Killing Eve 2×06 “I Hope You Like Missionary!” is all about hostile breakfasts, but drops quite a few truth bombs along the way.
In the fifth episode of season 2, Eve finally got a second date with Villanelle and recruited her as a consultant/interrogator for the Ghost case. But Villanelle had plans of her own, and met with Niko.
In this episode, “I Hope You Like Missionary!” Eve does too little, too late, and Villanelle reads her like a book. Also, Carolyn is very upset with people who like eggs — so naturally, there’s a ton of food in this one.
Here we go:
Nothing a little BDSM can’t fix
The episode starts off with Niko coming home after his spelling bee trip, revealing his Inner Dom in a way that is, quite frankly, very attractive. Drenched in rainwater, he angrily storms into the house and tells Eve that he knows about the stabbing — and calls Eve out when she LIES AGAIN EVEN THOUGH SHE’S CAUGHT(!).
Furious at her denial, he follows Villanelle’s advice (“You should try this with your wife”) and violently pins Eve to the wall. And oh Eve really enjoys that. I guess there’s nothing a little light BDSM can’t fix.
Outside, Villanelle stands in the rain and sees her own ideas play out in front of her.
After an amazing night, Eve feels all giddy when Niko comes down for breakfast… but Niko doesn’t feel the same way. He’s uncomfortable with how well Villanelle knew what Eve wanted sexually, and he knows that Eve has lied about too many things. Overwhelmed with Eve’s inability to be emotionally available, he announces that he’s leaving.
Eve begs him to stay and talk, which really isn’t a good look, seeing as she blew him off every time he tried to do that in the last six episodes. Niko is just as skeptical as I am, and leaves.
Meanwhile, things are a lot smoother at the Carolyn household. Konstantin enjoys breakfast as one of Carolyn’s “old friends” from the Nairobi bureau struts around half naked. Carolyn has a lot of “old friends.” Konstantin makes what is either a passive aggressive, jealous statement — or a threesome invitation. Either way, Kenny seems vaguely nauseated. No breakfast for him today.
Carolyn hosts a not-breakfast breakfast
Carolyn invites Eve to a restaurant in the morning, but insists it isn’t a breakfast:
“I can’t stand breakfast. It’s just constant eggs. Why? Who decided?”
I don’t know, but she makes a great point.
Eve and Carolyn share airpods, and I thought it was to hear some tunes, but instead it’s evidence of Aaron Peele’s incredibly shameless and in-the-open murders. So it is Peele, and there’s no way you can carry a hidden camera around him. This case is going to take a lot more work. They’re going to need someone to get close.
Can I just say, though: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GHOST?! Is she just out of the narrative entirely? Where is she from? What happened to her kids? Is Peele going to come after her, now? Please don’t let this excellent character fade away entirely.
Who ELSE could possibly wear this dress!?
But who could you plant besides Aaron Peele that could wear an enticingly tight dress and get information? He already knows Eve and Jess, and I guess Hugo is out of the question. Thinking about tight dresses makes Eve think of Villanelle, and so — much like her “borrowing” of the Polish kid in 1×01 — she and Jess march off to re-hire Villanelle.
(Villanelle, meanwhile, is at Eve’s house. She subtly trashes the place, then brushes her teeth with someone’s toothbrush. Is it Eve’s, and we have some laying-claim-to-her-mouth metaphor? Or is it Niko’s, and she’s trying to replace him? Either way, it’s a gross thing to do: #2 most disturbing thing she’s ever done, after killing Gabriel.)
Konstantin and Eve have a lot of unfinished anger, and Konstantin is all, “You’re not yelling, but it feels like you’re yelling,” which I’m sure we’ve all experienced with our moms. He gives his… permission? Does Konstantin’s opinion really matter at this point? How much are they paying him?
Eve shows up at Villanelle’s. At this point, the show has changed a little. We’re not used to seeing these two women so close to each other without heavy suspense and tension, and now they’re essentially having a business meeting. But they think it’s just as weird as we do, and Villanelle takes advantage of the awkwardness to try to confuse Eve. She pokes the subject of Niko, shows off her mastery of many accents, and plays hard-to-get, saying, “I don’t like to be challenged.” LOL.
This is literally any crime consultant show
And so begins Killing Eve: The Mentalist or Killing Eve: Castle or Killing Eve: Lucifer, or literally any crime consultant show you’ve ever seen.
Planning puts Carolyn, Eve and Villanelle chilling in the same room, with one of the weirdest group dynamics ever. Are we forgetting that Carolyn and Villanelle already met in season 1, and we never got an explanation for it?!
Also, Eve calls Hugo Kenny, which made me sad. Why was it so easy to replace lovely Kenny with frickin’ Hugo? To reach Peele, Villanelle has to go after his sister, who is at her most exposed in an Alcoholics Anonymous group, even though she’s followed everywhere by a bodyguard who stops her from socializing.
