What makes Killing Eve so fascinating is how it throws away everything we have grown to expect from the murder-thriller genre and replaces these old elements with something you can really sink your teeth into from start to finish.
If you need more convincing, Killing Eve currently has the highest rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. This surpasses the new season of The Handmaid’s Tale, Barry, and even Westworld. In fact, it’s been so well-received, it’s already been renewed for a second season. Let’s hope Eve lives long enough to see it!
Your Next Obsession
YouTube/BBC America
Killing Eve centers on two women; Eve is a bored, whip-smart, pay-grade MI5 security officer whose desk-bound job doesn’t fulfill her fantasies of being a spy. Villanelle is a mercurial, talented killer who clings to the luxuries her violent job affords her. Killing Eve topples the typical spy-action thriller as these two fiercely intelligent women, equally obsessed with each other, go head to head in an epic game of cat and mouse.
Both Eve and Villanelle are smart women who develop an infatuation with one another despite one being a special agent and the other being an assassin. They watch one another like a hunter stalks prey. They analyze the reasons behind one another’s actions like a puzzle begging to be solved. And yes, they do fear one another — for different reasons of course, but that never stops them from the chase.
Game On, Baby
YouTube/BBC America
In the very first episode, the task force of British Intelligence officers is discussing how to apprehend, let alone begin to profile this killer, a highly skilled male they agree on, based on the high-value targets. The lone objecting voice in the room states, “He may not have considered a passing woman a threat,” Eve says. She’s absolutely correct. Villanelle looks as angelic as she is psychotic.
Throughout the weeks we’ve seen Villanelle slip into roles such as house cleaner, masseuse, and other various coed outfits that provide her access to her targets along with anonymity. For as intelligent as she is, Eve is never far behind. These are two powerhouse performances by fearless women who stop at nothing to accomplish the mission at hand.
Texas-based journalist Rachel Monroe says it best, “When a woman commits a crime, she’s not only transgressing laws, she’s transgressing gender roles.” If there’s one thing Killing Eve has shown us, it is that the rules are meant to be broken.