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Eve Polastri and Villanelle are fictional characters in Luke Jennings' novel Codename Villanelle (2018) and in its BBC America television adaptation Killing Eve (2018– ). The relationship in the television series has been of notable discussion and interpretation.

Polastri is a British intelligence operative whose quarry is psychopathic hired assassin Villanelle, the characters pursuing supremacy in their cat-and-mouse relationship. Though occupying overtly antagonistic roles, the women develop a mutual obsession of "would-be lovers" who are bound together "in a twisted pas de deux".

In Killing Eve

In the television series, Polastri is introduced as a "bored spy agency bureaucrat" who, after being called into a meeting about a recent assassination, speculates that the killer is a woman, and, after a series of plot twists, is tasked with finding the killer. Agent Polastri tracks assassin Villanelle across Europe, not as hero and villain but as "two broken women whose flaws bind them together in a twisted pas de deux".

Villanelle is romantically interested in women and is captivated by Polastri, perhaps in part because of a "shared brusqueness". She buys Polastri fancy clothes and tries to have dinner with her—by invading Polastri's home. During the home invasion, Polastri, though terrified, soon manages to speak to Villanelle as a mother to a child—one not fully formed emotionally, a "homicidal woman-child" who is "only formidable because she can kill", with Polastri wresting verbal dominance even as Villanelle presses a knife blade to Polastri's breastbone.

With both Polastri and Villanelle being "deeply strange" and possessed of a "wild, unlikely interior weirdness and flux", it seemed equally possible that they "could team up, or try to kill each other, or fall into bed", and in the first season finale "they seem to do all three". In that episode, the elegance of Villanelle's Paris apartment initially infuriates intruder Polastri, who realizes she herself might have led a more "audacious and hedonistic" life. However, as Villanelle returns home, Polastri puts down her weapon and, on a bed, the women mutually confess their obsession with each other.

Character contrasts and similarities, conflict and attraction

Despite being enemies professionally, both characters are professional, childless women, "hard-working, ambitious, and slightly obsessive", whose respective worlds "betrayed and deceived them at every turn". However, the amoral Villanelle's existence is "saturated with pleasure" while Eve's career has been as a "bored security-state functionary". Further, series writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge explained that Polastri has a "sense of self-consciousness and guilt" that cripples her – a perfect counterpoint to Villanelle, who, as Ashley Boucher noted in TheWrap, only does things that might bring joy.

Even with Villanelle in front of her when Villanelle invades her home, Eve can’t quite capture who Villanelle is as a person, the assassin always seeming to be a few steps ahead: possessed of a "frustrating attraction", Polastri "keeps banging her head on the enigmatic wall that is Villanelle". Conversely, though Villanelle has the opportunity to kill Polastri during the home invasion, forces within Villanelle – despite being raised to kill without guilt or concern – compel her to want Polastri alive. Through the cat-and-mouse pursuit and mutual obsession, they know they are "two of a kind" and "can trust in each other's constancy", the two women being "fueled by a volatile cocktail of ambition, curiosity and morbid adoration". Noting "mirror-image similarities between them, for the good and the bad", executive director Emerald Fennell posited the question, "What does it look like when a psychopath starts to learn how to feel things, and when a woman who’s incredibly empathetic and intuitive starts to lose those parts of herself?"

Social, thematic and creative context

"She had very delicate features. Her eyes are sort of cat-like, wide, but alert. Her lips are full, she has a long neck, high cheekbones. Her skin is smooth and bright. She had a lost look in her eye that was both direct, and also chilling. She’s totally focused, yet almost entirely inaccessible."

Conspicuously, the protagonist and antagonist in Killing Eve are both women – a rarity in cat-and-mouse thrillers. Even in contrast to films such as Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal in which one lead character is female, the conflict between Polastri and Villanelle is more equal despite the fact one entered as "an MI5 paper-pusher" and the other was introduced as an experienced assassin.

Though most feminist narratives are framed in terms of a male-female dynamic, Polastri and Villanelle explore "patriarchy's impact on the already delicate complexities of female relationships": though sisterhood is powerful, "it’s also complicated and devoid of guarantees" and "can be false and a trap".

The relationship between Polastri and Villanelle – "often sexual, at times romantic, and occasionally vengeful" – resists categorization. Their mutual affectation suggests an alternative lifestyle, the couple performing an "elaborate dance, edging closer to one other while always being just slightly out of reach". The characters’ mutual interest is "rooted in a desire of an unknown – a life away from the men that presently structure their lives".

