Killing Eve S2 - Review, well sort of..
Jun. 1st, 2019 03:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatDid laundry and watched the last three episodes of Killing Eve S2, which apparently was controversial and a lot of people disliked. (I liked it -- it tracked and felt earned. Also, I sort of knew that's where we were headed by the end of the first of the last three episodes. And -- I must say that I was relieved that Villanelle didn't decide to do something that...ahem, would have been a bit too Titus Adronicus for my taste. The writers certainly lead us to believe she was going to do that.)
I will say that at least Killing Eve isn't quite as gruesome in its displays of violence as some other series I've watched. It pulls back a bit, and doesn't show everything.
It was slow in places, but not as slow as the previous season, and I think it worked overall. And yes, yourlibrarian nailed it when she said that it felt a bit like Buffy stealing off to have adventures with Drusilla, under the auspice of Angel and Darla, while Riley is left sputtering in the background. You either see that metaphor or you don't -- my mother really didn't.
If Fosse/Verdon felt at times like a slow and rather painful Tango, this feels like a Viennese Waltz with a touch of Mambo Salsa.
The title -- Killing Eve pretty much tells us where the story is going from the beginning. Various players are slowly bit by bit killing off portions of Eve.
And her somewhat self-involved husband Nico doesn't realize it until it is far too late to do much, outside of back away slowly.
Caroline and Constantine cleverly set Eve up to pull in Villanelle to take out an assassin and the assassin's noxious employer, Aaron Peele. Then they employ as clean-up the 12 to take out Villanelle, setting up the assassination of Aaron Peele as a hit by the 12, MI6 was never there.
Meanwhile Villanelle is playing Eve -- she sees Eve as an extension of herself -- someone who is just like her. And is determined to push Eve to reach the point in which they are "morally" the same and can take off as well not Bonnie and Clyde so much as Thelma and Louise.
She does it by tearing away those closest to Eve, such as Nico. She can't kill Nico, but she can steer him away from Eve. One of my favorite scenes is the disturbing confrontation scene between Villanelle, Nico and Nico's girl-friend in his storage space. I was convinced that Villanelle would kill the girl-friend -- if anything as an offering to Eve, but I wasn't sure about Nico. And for a while I worried that she'd chop them up and feed them to Eve in Shepard's Pie. (Highly relieved that did not happen. There's a mislead in there that she was going to do that.)
The series does like to mislead the audience -- making us think it will go one way, then flip in the other direction. Villanelle comes close to "killing Eve" so many times, that we and Eve decide she won't. I'm not even sure Eve cares any longer at the end. Eve's sort of lost of everything by this point, her morals have been circumscribed, she's been manipulated by everyone she trusted, her husband has left her, and she's can no longer trust her employers. Also -- she discovered both her employers and Villanelle have set her up to commit murder. Death from Eve's perspective at this point seems like a consolation prize.
Eve almost seems to have a death wish at this point -- when she visits the pscyhiatrist and talks to a psychopath...the pyschiatrist informs her that the guy she's talking to killed three women, Eve shrugs it off -- "he can kill the shit out of me".
Villanelle mistakes Eve's boredom and general malaise as being similar to her own.
Villanelle feels nothing, is a lone, and desperately want to connect to something but never quite can. She is a product of her country and her handlers. When she runs across Eve, she sees someone who is equally bored with her life and seems to be sleep-walking. Eve, when she runs into Villanelle, wakes up -- she's turned on, and fascinated. The malaise she's been feeling, her boredom with life, seemingly melts away.
When the psychiatrist asks her what she feels in Villanelle's company -- she says she feels "wide awake".
But her obsession with Villanelle begins to unravel the fabric of her own life.
And she can't be what Villanelle wants.
The Thelma and Louise ending that Villanelle craves -- is ruined when Eve realizes Villanelle could have easily killed Raymond at any time, with a gun.
"You have a gun?" Eve asks in the Roman ruins, after they've surfaced from the catacombs.
"Yeah."
"Since when?"
Villanelle shrugs.
"Why didn't you kill him with it?" Eve backs up when it dawns on her. "Because you wanted me to do it?"
"We're the same now."
"No, we're really not. What did you envision that we'd go on some killing spree like Bonnie and Clyde?"
"No, no, we don't have to do that.."
No, actually, I think Villanelle had more Thelma and Louise in mind.
"I love you," Villanelle tells her.
"You don't understand what that is."
"I thought you'd be more interesting, more like me."
"Sorry to disappoint. I'm going home." Eve moves to walk away. And Villanelle shoots her, then leaves the ruins, Eve's sprawled form on the floor of the ruins.
