Killing Eve Season 3 Review: The first episode lacks in fun

One of the things I loved most during the first season Killing Eve, written by writer Fleabag and the star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, it was fun to watch.

Of course there were shocks and dangers, and moments when the rug was taken out from under the viewer’s feet, and suddenly it was no longer as fun – as when Eve’s beloved and horny mentor, Bill, was beaten to death at a nightclub by a smiling killer, Villanelle. But in spite of everything, you always knew more fun was coming: fun clothes, fun one-liners (which can forget a rat holding a bucket of coke), and (dare I say it) some fun murder scenes – inevitable, maybe, considering how fun the killer is.

The third season opener still has many of the original’s features: cat and mouse games, obsessions, shock-killers, genres that defy plot and characters. But is it fun to watch?

There have always been scenes with actress Villanelle (Jodie Comer) that have been memorable: a break from tech because of the white color of London and MI6. But we still enjoyed watching Eva, her dark humor and cheerful spy company, as they had fun too, and it was painful to watch Eva reconcile with how irresistibly, awkwardly, sexually attracted a female killer was.

At the beginning of this third season, however, that excitement was released like air in a blown animal balloon at a children’s party.

In the first episode, we learn that Eva (Sandra Oh) survived – though the surprise is – but she still hurts from the bullet that Villanelle thrust into her chest in Rome. He now works at a Chinese restaurant (“hiding from his eyes,” the BBC synopsis reads), lives in a cramped thin-walled apartment, and visits his traumatized husband, Nick, who is in a treatment facility weekly.

Compare that to Villanelle’s blood-filled pajamas at the start of season two, when the roles changed and Eva was left dead. In Eva’s case, all we had to do was accept that tourists had found her among the abandoned Roman ruins just before their time.

Eva’s existence – like screen time – is gray without Villanella. The only lull moment is the strangely ancient scene in which Eva photographs a loo reel and describes “think of you” before releasing it to a mysterious acquaintance. (Today is the kind of nonsense to which you will drag someone who forgot to make stock before locking the coronavirus.)

Eve’s former head of MI6, Carolyn Martens (the one from Coke-up joke), was always ready with grizzly comments or other anecdotes about her past sexual escapades, but in season three, Opener faces queries at work and has lost is old self-belief.

When the savvy bureaucrat of the Foreign Office (Steve Pemberton) started pounding her several times, I waited for Carolyn (played by Fiona Shaw) to dust her with one of her riots – but she said nothing. Maybe the scene laid the groundwork for a bigger payoff, but in the context of this episode it felt unsatisfactory and out of character.

Meanwhile, Kenny (Sean Delaney), Carolyn’s socially clumsy son, works on the bitter pill investigative news item and returns home so often to share his beaten sausage with his mother. He secretly watches the Twelve, a shady organization that exposes murderers for their own means but juggles part-time job checks.

The only person on the show who is currently dating – or at least pretending to be – is Villanelle. I won’t spoil her re-entry at the beginning of the episode, but it was a complete joy to watch, too fast, because in the first eight minutes she was taken to connect with an old Russian acquaintance (Harriet Walter) before returning to her day job.

If new showrunner Suzanne Heathcote wanted to point out how much we miss Villanelle whenever she is off screen, she succeeded. If she intended to lay the groundwork for how bleak one’s lives were without a flaming assassin, she succeeded. Like the second season of the show, this new episode suffers from the heights of the first season, in which each character and line of drawing is given space to shine.

On the side of the brutal twist towards the end of the episode, I found myself longing for scenes featuring villainous Villanelle, dressed in various wigs and suits. That may be the point – the viewer should relate to Eva’s acute boredom or Carolyn’s inertia – but if that is the case, I hope that in the next episodes, Heathcote will have more fun. Instead of loo roll, it’s more fun.

The killing of Eve will begin on BBC iPlayer on Monday 13 April – the day after it was launched in America. New episodes will then be available every Monday from 6 p.m.

The show will also hit BBC One a little less than a week later, with the first episode on Sunday 19 April at 9pm and new episodes to follow every Sunday at 9pm.

Check out what else is wrong with ours TV guide