Killing Eve topped the list of our favorite TV shows last year, and we’ve been eagerly awaiting news of a second season. So BBC America gave us a Valentine’s Day gift: the first trailer for season 2, picking up right where the first season left off.
(Spoilers for season 1 below.)
Based on Luke Jennings’ series of thriller novellas, Codename Villanelle, Killing Eve stars Jodie Comer as Villanelle, a self-described psychopathic killer for hire. Her string of corpses catches the attention of an MI5 (later MI6) officer named Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh), who is obsessed with female killers and correctly guesses there is a new player among their ranks. What follows is a sexually charged cat-and-mouse game where it’s not entirely clear who is the predator and who is the prey.
Per Deadline Hollywood, the season 1 finale brought in more than a million viewers, while Oh won the Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, and SAG Award for best actress in a drama for her portrayal of Eve—deservedly so, although Comer is equally fantastic as Villanelle. It’s their strange mutual attraction that drives much of the show’s tension. “Why are the two of you so interested in each other?” Eve’s MI6 boss, Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw), observes in the new trailer. Perhaps it’s because each sees a bit of herself in the other—an element captured when the two met face to face in a hospital ladies’ room without realizing who the other was in season 1.
The first season ended with a bona fide cliffhanger: when the two women finally meet, they curl up on Villanelle’s bed for what the killer thinks will be a romantic interlude. Eve stabs her with a knife and flees, leaving Villanelle to bleed out (or so she thinks). The S2 trailer opens with Eve sitting alone in a bus station, eating popcorn, while a breathy, minimalist rendition of Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” plays. Cut to Eve on the phone, presumably with Carolyn: “I think I killed her,” she confesses—in front of a young couple who just got engaged, because Eve’s social skills have never been particularly stellar. It’s part of her charm.
Eventually she figures out Villanelle is still alive. We’re thinking the box of flowers spelling “Eve” might have tipped her off. (It’s Valentine’s Day, after all.) Has Villanelle decided to overlook the stabbing? “Sometimes when you love someone, you do crazy things,” we hear her say. One thing’s for sure: she isn’t likely to underestimate Eve again.
The new season looks like it will still have all the elements we loved about season 1: the darkly humorous beats, Villanelle’s crazy outfits, and the psychological parallels between Villanelle and Eve. A scene with Villanelle hunting for a kitchen knife—”to stab you with!” she cheerfully tells an offscreen man—is interspersed with shots of Eve chopping carrots in her kitchen, running a finger lovingly over the knife blade. All in all, it looks like we’re in for another wild ride.
Killing Eve premieres on both BBC America and AMC on April 7, 2019.
Listing image by YouTube/BBC America
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