Is Eve dead? We don't know. Villanelle assumes so, or does she? It ends there.
But in a way, Eve sort of comes back a bit in this conversation -- it's arguable that she's been dead up to this point, allowing people to manipulate her. Pushing her this way and that. Caroline manipulates her, as does Constantine, as does Villanelle -- but she allows them to. Her obsession permits it. Eve only cares about Villanelle...and one can't help but wonder what she wants or expects from Villanelle?
Has she done the same thing with Villanelle that Villanelle has done with her?
Both Caroline and Constantine try to extricate Villanelle and Eve from Rome without the other, but both refuse to leave the other, and both refuse to believe the other would leave without them. And they don't. But...well, I'm reminded of the old story of the scorpion and the frog...carry me on your back, I won't kill you -- but of course you will, you are a scorpion and you can't do anything else. (I'm not sure I got that right.)
"I have no family, my family is dead. But I have Eve."
"Do you?"
"Yes, Eve's like me. We're the same."
"Are you certain of that?" Constantine asks.
Villanelle thinks if Eve kills she'll be like Villanelle...but seriously, it's no different than Aaron Peele thinking because Villanelle and he are both killers and psychopaths, that they are alike.
Anyhow the series works best as a Viennese Waltz between Villanelle and Eve, circling each other...but never quite working, since the two come from two opposing moral perspectives. While Eve may bend the rules, she has a moral center, while morality such as it is has no meaning for Villanelle, she doesn't even appear to understand what it is as a concept. Eve's a bit of an arrogant fool for thinking she can tame or even catch a scorpion by a tail, and Villanelle all the more fool she, for thinking she can turn a frog into a scorpion.
Overall? I liked it. But I also wasn't really all that emotionally invested in the characters -- which probably helped. I liked them. But didn't ship them, if that makes sense.
I will say that at least Killing Eve isn't quite as gruesome in its displays of violence as some other series I've watched. It pulls back a bit, and doesn't show everything.
It was slow in places, but not as slow as the previous season, and I think it worked overall. And yes, yourlibrarian nailed it when she said that it felt a bit like Buffy stealing off to have adventures with Drusilla, under the auspice of Angel and Darla, while Riley is left sputtering in the background. You either see that metaphor or you don't -- my mother really didn't.
If Fosse/Verdon felt at times like a slow and rather painful Tango, this feels like a Viennese Waltz with a touch of Mambo Salsa.
The title -- Killing Eve pretty much tells us where the story is going from the beginning. Various players are slowly bit by bit killing off portions of Eve.
And her somewhat self-involved husband Nico doesn't realize it until it is far too late to do much, outside of back away slowly.
Caroline and Constantine cleverly set Eve up to pull in Villanelle to take out an assassin and the assassin's noxious employer, Aaron Peele. Then they employ as clean-up the 12 to take out Villanelle, setting up the assassination of Aaron Peele as a hit by the 12, MI6 was never there.
Meanwhile Villanelle is playing Eve -- she sees Eve as an extension of herself -- someone who is just like her. And is determined to push Eve to reach the point in which they are "morally" the same and can take off as well not Bonnie and Clyde so much as Thelma and Louise.
She does it by tearing away those closest to Eve, such as Nico. She can't kill Nico, but she can steer him away from Eve. One of my favorite scenes is the disturbing confrontation scene between Villanelle, Nico and Nico's girl-friend in his storage space. I was convinced that Villanelle would kill the girl-friend -- if anything as an offering to Eve, but I wasn't sure about Nico. And for a while I worried that she'd chop them up and feed them to Eve in Shepard's Pie. (Highly relieved that did not happen. There's a mislead in there that she was going to do that.)
The series does like to mislead the audience -- making us think it will go one way, then flip in the other direction. Villanelle comes close to "killing Eve" so many times, that we and Eve decide she won't. I'm not even sure Eve cares any longer at the end. Eve's sort of lost of everything by this point, her morals have been circumscribed, she's been manipulated by everyone she trusted, her husband has left her, and she's can no longer trust her employers. Also -- she discovered both her employers and Villanelle have set her up to commit murder. Death from Eve's perspective at this point seems like a consolation prize.
Eve almost seems to have a death wish at this point -- when she visits the pscyhiatrist and talks to a psychopath...the pyschiatrist informs her that the guy she's talking to killed three women, Eve shrugs it off -- "he can kill the shit out of me".
Villanelle mistakes Eve's boredom and general malaise as being similar to her own.