For this operation, Villanelle becomes a pink-haired American and joins the AA meetings as an addict, closely monitored by Eve. But Villanelle has a nasty trick up her sleeve. Her cover for the Peele operation is to be Eve. At the AA meetings, she talks about how “Billie” is alienating her husband, her friends, and losing control over her own behavior. She even alludes to how Villanelle has become the center of Eve’s life. “I have nobody left. Well, almost nobody.”
But as Villanelle probably intended, the AA group doesn’t take well to her self-pity. Is this a wake-up call?
Eve doesn’t appreciate it. She lashes out immediately, but Villanelle makes a point of reminding her how dangerous and important she really is:
“Don’t speak to me like that, Eve. I like you, but I don’t like you that much. Don’t forget: The only thing that makes you interesting is me.”
It’s a chilling scene, and probably one of the best in the whole show. Villanelle understands Eve dangerously well, and she recognizes Eve’s problem: She is terribly, cripplingly BORED. She’s desperate to feel something.
And Villanelle certainly makes her feel something.
But just in case Eve was hoping for some friendly bonding over their shared interests, Villanelle makes a point of reminding MI6 of exactly who she is. She kills Peele’s sister’s bodyguard by making her get run over by a truck, all the while staring Eve in the eyes. It’s unnerving. And Carolyn is 100% fine with it.
Now, Villanelle texts Eve asking to hang out with her “Kill Commander.” Ouch.
Eve sabotages her marriage… again
But Eve still hasn’t forgotten about Niko. In an attempt to extend an olive branch, Eve gets Niko a gift and goes to his school. But there, she sees Gemma making her move… and Eve leaves, heartbroken. At this point, any effort is too little, too late.
Remember how I said that Niko would lose all my respect if he shacked up with Gemma? Well, he lost 100% of my respect as soon as he moved in with her. He’s not stupid: He knows she likes him. And although he gained 50% of that respect back by not having sex with her — I don’t think he’s a good enough liar to deny that with such outrage — he really, really shouldn’t have done that.
Still, Eve’s no angel. While she righteously gives Gemma the attitude the woman deserves, she starts to go frighteningly off the rails, entering Gemma’s room, messing with her lingerie and destroying what was clearly a very valuable music box.
Can we take a moment, though, to appreciate a) the incredible neatness of Gemma’s bra drawer? Is she a secret Marie Kondo? And b) the Victoria’s Secret boutique-level variety of her bra drawer. It seems that Gemma is the absolute opposite of Eve in terms of frilly, girly and nurturing. And that isn’t a bad thing for either of them, but it’s also an interesting choice.
It’s at this moment, as she’s starting to destroy Gemma’s things, that Eve finally realizes the destruction she’s capable of. But instead of addressing it, she calls Niko boring to his face and tells Gemma, “I Hope You Like Missionary!” (Which, apparently, she does.)
Earlier, Villanelle had more advice:
“He’s too nice. He’s too normal for you, you know that.”
“Stop it.”
“Why?”
“Because you will never understand how much harder it is to be nice and normal and decent, than it is to be like you.”
“Like us, you mean.”
Maybe Eve leaves because she doesn’t know how to handle the situation. Or maybe it’s because she’s finally accepted the truth: She’s in no position to be a good partner right now. She has too many other things on her mind, and maybe she is a little too much like Villanelle.
Aaron is a bully
Having become friends with Peele’s sister, Villanelle gets invited to a family dinner (which is kind of a weird way to get to know your friend better, especially when your brother is a notorious jerk… but maybe those are the conditions this poor girl lives under). Eve and Konstantin listen in. I guess everyone has just forgotten that Konstantin, too, is a criminal. He’s just munching on chips like this is the best movie he’s ever watched. (We are all Konstantin.)
While Villanelle is a perfectly decent guest, Aaron is an absolute baby. He puts her and his sister down the entire time, his insults building up to a very hostile argument over a game of Dixit. Of course, Villanelle hasn’t read her file, so she can’t defend her supposed degrees in Philosophy (plus, she swallowed her microphone, so Eve is effectively speaking into her stomach) — but Aaron is such a horrible person that no one has time to pay attention to that.
Historically, this means he’s about to enjoy a very nasty death, but Villanelle can’t kill him right now. So she resorts to the next best thing: She calls him a bully, and punches him in the nose.
Eve freaks out, but Konstantin is always chill. He shouldn’t be, though. After the whole thing, Villanelle is still angry. She has plans to turn someone into a shawarma… and it’s probably the two other clients at the shawarma shop.
This is her coping mechanism, after all.
Will Eve accept the fact that she has psychopathic tendencies? Will Carolyn and Konstantin reveal their long game? Will they have a threesome with the Nairobi agent? Who knows? All I know is that I want Kenny to be happy and safe.
See you next week for episode 2×07, “Wide Awake”… which I hope refers to Eve OPENING HER EYES to the facts!
Killing Eve airs on Sundays at 8 p.m. on BBC America. See trailers, clips, and the full episode guide here.
We want to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Write a comment below or submit an article to Hypable.