The Big Picture

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

When Killing Eve burst onto screens in 2018, the show’s core dynamics centered on MI6 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and assassin-for-hire Villanelle’s (Jodie Comer) game of cat and mouse. Despite its polarizing finale, Killing Eve's rewatchability is maintained by the brilliance of its two leads. Eve and Villanelle are two sides of the same coin, determined and drawn to each other — obsessively so. Eve's life and career drive the show's plot, while the character of Villanelle, with her Paris Fashion Week sense of style and flair for the dramatic, lends the espionage thriller a refreshing sense of surrealism.

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

'Killing Eve' Season 3 Starts with Villanelle in Crisis

As a result of Konstantin's (Kim Bodia) revelation in the Season 2 finale — that Villanelle's family is not, in fact, dead but very much alive and living in Russia — Villanelle spends much of the early episodes of Season 3 in a tailspin. She exists in the throes of an apparent midlife crisis (what is the average lifespan of a Russian assassin anyway?) and struggles to understand her place in the world. Villanelle demands a promotion from The Twelve, to be elevated to the position of handler à la Konstantin, but finds that she hates management. She successfully carries out a hit on an Andalusian musician but finds herself intrigued by the victim's baby and begins to wonder about her own infancy.

The knowledge that Villanelle's family is still alive is top of mind, 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 step-father and step-brother, and Yula, Fyodor's girlfriend. Even in Russia, in her family 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 happens upon his long-lost older sister.

It's clear the family believed Villanelle was dead, and as they argue over her motives for finding them, Villanelle's mother arrives home. This spurs a gut reaction in Villanelle, one never seen before. She begins to hyperventilate and searches frantically for an exit, but the family blocks her from leaving. Killing Eve has often delighted in showcasing the mercurial Villanelle's variety of emotions, but never has it shown the assassin experiencing a full-on panic attack. The woman about to walk through the front door is the only person in the world who could elicit this type of reaction from Villanelle. When Tatiana (Evgenia Dodina) does enter the home and sees her daughter for the first time in decades, however, her reaction clearly surprises Villanelle. After a tense moment, Tatiana drops the groceries she's carrying (there's that familial dramatic flair) and begins to weep, taking Villanelle in her arms.

"Are You From Pinner?" Gives Us Another Side of Villanelle

Tatiana's reaction is the first of several interactions with her mother in "Are You From Pinner?" that confuse Villanelle. The family plays a lively round of Mafia, a card game wherein players attempt to figure out who among them is "murdering" the others, and while Villanelle is initially accused, it is Tatiana who ends up being the murderer. After the game, Tatiana toasts Villanelle's return. Tatiana welcomes her home despite her never having lived there, and Villanelle, in what is probably the most accurate summation of her character, replies "Okay, well, I'll go along with it for the sake of the moment." The family then bursts into a collective sing-a-long of Elton John's "Crocodile Rock," complete with dancing, air guitar, and feather boas, and Villanelle alone watches haplessly before finally joining in.

Later on, at the annual Harvest Festival, Tatiana proudly cheers on Villanelle for taking first place in a dung-throwing competition and dances with her family at the festival concert. When Bor'ka loses a piroshki contest, Tatiana seemingly comforts 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?" showcases a completely different side of Villanelle, one that is much more vulnerable than previously seen. In contrast to her usually robust sense of confidence, Villanelle is cautious, uncertain, and often confused. Villanelle interrogates her family over the course of the episode, trying to make sense of the Tatiana the family sees compared to her own asynchronous experience with Tatiana. In a conversation with Pyotr, her brother defends Tatiana, saying "She's not a bad woman. People here say she's a saint." Without hesitation, Villanelle responds, "People here don't know her."

'Killing Eve' Gives Villanelle a Sense of Hope Before Snatching it Away

At the same time, viewers see Villanelle able to experience joy and have fun without murder or subterfuge. When speaking to Bor'ka at the Harvest Festival, Villanelle says, "Pyotr was right. This is fun," and it is a genuinely joyful moment. As she begins to let her guard down somewhat, viewers begin to see glimmers of Oksana, the girl Villanelle could have been. 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 affords her family. Villanelle is beginning to soften.

It's a conversation with Bor'ka at the end of the Harvest Festival that finally, unfortunately, validates Villanelle's suspicions and destroys the last remains of Oksana. Bor'ka hits himself and complains that he embarrassed his family by losing the piroshki contest. When Villanelle disagrees, Bor'ka states, "I did. Mom said I did ... After I lost, she came up to me and said I was stupid, and 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 settles back into the mask viewers recognize. Gone is Oksana, once again replaced with the murderous side of Villanelle: stoic, guarded, and coldly calculating.

Where "Are You From Pinner?" shines brightest is during its climax, a conversation later that evening between Villanelle and Tatiana. Before Villanelle can confront her mother, in what appears to be a preemptive strike, Tatiana abruptly tells Villanelle that she must leave the next day. She does not want her there any longer, expressly telling Villanelle that she is not a part of the family: "You will not bring your darkness into this house." Villanelle is too close to uncovering Tatiana's darkness, to exposing her to her new family. Just as in the game of Mafia played earlier, Tatiana is able to deny her own darkness by centering Villanelle as the troubled one, the girl whose darkness might consume the family, the real murderer.

"Are You From Pinner?" Showcases Villanelle's Humanity in 'Killing Eve'

The argument reaches a fever pitch when Villanelle accuses Tatiana of being unable to accept who she truly is. This is Villanelle in her most raw form, desperate for her mother to repent at the eleventh hour, to acknowledge the shared nature of their darkness. "I am my mother's daughter," Villanelle proclaims, to which Tatiana replies, "Get out of my house." After a moment of silence, Villanelle looks up at her mother and delivers Killing Eve's most heartbreaking line: "Oh, I think I need to kill you, Mama."

Though Killing Eve has shown most of Villanelle's murders in glorious, gruesome detail, Tatiana's death happens off-screen. Villanelle's most intimate murder is saved for her eyes alone. With Bor'ka and Pyotr safely outside, Villanelle uses the gas stove to blow the house to pieces, with Grigoriy, Fyodor, and Yula still inside. Notably lacking the usual stoicism she shows after her kills, Villanelle lets out a scream of frustration when leaving the property. "Are You From Pinner?" ends with Villanelle on a train leaving Russia, wearing an old jumpsuit of Tatiana's, tears in her eyes.

In a break from Killing Eve's typical format, "Are You From Pinner?" succeeds in focusing on one character, pulling back the curtain, and revealing Villanelle without the mask she presents to the world. Despite (or maybe because of) her most antagonist qualities, viewers have been drawn to Villanelle and the mystery of her character since the first episode of Killing Eve. "Are You From Pinner?" provides a moment of catharsis, an acknowledgment of the achingly human side of Villanelle. 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 U.S.

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