Killing Eve Season 4: Episode 4 Review – Riotously Fun and Gleefully Violent

This week on Killing Eve saw our four leading women team up in groups of two: Carolyn and Villanelle hung out in Cuba while Eve and Helene got naked in Paris. Both meetups were, in classic Killing Eve fashion, visually beautiful yet narratively witty to emphasize the show’s ethos of the awkward glamor of feminine espionage.

In Cuba, Carolyn questioned a misogynistic Twelve member who had been attacked but somehow managed to survive. He was intent on smoking a cigar, and when Carolyn finally caved and prepared him one, she insisted that “sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.” Later, in private, as she tenderly sniffed a cigar of her own, an unknown figure threw a hood over her head. We learn that this figure was Villanelle, who proceeds to take Carolyn to a beach, hit her in the head with a wrench, and ask questions about her own childhood. Apparently, Carolyn met Villanelle when she was in a little girl in an orphanage, and apparently Villanelle once tied a bracelet around another girl’s finger so tight that it had to be amputated. Villanelle fears that this early onset tendency for cruelty makes her naturally inhuman, but Carolyn reassures her that “killing is primal. It’s what nature intended.”

Meanwhile, Eve has been trying to track down the mysterious Lars Meier. She drops the name to a curious Helene, who appears (at least in Eve’s eyes) to not know who that is. She finds photographs of him in a shop in Paris just before Helene, who somehow knows Eve is in Paris, invites her over to talk.

A grumpy Konstantin has made his way back to the U.K. at Helene’s request to train up and coming Twelve assassin Pam, the creepy mortician who killed her brother last week. When he orders her to push an innocent woman into the water at some seawall in Margate, she refuses and runs away to go to a carnival. She then calls Konstantin and tells her she’s been mugged and needs help. She tells her to meet him at the same seawall, and she pushes him over the edge and into the water. If it’s supposed to be some commentary on how the dynamics of The Twelve are changing because Konstantin doesn’t hold the same authority as he used to, it’s boring and unnecessary. If it’s supposed to show how Pam can use this innocent victim persona to manipulate men, it’s unoriginal. The plotline read as an attempt to fill time between the more interesting arcs of the episode.

Back in Cuba, Villanelle questions the survivor, this time a bit more intensely than Carolyn. Every time he refuses to give up information about his attacker or his contacts at The Twelve, Villanelle slices a finger off with a cheese wire. It parallels the story of her orphanage days quite nicely and provides a satisfying full-circle moment. When she finally does get the information she wants, she stabs him in the chest and finishes him off. It’s grotesquely violent and, once again in classic Killing Eve fashion, gleefully fun to watch. He’s a misogynist and known member of The Twelve, she’s the effortlessly cool Villanelle, and it’s hard to really feel bad for him.

Later, she and Carolyn are playing truth or dare in a pastel-colored restaurant when a group of men walks in. One of them looks exactly like the Lars Meier we’ve seen from Eve’s photographs. He recognizes Carolyn, who somehow knows him and says she thought he was dead. Villanelle tries to chase him, but he gets away. Later still, Villanelle dares Carolyn to do an extreme if not embarrassing air guitar performance. After she delivers, Carolyn asks Villanelle to leave. She goes in peace, apologizing for trying to kill her earlier.

When Eve shows up at Helene’s decadent Paris apartment, Helene has decided to get in the bath. This doesn’t stop Eve, who decides to start shaving Helene’s legs as she asks questions about The Twelve. Helene claims to be invested in The Twelve because she hates weak women, and instead to turn them into what Eve calls her “femme bots” – a small army of female assassins that bend to Helene’s will. Unsatisfied with this response, Eve continues to question Helene, eventually stripping naked and joining her in the bath. After some uncomfortable shifting, they decide to get out and just eat soup instead. In the subsequent conversation, Helene reveals that she set Villanelle free from prison, and Eve is shocked. They have a conversation about passion, and Eve kisses Helene. The episode ends as she leaves the apartment.

It was refreshing, this week, to see Eve and Villanelle trade their usual handlers. Jodie Comer and Fiona Shaw are always excellent as Villanelle and Carolyn independently, but the few moments we have seen them together have been excellent. A whole episode of these two was riotously fun. However, Camille Cottin is proving to be an excellent counterpoint to Sandra Oh’s powerhouse performance as Eve, and the two have a chemistry that at least attempts to rival that of Eve and Villanelle. It has long been the witty performances that carry the show even through lapses in writing, so this episode was incredibly smart in creating and expanding upon these dynamics. It was a fun episode that, like last week, felt like a real embrace of the incredibly dark, hilarious, awkward, and sexy world that the show is known for.

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Emmy Wenstrup

Emmy is a big fan of all things TV and movies. Among her current favorites are The Matrix, Midsommar, Titane, and Fleabag.  Catch her on Letterboxd @ewenstrup !