Killing Eve “I Don’t Want To Be Free”

So, normally I might hold off for an episode-ending reveal for, well, the end of the write-up.  But this time?  I want to do something a little different and focus on it for most of the write-up.

So, here’s the deal:  Eve is suspicious of Konstantin, knows her boss Carolyn hooked up with him when they were younger, and wants to know a bit more about any contact the two might have had since they arrived in Moscow.  She asks Kenny, Carolyn’s hacker son, to look into it, and the kid delivers:  a photograph of Carolyn meeting Konstantin…and Villanelle.

Now, that would seem to suggest that Carolyn might be part of the Twelve, that suspicious organization that Villanelle kills on behalf of.  There isn’t much out about the Twelve right now, like who they are and what their whole deal is.  I am sure the assumption is they’re the bad guys.  I mean, they have a bad guy name and all.  It only fits.  There’s always the possibility they are using Villanelle to remove various bad actors from the global stage to maintain some sort of balance.  I don’t know.  That could even be their own excuse.  It wouldn’t be a very good one, but they could use it.

It could also be very possible that Carolyn isn’t part of the Twelve and there’s another explanation for that photo.  I am inclined to think not, and not just because such a move would make a mockery of Eve’s investigative instincts.  She’s good at her job for that reason.  Besides, she’d still need to prove something was afoot with Carolyn.  The clues that exist are pretty tight.  Beyond the photo, Frank the Mole said the Twelve knew “everything” about him, and he seemed to be close to Carolyn, so she may have leaked the info about Frank to the Twelve while also having Frank monitor his own people, hence the reason she knew about Eve in the first place.

There’s another reason why I think Carolyn is probably part of the Twelve.  Now, I could still be wrong here, but the way I see it, I have a good reason to suspect it’s the truth.  Basically, that reason is this:  this is the penultimate episode of the first series, and if there’s to be a big reveal for who is and isn’t in the Twelve, it would need to come around here.  There really aren’t a lot of good suspects either unless the series introduces a brand new character, not exactly outside the realm of possibility, but to surprise the audience, it would need to be someone they knew and presumed was if not one of the good guys, then at least someone kinda harmless.  Carolyn fits that bill while being powerful enough within MI6 to get away with a lot of what she’s doing.

Besides, Eve’s investigation into Konstantin may be why the newly sprung Villanelle is after him now.

However, the idea that it would need to be Carolyn fits into how these stories work.  I remember watching the second Equalizer movie with Denzel Washington.  One of Washington’s old allies, one of the few characters to return after the first movie, was killed by a party unknown who knew Washington’s whole deal.  Unless the movie was going to pull out a brand new character more than halfway through the story, there were really only two suspects:  Bill Pullman as the dead woman’s husband, the other holdover from the first movie and a rather timid guy who seemed far too harmless and heartbroken to do the deed; or Pedro Pascal, this guy new to the series who had also been a longtime, but never-before-mentioned friend to Washington.  Of course it turned out to be Pascal.  Pullman was a weak suspect at best.  Pascal had the connections and, again, unless they were going to introduce a brand new character late in the movie, he was the only option.

Same deal with Carolyn really.

Regardless, Villanelle is free and looking for Konstantin, and Eve suspects her new boss is up to no good.  That’s a good set-up for a series one finale.

I’d say “season finale,” but British TV doesn’t roll that way.