? And will fans care if they are?

It seems worth saying that Killing Eve fans don’t care that much about Niko and never really have.

In fact, many fans probably view Eve’s husband as something of an obstacle – either to a real relationship between Eve and Villanelle (which, let’s face it, is a bad idea, no matter how intriguing it is) or to the kind of life that Eve really wants.

Since the series’ first episode, Niko has generally been portrayed as a nice, supportive man, albeit one that isn’t a huge fan of his wife’s job. Unfortunately, he’s also kind of dull, and he doesn’t understand the darkness his wife has inside her. He doesn’t get why she’s so drawn to female assassins – Villanelle in particular – and risking her life chasing murderers when she doesn’t have to. Her love of danger and risk is almost completely alien to him.

Niko, from what we can tell, seems to be perfectly happy with his quiet life as a school teacher, and resents the intrusion of Eve’s work into that space. (See also: his anger about Eve making his teacher’s night out all about her.) Earlier this season, he complained about increased security and the presence of bodyguards, which seems fair enough – or at least it did until Villanelle literally walked right up to him while on a school trip to Oxford.

Thanks to that encounter, Niko now knows the full extent of his wife’s recent activities, including her new partnership with Villanelle, her clandestine trip to France last season, and the fact that she stabbed someone and nearly killed them while she was there.

Eve doesn’t have an answer for why she kept all this information from Niko, nor can she even explain what she wants from her husband at the moment. She’s clearly turned on by his suddenly domineering, slightly violent attitude, and loves the — presumably kinky — sex that results from their confrontation.

Eve is clearly struggling herself with the person she’s becoming – or the person she’s learning she’s always been – and she certainly doesn’t know how to talk to her husband about how discovering new facets of her personality and interests feels.

That said, it’s obvious that whoever Eve is turning into, it may not be someone her husband still wants. Though she clearly enjoyed being ordered around and crawling on the floor for Niko, the encounter has shaken him fairly badly. He, it turns out, maybe isn’t so in to playing the dominant in their marriage, and seems more than a little afraid of acknowledging that the kind of partner/lover Eve wants now isn’t a person he wants to become.

By the time Niko leaves, it’s almost a relief. In many ways, he’s been leaving since we met him, and Eve, at various points, has been helping push him out the door. It’s hard to be sad that this relationship, which has felt like a dying thing for so long, finally seems to have breathed its last, sad gasp.

Eve’s subsequent trip to Gemma’s house – in which she ransacks her bedroom and destroys a music box – is a bit more worrisome. (We should probably all side-eye a dude who runs straight to the coworker who’s been thirsting after him for months the minute he dumps his wife. Gross, Niko.)

But as for Eve, her behavior is becoming unsettlingly like Villanelle’s – in fact, her search and destroy sequence in Gemma’s home doesn’t look that different from a certain assassin digging around the Polastri house earlier in the episode. It’s unsettling, and a sure sign of just how much Eve has changed since her dance with Villanelle started.

What in the world could happen next?

Killing Eve continues Sunday at 8pm ET on BBC America.