One of ‘Killing Eve’s Best Episodes Doesn’t Include Sandra Oh at All

The big picture

• Killing Eve
  delves into the complex relationship between MI6 agent Eve and assassin Villanelle, with both obsessively drawn to each other.
• Season 3 crucially explores Villanelle's backstory, revealing her vulnerabilities and a new sense of hope before crushing her.
• The episode “Are you from Pinner?” it shows Villanelle's humanity and complexity, providing a moment of catharsis for viewers.

when Killing Eve burst onto screens in 2018, the show's core dynamic centered around MI6 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle's assassin for hire (Jodie Comer) cat and mouse game. Despite its polarizing ending, Killing Eve's review is sustained by the brilliance of its two protagonists. Eve and Villanelle are two sides of the same coin, determined and drawn to each other, obsessively. Eve's life and career drive the show's plot, while Villanelle's character, with her Paris Fashion Week sense of style and flair for the dramatic, gives the espionage thriller a refreshing sense of surrealism.

As the show slowly broke away from its cat-and-mouse mold, with Eve and Villanelle even teaming up towards the end of Season 2, viewers were treated to a more nuanced examination of Villanelle (born Oksana Astankova). This culminated in the fifth episode of season 3 “Are You From Pinner?” which sees Villanelle return home to Mother Russia and reunite with her family decades after staying in an orphanage. Up until this point, Villanelle and her backstory seemed to be intentionally kept behind the curtain to maintain the air of mystery surrounding her motivations. While some antagonists have their origins explained to the detriment of the character, “Are you from Pinner?” manages to add another layer of depth to Villanelle's story with the introduction of his own final antagonist: Villanelle's mother.

“Killing Eve” Season 3 begins with Villanelle in crisis

As a result of Konstantin's (Kim Bodia) revelation at the end of season 2: that Villanelle's family is, in fact, not dead, but very much alive and living in Russia. Villanelle spends much of the first few episodes of Season 3 in a tailspin. She exists in the midst of an apparent midlife crisis (what's the average life of a Russian assassin anyway?) and struggles to understand her place in the world. Villanelle asks for a promotion from The Twelve, to be promoted to the position of Konstantin's handler, but finds that she hates management. She successfully pulls off a hit on an Andalusian musician, but becomes intrigued by the victim's baby and begins to wonder about her own childhood.

The knowledge that Villanelle's family is still alive is the most important thing, and “Are you from Pinner?” begins when Villanelle arrives in Russia and travels to her family's new home. Viewers are introduced to Bor'ka, the Elton John-obsessed half-brother Villanelle never knew she had, followed by Grigoriy (Pedja Bjelac) and Fyodor, Villanelle's stepfather and half-brother, and Yula, Fyodor's girlfriend. Even in Russia, at home, Villanelle refuses to speak Russian and the family demands to know who she is. It is Pyotr, Villanelle's brother, who clears up the confusion when he walks into the kitchen and meets his long-lost older sister.

It is clear that the family believed Villanelle to be dead, and as they argue about the reasons for finding them, Villanelle's mother arrives at the house. This causes a gut reaction in Villanelle, one never seen before. He begins to hyperventilate and frantically searches for an exit, but the family prevents him from leaving. Killing Eve He's often relished showing the mercurial Villanelle's range of emotions, but he's never shown the killer going through a full-blown panic attack. The woman about to enter the front door is the only person in the world who could provoke such reactions from Villanelle. When Tatiana (Evgenia Dodina) does enter the house and sees her daughter for the first time in decades, but Villanelle is clearly surprised by her reaction. After a tense moment, Tatiana drops the groceries she's carrying (there's that familiar dramatic flair) and begins to cry, holding Villanelle in her arms.

“Are you from Pinner?” It gives us another side of Villanelle

Tatiana's reaction is the first of several interactions with his mother in “Are You From Pinner?” which confuses Villanelle. The family plays a lively game of Mafia, a card game in which players try to figure out which of them is “murdering” the others, and while Villanelle is initially accused, it is Tatiana who ends up being the killer. After the match, Tatiana toasts Villanelle's return. Tatiana welcomes him home even though she's never lived there, and Villanelle, in what is probably the most accurate summary of her character, replies, “Okay, well, I'll go for the sake of moment”. The family then breaks out into a group sing-along of Elton John's “Crocodile Rock,” complete with dancing, air guitar and feather boas, and Villanelle looks on unhappily before joining in.

