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imunbreakabledude · 3 years

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Hating “Are You From Pinner?” IS a personality trait

I really, really, really dislike Season 3, Episode 5 of Killing Eve.

 I have a lot of issues with the third season as a whole, that I’ve discussed a bit before and may discuss again in the future, but people sometimes ask me why I hate this episode so much. Usually on twitter, where I can only say so much in 280 characters, so... people continue to ask me.

 Here is my unabridged explanation of why I dislike 3.05 so much. This is my opinion. It is not meant to ruin it for anyone else. Please do not read if you don’t want to see a really scathing, negative post.

Now that you’ve been warned… here’s why I think 3.05 is just about the worst choice the writers could’ve made.

It was terrible for the structure of the season.

A standalone episode is just a bad idea in an 8 episode season. in 13 episodes, sure. In 10, maybe. in 8, it just isn’t feasible. Season 2 of KE is already bursting at the seams from its 8 episodes, with ep 5 feeling very crunched … and seson 3 tries to take on MORE characters and storylines… but also drops a slow standalone episode in the middle, killing momentum on EVERY other story, and also just robbing the season of time it needed to tell those other stories. It was not a wise choice for the format. I was worried as soon as I heard in the lead-up to the season that there would be a “standalone” episode without Eve in it, but I held off judgment until seeing it, because sometimes choices that sound radical can be the right call for the story being told. After seeing it, I can wholeheartedly say: it was not the right call.

Let’s look more closely at the pacing of the season as a whole. 3.01 feels a bit slow because, in all fairness, it has a lot to accomplish: showing us where Eve, Villanelle, Carolyn, Kenny, and Konstantin all are six months after Rome, as well as introducing a new character who will be important to the season, Dasha. It feels like not much happens until Kenny dies, kickstarting the plot. 3.02 carries forth consequences of Kenny’s death, then adds another jumpstart, with Eve and Villanelle both learning of the other still being alive/active. Okay. Slow on the villaneve front, but things are brewing. 3.03 is actually excellent pacing, bringing Eve and Villanelle’s plots together, keeping Konstantin and Carolyn involved with Eve and Villanelle, and having each scene really push into the next. 3.04 is where things start to get odd. Not necessarily in a bad way. I like what 3.04 tried to do. It was a really cool way to play with the audience and get us to the dramatic turning point: Niko (seemingly) dying, and show us different events through different lenses. I think 3.04 would’ve been a great all-time episode except that it has the misfortune to be followed by 3.05. I don’t know how a room of professional TV writers decided it made sense to have a non-traditional episode that ends on a sort of cliffhanger, to be followed by ANOTHER non-traditional episode that has NOTHING to do with anything that came before it in the season. By the time we get back to everyone else in 3.06, everything feels rushed to catch up again. There’s not enough time to catch up on other plots nor to even unpack the effects of what Villanelle did in 3.05. I won’t go into the other mistakes made in the rest of the season here, but… 3.05 is an intermission that no one asked for at the peak of tension halfway through the season, that kills the momentum and leaves the rest of the episodes scrambling (and failing) to pull the story together.

Furthermore, by isolating Villanelle, this episode also exacerbates a problem I had with season 3 as a whole: separating the main characters. It’s much less interesting to watch Villanelle (or Eve, or Carolyn, or Konstantin) talk to a new character we don’t care about yet, than it is to watch them interact with EACH OTHER. I’m not saying every scene has to be Eve and Villanelle, but this season was boring with how much it kept the leads apart from each other. Episode 3.05 is forty minutes of Villanelle and a bunch of people we’ve never met before and never hear from again. It’s really hard to care about that.

I dislike the storyline on a personal level.

I won’t lie that part of my problem with 3.05 is I simply wish they didn’t take Villanelle’s story in that direction. If this was my only complaint, I’d say it’s not my favorite and move on. I acknowledge that this part is subjective, but here’s why I disliked it.

Creating a backstory where Villanelle’s mother was cruel and/or flat out abusive, and that’s supposedly the cause of why she is the way she is, goes against what Season 1 set up very intentionally. Season 1 was very careful to avoid painting Villanelle as a product of family tragedy, and even warned us specifically that her mother wasn’t important.

