SPOILER WARNING: This will include spoilers for anything up to 3.5 of Killing Eve, Are You From Pinner? Read at your own risk.
Everyone’s favourite assassin Villanelle, portrayed by Jodie Comer, has just committed her most personal murder as of yet – her mother. However, whereas she can cut through most of her victims like butter, this crime was one that she could feel the weight of. Even though the murder was off-screen, audiences saw her say “I think I have to kill you” before the shot cut to her mother lying on the kitchen floor.
“Villanelle has always looked into the eyes of those she’s killed, and in one draft the kill was actually [depicted], and I was like, ‘Maybe she can’t look at her; maybe she has to cover her mother’s face. This isn’t as easy as she thinks. I think Villanelle’s having a real identity crisis after the events of Episode 5.”
Jodie Comer, Variety
Comer approved of the creative choice to keep the murder off-screen as she said that it had more of an emotional impact. The audience are aware of what this means for Villanelle, even if they can’t yet predict what it will do for her character.
“You can see the regret that she is already feeling but feels she has to go through with it — because I think she feels it’s the only way she feels she can fully kill her past and the woman that she was. But actually in some ways, it’s like she kills Villanelle; it’s Oksana who is her true self and who she can’t get away from. So I think actually by doing what she has done, it has the complete opposite effect of what she was hoping for. For me now, at this point, I think Villanelle is her own worst enemy, and she’s coming to the realization that that may have been the case all along.”
Jodie Comer, Variety
The choice to have Villanelle kill her own mother in cold blood was not one that the writers took lightly – they consulted with a psychologist to understand what could be going on in her psychopathic head in that moment. Head writer Suzanne Heathcote says to Variety, “It’s a very interesting relationship: Just because you’re a sociopath doesn’t mean you don’t want your mother to love you.”
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