Later, at the annual Harvest Festival, Tatiana proudly cheers Villanelle on for taking first place in a dung-throwing contest and dances with her family at the festival concert. When Bor'ka loses a piroshki contest, Tatiana seems to comfort her son when she sits down and whispers a few words to him after the loss. For all intents and purposes, Tatiana is finally the mother Villanelle always needed.

“Are you from Pinner?” shows a completely different side of Villanelle, one that is far more vulnerable than previously seen. In contrast to his usual strong sense of confidence, Villanelle is cautious, uncertain and often confused. Villanelle questions her family throughout the episode, trying to make sense of Tatiana's view of family in comparison to her own asynchronous experience with Tatiana. In a conversation with Pyotr, his brother defends Tatiana saying “She's not a bad woman. People here say she's a saint.” Without hesitation, Villanelle replies, “People here don't know her.”

“Killing Eve” gives Villanelle a sense of hope before taking it away

At the same time, viewers see Villanelle capable of experiencing joy and having fun without assassination or subterfuge. When talking to Bor'ka at the Harvest Festival, Villanelle says, “Pyotr was right. This is fun,” and it's a truly joyful moment. As she begins to let her guard down a bit, viewers begin to see glimpses of Oksana, the girl who could have been Villanelle. The brutality of Villanelle's life has hardened her to the world, so much so that she violently refuses to allow people to call her Oksana, but this is a privilege she grants her family. Villanelle begins to soften.

It is a conversation with Bor'ka at the end of the Harvest Festival that finally, unfortunately, it validates Villanelle's suspicions and destroys the last remnants of Oksana. Bor'ka beats himself up and complains that he embarrassed his family by losing the piroshki contest. When Villanelle disagrees, Bor'ka states, “I did. Mom said yes… After I lost her, she came up to me and told me I was stupid, and it embarrassed her and…” before hitting himself again. Reality suddenly catches up with Villanelle, and as she watches her mother dance with the rest of her family, Villanelle's previously hopeful face reverts to the mask viewers recognize. Gone is Oksana, once again replaced by Villanelle's murderous side: stoic, guarded and coldly calculating.

Where are you from Pinner? shines most is during its climax, a conversation later that night between Villanelle and Tatiana. Before Villanelle can confront her mother, in what appears to be a preemptive strike, Tatiana abruptly tells Villanelle that she has to leave the next day. He no longer wants her there, expressly telling Villanelle that she is not part of the family: “You will not bring your darkness into this house.” Villanelle is too close to discovering Tatiana's darkness, to exposing her to her new family. Just like in the mafia game played earlier, Tatiana is able to deny her own darkness by centering Villanelle like the troublemaker, the girl whose darkness could consume the family, the real killer.

“Are you from Pinner?” Show Villanelle's Humanity in 'Killing Eve'

The argument reaches a fever pitch when Villanelle accuses Tatiana of being unable to accept who she really is. This is Villanelle at her rawest, desperate for her mother to repent at the eleventh hour, to acknowledge the shared nature of their darkness. “I am my mother's daughter,” proclaims Villanelle, to which Tatiana replies, “Get out of my house.” After a moment of silence, Villanelle looks at her mother and gives birth Killing EveThe most heartbreaking line of: “Oh, I think I'm going to kill you, Mom.”

Although Killing Eve has shown most of Villanelle's murders in glorious and gruesome detail, Tatiana's death happens off screen. Villanelle's most intimate murder is saved for her eyes only. With Bor'ka and Pyotr out of harm's way, Villanelle uses the gas stove to tear the house apart, with Grigoriy, Fyodor and Yula still inside. Lacking her usual stoicism after her death, Villanelle lets out a cry of frustration as she exits the property. “Are you from Pinner?” it ends with Villanelle on a train leaving Russia, wearing Tatiana's old jumpsuit, with tears in her eyes.

In a break from Killing Evethe typical format of “Are You From Pinner?” manages to focus on one character, pull back the curtain and reveal Villanelle without the mask she presents to the world. Despite (or perhaps because of) her more antagonistic qualities, viewers have been drawn to Villanelle and the mystery of her character since the very first episode of Killing Eve.“Are you from Pinner?” offers a moment of catharsis, an acknowledgment of Villanelle's painfully human side. The episode showcases the complexity of the show's most compelling character (and the brilliance of Jodie Comer's performance) and thrives even without its titular character.

Killing Eve is available to stream on Netflix in the United States

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