The scene in 1.05 in particular, where Villanelle starts crying saying Eve needs to take pity on her because she’s just lost, then Eve calls bullshit - THAT moment made me know I was in good hands with this show, that I was seeing something new, not cliche. Also, the moment where Eve asks “What did he [Max] do to you [that made you castrate him]?” Then the show completely dumps that cultural expectation that the evil woman did evil because she was hurt by a man. (They reveal a still dark, but fresher backstory with Anna. So I’m not averse to backstory for Villanelle, even sad backstory - but I want it to be fresh, and told well)

I really loved how Villanelle didn’t have a classic Freudian excuse for her behavior. I liked that she was challenging to like, that I felt conflicted every time I laughed with her or rooted for her. I liked that she was not a tragic product of a typical sob story, but presented as, “yes, she’s really bad. Take it or leave it.” That was incredibly refreshing.

“But wait,” you say. “this is not out of nowhere. This is actually the fault of your beloved Season 2, which told us Villanelle’s family is alive! So season three was doing good writing by following up on that!”

Even the line at the end of 2.08 that started all this, is Villanelle said her family is dead and Konstantin said “most of them”. That did not have to produce 3.05. It could’ve been one lone family member alive. Maybe a sibling, or a cousin. Could’ve been spun a number of different ways. Or, it could’ve been dismissed, I mean… they dismissed a lot of BIGGER things from the season 2 finale. Like, Eve murdering a man, and how the 12 might be kind of pissed about Raymond’s death, and what would happen when Aaron Peel, huge tech guru was found murdered in his house, and also how suspicious it would look that Niko was found alive in a storage unit with a dead woman… just to name a few. I’m not saying they had to go after ALL of those threads in a new season. But if EVE KILLING RAYMOND didn’t merit any exploration in season 3? Don’t tell me they were preserving the integrity of what was set up by 2.08 in writing a standalone episode about Villanelle’s family. If they were dead-set on this storyline anyway, they could’ve done it better by making it… not a standalone.

Much as I dislike the “kill mom” arc in general, if that’s what Suzanne really wanted to do, she should’ve integrated it more with the rest of the season instead of cramming it into one episode.

The audience has no reason to care about the mother, or any of the other characters in the episode who only appear in that one episode.

To see how backstory SHOULD be done, all you have to do is look at Anna from season 1. She is woven into the entire season, so we actually fucking CARE when she shows up.

In 1.02, we learn there’s an important figure from Villanelle’s past named “Anna”, it’s implied that she has hair like Eve’s, and that she had a huge but sour impact on Villanelle. (worth noting, in this same scene, the writers dismiss the notion that Villanelle’s mother is the source of her trauma.)

In 1.05-6, we see Villanelle’s reluctance at going back to Russia… because she might run into Anna. That gets us even more antsy for finding out WHO Anna is, and seeing if Villanelle WILL end up seeing her.

Anna herself appears in only a few scenes, true, but spread across two episodes, not crammed into one. She interacts with both Eve and Villanelle, and she’s woven into the plot with an active role resolving the season arc. Those scenes are also really fucking well written and acted, which helps, but the important part is WE CARE BECAUSE WE HAD TIME TO. We had time to be intrigued. We had time to be scared. We had time to wonder if Anna was the victim, or Villanelle was. We had time to see different sides of it, with Eve and Villanelle each talking to Anna. And the ending hits hard, and we can see it hit Villanelle hard, too.

If the s3 writers really wanted to make Villanelle’s mother important, they should’ve taken a similar approach - seeding her importance throughout the season, even if she was still going to only appear in one episode (though, having her in more than one episode would’ve helped, too!). Let the arc be more drawn out. Let us go through a series of emotions and doubts about the story. Let her killing her mother feel like a true resolution, rather than the most cliche and predictable ending to a sloppily thrown together standalone story. Bottom line, 3.05 was not the correct way to accomplish this, if it was truly what they wanted to accomplish.

“But Jodie!”

Jodie is talented.