Portrayals

Showrunner-writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge remarked that the characters "give each other life in a way that’s more complex than a romantic relationship. It’s sexual, it’s intellectual, it’s aspirational." Along these lines, Melanie McFarland wrote in Salon that the show's "careful awareness of the love languages of fashion, music and setting all play roles in strengthening (the audience's) affair" with the characters. Hannah Giorgis wrote in The Atlantic that its "greatest success" is how alluring it makes Villanelle to an intelligence agent dedicated to tracking her down. Calling Killing Eve a "sexually charged female-buddy-comedy espionage nailbiter", Jenna Scherer wrote in Rolling Stone that the actresses "share a crackling chemistry, one that situates them in a gray realm between bitter enemies and would-be lovers".

Jia Tolentino wrote in The New Yorker that the "women are deeply strange, forming a collective study in improbable contrasts, strung together by each actor’s charisma". Matt Zoller Seitz wrote in Vulture that Oh’s performance as Polastri actually makes Villanelle's character feel more plausible – as "an incarnation of Eve’s sublimated aggression and assertiveness". Though Jia Tolentino wrote in The New Yorker that Villanelle’s character "works" because of Comer’s "mercurial, unassailable charisma", and Willa Paskin wrote in Slate that Comer's Villanelle (twisted and conscienceless but also irrepressible) is "flat-out incredible" and Mike Hale agreed in The New York Times that Comer is good in that "showier part", Hale added that it is Ms. Oh who ensures the series is "more than a cute gloss on the glamorous international caper."

In December 2018, The New York Times included Oh's and Comer's performances in its "Best Performances of 2018", noting "these two women are inventive about how to be funny in a thriller" and "make run-of-the mill embarrassment seem more lethal than any bullet". TV Guide named Oh's and Comer's performances as the #2 Best TV Performances of 2018.

References

1. ^ Hale, Mike (April 5, 2018). "Review: In Killing Eve, Female Spy Hunts Female Assassin". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 8, 2018. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
2. ^ Scherer, Jenna (May 14, 2018). "Killing Eve: The Cracked Female Spy-Thriller Buddy Comedy of the Year". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on May 14, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
3. ^ Berman, Judy (May 25, 2018). "Killing Eve: The Showrunner and Stars on the Love Story Behind the Sleeper Hit". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 25, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) Print edition title: "Two Broken Women, Bound by Their Flaws".
4. ^ Paskin, Willa (April 10, 2018). "Killing Eve Makes Murder Dangerously Fun". Slate. Archived from the original on May 30, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
5. ^ Seitz, Matt Zoller (June 27, 2018). "The Best Actress on TV Is Killing Eve's Sandra Oh". Vulture. Archived from the original on June 27, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
6. ^ Tolentino, Jia (May 27, 2018). "The Pleasurable Patterns of the Killing Eve Season Finale". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on May 29, 2018. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
7. ^ McFarland, Melanie (May 26, 2018). "Feminist thriller Killing Eve has proven a perfect show for the #MeToo era". Salon. Archived from the original on May 26, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
8. Boucher, Ashley (May 30, 2018). "Killing Eve Showrunner on Why She Gender-Swapped So Many of the Book's Male Characters". TheWrap. Archived from the original on May 30, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
9. Nguyen, Hanh (May 6, 2018). "Killing Eve: TV's Newest Assassin Subverts Storytelling Cliches, Which Makes Her Scary as Hell". IndieWire. Archived from the original on May 7, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
10. Frank, Priscilla (April 12, 2018). "Killing Eve Unravels Our Obsession With Women Who Murder". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on September 14, 2018. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
11. Snierson, Dan (February 21, 2019). "Killing Eve's Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer open up about TV's most mesmerizing, twisted relationship". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on February 22, 2019. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
12. Epstein, Adam (May 6, 2018). "Watch this: Killing Eve is the new show you should be watching in 2018". Quartz. Archived from the original on August 9, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
13. ^ Goldberg, Ben (July 2, 2018). "The Queer Ambiguity of Killing Eve". Into. Retrieved July 11, 2018.
14. Giorgis, Hannah (May 28, 2018). "Killing Eve and the Riddle of Why Women Kill". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on May 28, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
15. Morris, Wesley (December 7, 2018). "The Best Performances of 2018". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 7, 2018. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
16. TV Guide Editors (December 3, 2018). "These Are the 25 Best Performances on TV in 2018". TV Guide. Archived from the original on December 4, 2018. {{cite web}}: |author1= has generic name (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

External links

• BBC America profile for Eve Polastri (archive)
• BBC America profile for Villanelle (archive)

• Fictional rivalries