Killing Eve is fresh, stylistic, intriguing and, above all, intoxicating. It had slipped past me, but after this BBC America series received all those nominations for this year’s Television Critics Association Awards (including Outstanding New Program, Outstanding Achievement in Drama, Program of the Year and nods to its two stars for Individual Achievement in Drama) I gave it a binge. And now, in much the same way that the two lead characters can’t stop thinking about each other, I can’t get them out of my head.
This drama/thriller follows Eve Polastri (five-time Emmy nominee Sandra Oh, now deserving of a sixth), an MI5 Security Officer turned MI6 Intelligence Agent leading a secret task force formed with the goal of finding a talented and ruthless international assassin named Villanelle (Jodie Comer). Their riveting game of cat and mouse is as unpredictable as it is gripping, probably because Oh (pictured at top and below right) and Comer (below left) are veritable powerhouses when it comes to bringing these convincingly grounded, multi-layered adversaries to life. I know … cops chasing killers isn’t the most original premise, but as far as I can tell, the writers are fully aware that much like an assassination, execution is everything.