Over on twitter I’ve been accused of being a “jodie hater” for criticizing this episode, but her acting is the singular aspect of this episode I have NEVER criticized. In fact, I think her acting is the one thing that keeps this episode from being universally panned by fans and critics alike. With an actor of any less talent, they simply wouldn’t get away with this episode at all, but that’s part of why it annoys me. They skirted by on Jodie’s talent, but imagine if they’d written better material for her. It could’ve been so much better than what we got… maybe she would’ve gone back to back at the Emmys like some fans hoped she would… not that that’s important. If you go through RottenTomatoes or IMDb and read fan reviews of 3.05, they are very clearly divided into two categories: 1 or 2 star reviews from people who have variations of the many complaints that I have laid out here, and then 10 star reviews. The 10 star reviews all say exactly the same thing: Jodie Comer is amazing. Jodie Comer is breathtaking. Jodie Comer is so talented. That is true. But personally, I want more out of TV than just a talented actor. I watch primarily for story and writing. Actors are an important part of making it reality. And that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy good acting on its own. But for me, that is not enough to carry a terribly written episode… and certainly not enough to EXCUSE the writing. Jodie did her job well; the writers did not.

A good episode wouldn’t have us saying “BUT Jodie,” it would have us saying, “AND Jodie.” “Wow, that episode was amazing, AND Jodie’s performance was the cherry on top!” (And Sandra, too, because I still think it’s kinda insane they’d not want to use both of their award-winning leads in every episode, but… for argument’s sake. If they HAD to do a Jodie-only episode, it still could’ve been much better than this one.)

You cannot convince me watching random Russian hicks throw dung was more important than moving forward all of the other plots set up in the first four episodes.

You cannot convince me Villanelle killing a mother we never met nor heard of before this episode was more emotionally satisfying than a multi-episode or season-long arc she could’ve had with another family member, or Dasha, that would’ve been less cliche.

You cannot convince me that it’s okay that Bor’ka’s desire to see Elton John got more attention and resolution than the fact that Eve killed someone last season.

And that is why I hate this episode.

#killing eve #tvthoughts #rant #like i said pls dont read if you dont want negativity I dont want to bring anyone down just want to state my thoughts #305

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pynkhues · 4 years

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So it's starting to seem like Rio is really hurt about Beth. What do you take of his comment, "they always do"? Does Beth have any idea that he is hurt by what she did?

She’s definitely hurt him, anon, and I think Beth does know that, yes, but I also think that she might be mistaken on what it is that hurt him. I think she thinks that the biggest trauma for both of them right now is the shooting at the end of 2.13, and while I think that is a capital-i Issue for Rio, I also....don’t think that’s what has him pushing her away with one hand and pulling her closer with the other.

I think he’s most hurt because she quit him fairly brutally both personally and professionally in 2.09 and 2.10.

Which is a big statement, I know, so let’s break that down a bit.

(Behind a cut, because this got long, and I wanted screencaps, haha)

The Way We Were

The thing about S1 and S2 is - for the most part - Beth and Rio’s relationship trajectory felt positive, even if it wasn’t necessarily. After the first time he’d tried to kill her in 1.02, they formed what was essentially a box waltz with one another, which meant they were ultimately performing both to and with one another, while going through a familiar set of steps.

He did the one-step - giving her a seemingly impossible task (the Canada trip), she stepped up to meet in line with him on the two step - rising to the occassion (she delivered), she stepped forwards on the third step, making him step back to accomodate her - in other words, she did something that kept them dancing (leaving him her pearls).

And again one-step - he gave her a seemingly impossible task (Eddie’s bleeding body), the two step - she pivoted the occassion, in a way that - three step - kept them dancing (her operation).

And again:

1 - he gave her a lot of money to wash.

2 - she did it successfully.

3 - next time she asked for more money.

And again:

1 - he confronted her about a failed secret shopper

2 - she handled it (badly, haha)

3 - they talked, she gave him an order for the first time (”Don’t ever point a gun at me again”)

And they kept dancing.

Every scene between them was a step that moved us around a dance floor in a way that felt like progress, but was more just the next step of that same dance.

Even their earlier break-ups were the same.

In 1.09, we have the step one (impossible task) of the truck, the step two (of her delivering), with the bonus misstep of her throwing the keys and him breaking up with her, followed by the familiar third step - her stepping forwards and him accomodating (her getting him arrested, him shooting her husband in response, before going back to step one, and ordering her to kill Boomer).

In 2.06 too:

1. Rio tells her she has to take his cars on the Boland Motors Lot (with the added forwards step of showing off Dylan, haha)

2. Beth responds by stealing everything.

3. Beth forces his hand, and Rio agrees, keeping up the dance.

The Break-Up

2.09 is actually very different as a whole, because she doesn’t necessarily break the waltz with the break-up, she breaks it with the seduction.

