Killing Eve
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When I was a child I noticed a stark difference in my mothers actions.
When we were alone she was never physically affectionate.
But when we were around her friends shed be the mother I always wanted.
She was warm, gregarious, enveloping.
But it was a performance, one whose ebbs and flows I studied with intensity to understand her.
There is something about this schism that rooted itself in my mind.
Written by Suzanne Heathcote and directed by Shannon Murphy, Are You From Pinner?
searches for answers about Villanelles beginnings and what they say about who she is now.
Shes found by her very young half brother, Borka, who asks who she is in Russian.
Villanelle pointedly replies in English even as other family members pour into the room wondering about this stranger.
Comer maximizes Villanelles discomfort with such affection.
Her body stiff, her face flickering through emotional states.
Or at least they remain silent when it comes to Villanelles dead father.
But this is exactly whose memory she seeks to dredge up.
Its understandable why she reserves her ire for her mother.
But theres something frustratingly basic about the psychology underlying this episode.
Villanelle, like the devil on his shoulder, suggests he just beat up people.
Villanelle: You really dont remember dad?
Pyotr: What was he like?
Strong., Taught me how to fight.
He was much better.
Pyotr: Than what?
Villanelle: She was mean.
Where this episode fails is properly unpacking statements such as this.
We cant hear what shes saying to him, its obscured by the jaunty music playing over the scene.
Is this when Villanelle decides on the violence she will mete out later in the episode?
Back at home, Villanelle chops tomatoes only to turn around with what looks like blood under her eyes.
She makes a strange croaking noise, trying to scare her mother.
But Tatiana isnt amused.
Tatiana: Clean your face.
Villanelle: Can you do it?
Tatiana: You are not a child.
Villanelle: I want to feel like one.
Her mother cleans her face, gently and slowly.
Villanelle leans into the grooves of her touch, Comers face lighting up with childlike awe and care.
But the moment is quickly dashed when her mother says, I want you to leave the house.
I dont want you to be here anymore.
Villanelle may think shes a part of this family but she isnt.
Shes an interloper, trying to craft years of trust and connection in a few days.
Youre not part of this family.
Take me to the orphanage?
Villanelle isnt the child she once was.
She has a power her mother isnt fully aware of.
What follows is a tense exchange between these two women.
You will not bring your darkness into this house, Tatiana says, standing firmly.
You are the darkness.
Youve always been the darkness, Villanelle replies in kind.
This scene illuminates as much as it obscures.
Why does Tatiana believe Villanelle ruined her?
They stare each other down, mother and daughter, mirroring each others animosity and emotional raggedness.
We dont get to see Villanelle kill her mother.
The house explodes behind him, remaking his family and life in the process.
Its psychology is too neat, its answers only half illuminating.
The final image of Villanelle, which mirrors her entrance in some ways, is an emotional gut punch.
Villanelle wears the 80s jumpsuit her mother altered for her.
Shes bobbing her head, shaking more than dancing to the music in her seat on the train.
When she opens her eyes, they are full of tears.
Comers performance in this brief scene runs a gamut of emotions: sorrow, manic joy, confusion.
Villanelles heartbroken, and Comer wrings this moment for all its worth.
But beyond Comers tremendous performance, Are You From Pinner?
proves to be a lackluster diversion, leaving me anxious to return to the wider world ofKilling Evenext week.
