'Killing Eve' Season 3, Episode 1 Recap: "Slowly, Slowly Catchy Monkey"
When Killing Eve last left off at the end of Season 2, Eve was lying on the ground in Rome, shot, as Villanelle walked away. It was a direct reversal of the end of Season 1, where Eve left Villanelle lying in a pool of blood after stabbing her. When Season 2 picked up, it was ten seconds after the stabbing. But for Season 3, things are different. Let's go back to the beginning. Whose beginning? Someone's, in Moscow, 1974. The girl in question is Dasha (Catalina Cazacu), a talented gymnast, though her trainer abusively screams when she fails to stick the landing. Her boyfriend is nicer, bringing flowers and a kiss to the locker room. Dasha is unimpressed, and it's not long before the poor boy is dead on the floor, covered with chalk.
Villanelle: When I met Maria, I thought, "Great shoes."
And now to the present, and a wedding in Spain. The bride is boasting how her love came up to her in the airport and swept her off her feet. But the groom, it turns out, is also a bride: Villanelle. And she's just a little distracted throughout the reception. There's a guest she keeps catching out of the corner of her eye. Is it Eve? Sadly no, it's Dasha (Harriet Walter), now all grown up. In true Villanelle style, she greats her guest with the exact enthusiasm one would expect: A full-body attack trying to murder her. So much for the cutting of the cake, or the bride. Dasha and Villanelle leave in the Just Married car.
Meanwhile, back in London, Carolyn Martens is dealing with the fall out from Rome, which is months in the past. As she tells recruit Mo Jafari (Raj Bajaj), there's now a new person overseeing her and the desk, Paul Grapple (Steve Pemberton). Worse, she has to face Diane (Maria McErlane), who somehow makes everything that happened last season sound not so above board. (Reality check: It was way below board.) Fans don't learn what happened to Jess, but Hugo has quit and is suing MI-6.
As for Polastri's fate, she's been banished... all the way to New Malden in London, living and working in Little Korea. At least Carolyn is still looking after her. "Your Auntie called," says the owner of the restaurant (Namju Go), where Eve works. She lives alone, returning to more feral instincts, eating takeout in bed while watching cleaning infomercials. Eve's still visiting poor Niko, now residing in psychiatric care, broken over witnessing Gemma's murder by Villanelle last season, and enraged at how his marriage and his life has turned out. Eve seems to think he'll snap out of it one day, but it's probably going to be better when she accepts this is divorce.
Back in Barcelona, Dasha is trying to appeal to Villanelle's greed. She's been nearly impossible to replace, and the Russian over bosses are willing to take her back and give her back the lifestyle to which she was accustomed. But Villanelle knows Dasha, who was the one who trained her to be the killer she is today and considers her the greatest pupil she ever had: "What's in it for you?" Dasha admits what she wants is a ticket home, out of Spain, away from trying to teach gymnastics to little girls who will never be as great as she once was.
Anything Villanelle wants, Dasha will make it happen if she'll just come back. Villanelle is who we should all be at the bargaining table: "I want to be a Keeper." Dasha is taken aback. That rank is higher than Konstantin, higher than even her. But it's enough to show our girl wants back in the game. A few texts and calls to Konstantin later, and Dasha has her first assignment to give Villanelle, in Girona. Cue the costumes, wigs, the off the wall stories, and the hilariously clever murders, which in this case include rickety ladders, saffron, and a jar of pickles.
Of all Eve's old co-workers, the only one left who is neither dead nor disappeared is Kenny. He's no longer with MI-6, apparently the transfer out of Eve's division was a step to transferring out of the life completely. Instead, he's working as a journalist for the Bitter Pill, as an open-source investigator. His co-workers, including Bear (Turlough Convery) and Audrey (Ayoola Smart), are weirdos, but that suits him just fine. His boss, Jamie (Danny Sapani), looks fierce, though he claims it's nice working for someone with integrity.
But while Kenny might be striving for normality, he's still in the game, staring at photos of the late Frank Haleton and Fat Panda. When Eve accidentally drunk texts him, he's over to her apartment like a shot. Despite Eve's insistence she doesn't miss MI-6, she doesn't think about The Twelve, and can't go down that road again, Kenny knows she's lying. She may claim to be happy at the restaurant, but her co-workers (Anthony Shin and Chan Woo Lim) have her just about at the end of their rope with their endless love life gossip.
Eve is trying to let go, but Kenny amdits he's not even trying. He may be pretending to investigate ecological crimes,, but he's using his time to track the Twelve. It's why, when Eve arrives at his office to take him up on his offer for drinks, she discovers he's disappeared. Behind her, out the window, a body flies off the roof to the ground below. Yes, go on: Oh my god, they killed Kenny! He was still living with his mum too, which means it won't be long before Eve and Carolyn find themselves on the same side of a case once again. And this time, it's personal.