From that moment in the bar to the moment in her bedroom, Beth and Rio aren’t falling into familiar steps, they’re pushing closer in a slow dance. Something they both sink into, that they both want, and the slow dance, while they’re in the midst of it, matters.

Rio’s willing to change the tempo.

And I think Beth was too, but want, in that sense, wasn’t why she did it. She was ending the dance.

The moment is pointed.

In every other misstep in every other episode, there’s still been the expectation from one of them that the dance would continue. Beth was never going to let Rio go at the end of 1.09 - she needed him professionally, and wanted him personally too much, just like in 2.01, Rio was never going to let sleeping dogs lie. Even in their brief distance in the early part of 2.04, there was still the lead - Rio offering her the money, the realignment - Beth starting up the Boland Motors job, and Beth’s step forwards - seducing him at the bar.

That wasn’t an option in 2.09, not for Beth. The stakes were too high, so she severed it all, and the dance was done, whether Rio wanted it to be or not, and - -

Well.

I think all signs point to him not wanting it to be.

The After Party

There’s been a bit of commentary from all sides lately about Rio’s escalation in violence and aggression this season, but to me at least, it didn’t begin with 3.01. It started in 2.11.

After Beth broke up with him in 2.09, we only got the briefest glimpse of him in 2.10 where two things happened - one, he warned her about Turner’s raid on Boland Motors, and two, the show revealed Beth had blocked his calls and Beth told him he’d get over it (the latter of which I’ll come back to for probably the exact reasons you’re thinking, haha.)

Then we have a very distinct character progression.

2.11 - Rio tries to coax her back into their dance through a) his darkest means yet in severed body parts, and b) with decidedly ulterior motives. Beth caves, continues step two, only her step three - where she steps forwards towards him via breaking into his loft isn’t met with him stepping back to accomodate her and swing them into step 1 again. It’s for her to crash into his chest.

In other words, Rio restarts the dance just so he can be the one to end it.

2.12 - There’s no dance this episode, just a desperation on Beth’s end, and a willful vindictiveness and - I think - clear hurt on Rio’s where he tries to tell her they weren’t ever dancing at all.

2.13 - Ahhhh, the biggest mess of all, haha. Beth tries to dance, but Rio isn’t there to meet her, instead goads her, and then bounds forwards by kidnapping her, then lunging at her. She shoots, he falls, she runs.

3.01 - And well - Beth’s dancing with herself (*cue Robyn*) and Rio’s dancing with Turner, but it’s not like how he dances with Beth. It’s him faking being on the backfoot, right before he steps forwards. More than that though, they’re also back in the dance hall - via Rio’s fixation and Beth’s via Rhea and Marcus. They’re dancing with different partners, waiting for the switch.

3.02 - Really a continuation of the previous episode, but it underlines Beth’s fixation on Rio through her fixation on what he would do. In this episode, really, she’s dancing with the ghost of him.

3.03 - The reveal! Gosh, this is the episode the music cuts, right? It also marks another escalation in Rio’s overall behaviour around Beth. He’s going to kill her. He’ll put the final cross through them, only - - once again - - despite herself, Beth keeps the dance going with the pregnancy lie. The rest of the episode isn’t so much a box waltz as it is a tango, a furious, rising tension between them that’s catapulted by the memory of the slow dance in 2.09 which rises the tension of the tango in 3.03.

3.04 - Until they break step. Beth tells him it could all be over. They’re not tangoing anymore, or waltzing, but they’re actualy almost slow dancing. The episode deliberately put them in a similar set-up to what they were in 2.09 - at a bar, practically alone, emotionally raw. They sway around each other, and Beth asks him what it would take, and Rio - -

Well.

Rio takes that first step.

He gives her an impossible (possible) task.

And the thing is, Beth is stumbling to step 2 when he shows up at Paper Porcupine, when he watches her make the money - a dance we’ve never seen before, but one slow and intense, and that hails back to former intimacy in much the way the earlier scene had called back to 2.09.