Villanelle feels nothing, is a lone, and desperately want to connect to something but never quite can. She is a product of her country and her handlers. When she runs across Eve, she sees someone who is equally bored with her life and seems to be sleep-walking. Eve, when she runs into Villanelle, wakes up -- she's turned on, and fascinated. The malaise she's been feeling, her boredom with life, seemingly melts away.
When the psychiatrist asks her what she feels in Villanelle's company -- she says she feels "wide awake".
But her obsession with Villanelle begins to unravel the fabric of her own life.
And she can't be what Villanelle wants.
The Thelma and Louise ending that Villanelle craves -- is ruined when Eve realizes Villanelle could have easily killed Raymond at any time, with a gun.
"You have a gun?" Eve asks in the Roman ruins, after they've surfaced from the catacombs.
"Yeah."
"Since when?"
Villanelle shrugs.
"Why didn't you kill him with it?" Eve backs up when it dawns on her. "Because you wanted me to do it?"
"We're the same now."
"No, we're really not. What did you envision that we'd go on some killing spree like Bonnie and Clyde?"
"No, no, we don't have to do that.."
No, actually, I think Villanelle had more Thelma and Louise in mind.
"I love you," Villanelle tells her.
"You don't understand what that is."
"I thought you'd be more interesting, more like me."
"Sorry to disappoint. I'm going home." Eve moves to walk away. And Villanelle shoots her, then leaves the ruins, Eve's sprawled form on the floor of the ruins.
Is Eve dead? We don't know. Villanelle assumes so, or does she? It ends there.
But in a way, Eve sort of comes back a bit in this conversation -- it's arguable that she's been dead up to this point, allowing people to manipulate her. Pushing her this way and that. Caroline manipulates her, as does Constantine, as does Villanelle -- but she allows them to. Her obsession permits it. Eve only cares about Villanelle...and one can't help but wonder what she wants or expects from Villanelle?
Has she done the same thing with Villanelle that Villanelle has done with her?
Both Caroline and Constantine try to extricate Villanelle and Eve from Rome without the other, but both refuse to leave the other, and both refuse to believe the other would leave without them. And they don't. But...well, I'm reminded of the old story of the scorpion and the frog...carry me on your back, I won't kill you -- but of course you will, you are a scorpion and you can't do anything else. (I'm not sure I got that right.)
"I have no family, my family is dead. But I have Eve."
"Do you?"
"Yes, Eve's like me. We're the same."
"Are you certain of that?" Constantine asks.
Villanelle thinks if Eve kills she'll be like Villanelle...but seriously, it's no different than Aaron Peele thinking because Villanelle and he are both killers and psychopaths, that they are alike.
Anyhow the series works best as a Viennese Waltz between Villanelle and Eve, circling each other...but never quite working, since the two come from two opposing moral perspectives. While Eve may bend the rules, she has a moral center, while morality such as it is has no meaning for Villanelle, she doesn't even appear to understand what it is as a concept. Eve's a bit of an arrogant fool for thinking she can tame or even catch a scorpion by a tail, and Villanelle all the more fool she, for thinking she can turn a frog into a scorpion.
Overall? I liked it. But I also wasn't really all that emotionally invested in the characters -- which probably helped. I liked them. But didn't ship them, if that makes sense.
no subject
Date: 2019-06-02 04:20 am (UTC)Did you know they reshot the ending? Completely? The original ending was supposedly "too similar" to another Marvel movie.
This does not bode well.
The 15th?
no subject
Date: 2019-06-02 01:30 pm (UTC)I know they re-edited and pushed it back after Disney re-acquired the rights. It was allegedly supposed to be the first of three movies, but that changed. Didn't know that they completely re-shot the original ending...
I also know that this shoot was the best for the actors, it wasn't chaotic, it was organized, it was on time -- so the delay wasn't director or production based, but distributor/studio based. (Apparently Bryan Singer is a nightmare to work with and left mid-way to do Bohemian Rhapsody, which he got fired from. The director of this one -- Jennifer Lawrence had begged to direct a film, and agreed to do the movie if he directed it. Also, he's the writer of Last Stand, felt it wasn't at all true to the original comic and wanted a chance to do it right.)
So...it could go either way. It's not going to be the same as the comic (sort of know that going in -- with the casting and the fact that it takes place in the 1990s and Jessica Chastain's character.) Apparently they've chosen to have an alien and the Phoneix force mess with Jean as opposed to Mastermind (Hellfire Club) and the Phoenix force -- which actually may work better and be less...campy and more current.