3.05 - And well, despite themselves, they’re dancing, albeit not entirely in-time, and not entirely in-step. Rio does his one-step - giving Beth an impossible task (to make the money), and Beth is on track to meet step two when Dean breaks the plate, and then Rio escalates the situation, stepping forwards again too far, deliberately encroaching on Beth’s space, keeping the dance going almost as a punishment. Enough she can feel the weight of him on her toes.

3.06 - And maybe this is the episode where, despite everything, they try to waltz again - he steps forward with his job, she holds steady until she steps back (telling him she’ll make the money again)

Since 2.09, it’s been a series of missteps. Of one of them trying to re-start the dance and the other refusing, or one overstepping, or understepping, or refusing to move at all, but we’re edging closer and closer into a similar dance, albeit one with raised stakes, raised tempo, and richer emotion.

Take Me Back

The dialogue and visual imagery this season has frequently underlined this too.

When it comes to Beth and Rio, there have been callbacks to 2.13, but almost all of them have been accompanied by references to 2.09, particularly when Beth and Rio are together.

Whether that be the initial reveal, where Rio’s dramatic display of the bullets was broken down by Beth’s pregnancy lie - a deliberate callback to 2.09, to some visual callbacks and reframings too. Most obviously, the fact that they’re at a bar, and they’re positioning at that bar:

But also, Rio’s hand on her arm in an attempt at comfort vs

His hand on her arm in an attempt at intimidation.

Later, that episode doubled down on those cues - from the whole sequence at the OBGYN where Rio specifically referred to 2.09 by way of telling the doctor he “hit it in the bedroom while [her] husband was at work”, which is affecting, I think, to both of them.

In 3.04, it’s emphasised though in a big way as the entire final scene is framed in a way that feels like a love scene, in no small part, because it deliberately calls back on the blocking and visual language of 2.09:

Rio awkwardly entering a space that is definitively Beth’s:

Rio following her into the most Beth space within that Beth space - her bedroom vs where she makes the money:

Them staring at each other as they are increasingly vulnerable to one another:

And them getting close, and sharing something that’s personal and professional and everything in between.

And then again - it��s underpinned in 3.06 by Rio calling back to multiple s1 and s2 episodes. Key-waltzing-territory! He calls her darling, which he does in 1.10, reiterates their ‘rotten egg’ conversation from 1.07 (and asks for a name too), references 2.13 with her putting ‘three slugs in him’ - notably the first reference of that since 3.03, echoes the conversation in 2.12 where she’s just business to him; she agrees to print, he talks about a lockdown, chin-hands and everything like they were in 1.08, and then he dismisses all of it, pointedly not referencing 2.09.

Something that’s only reiterated by the end of the episode where they deliberately callback to 2.10 - Rio asks about Max, and Beth says he got over it, and Rio replies with “They always do”, contrasting with Beth telling him he’ll get over it in 2.10 - Rio’s lone scene in the direct aftermath of 2.09.

Rio’s harshness has always cast a long shadow on the ways that he can be warm and gentle, just like that warmth has always softened the sharpness of his violence and aggression too. I think where we’re at at the moment is very much aligned with Beth and trying to negotiate those parts of him - in no small part through her seeing him weaponise that warmth against Lucy, but also through his very real relationship with Rhea and Marcus too; and similarly I think we’re seeing Rio try to disentangle Beth’s criminality, her own violence, and her softness too in a way that he both is drawn to and deplores, and the result is just - - a glorious mess, haha, at least to me.

But in all of that, I think it’s pointed that the season is drawing attention back to 2.13 explicitly while also very pointedly leading us back to 2.09, either directly (the pregnancy lie) or indirectly (the blocking), as the true source of this season’s conflict.

In that sense, to answer your question, I think Beth’s fixated on the shooting, and Rio’s fixated on the break-up, and in that sense, they aren’t communicating about either of those traumas, which means, well, in true Beth and Rio fashion, they aren’t communicating at all. Still, as of the last episode, we seem to be slowly kicking back up into our familiar waltz, and I can’t wait to see how that plays out!

#gg 2.09 #gg 3.04 #callbacks and parallels #beth x rio #gg 2.10 #gg 2.13 #gg 3.03 #gg 1.08 #gg 2.11 #gg 3.05 #gg 3.06 #gg 3.02 #gg 3.01 #gg 2.12 #catching feelings #beth boland #rio #welcome to my ama #Anonymous

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