'Killing Eve' Season 4, Episode 4 Recap: "It's Agony & I'm Ravenous"
The more things change on Killing Eve, the more they stay the same. Villanelle is behind bars, but Eve has merely found herself a new high-heeled hurricane to fill the hole. This one has a bit more money, is technically one step higher than Villanelle on the food chain, and has an entire West End theater to meet in. However, Eve's games with Hélène feel like she's doing a speed run of her relationship with Villanelle in Seasons 1-2. The main difference is that Hélène, unlike Villanelle, is handing out the envelopes with the assignments. Including ones prepared for Villanelle once she's ready to get out of her cell.
Carolyn: Humans are a message board; there's a little bit of everything. And if you think that your flair for murder speaks to a kind of... lack of humanity, you're wrong. Killing is primal. It's what nature intended, and who are we to quibble with nature? Why waste your time being good when you can be good at what you are good at? That's what I think, anyway. But what do I know? I've just probably got a concussion. And I'm ravenous. Fancy a sandwich before you dash my brains out?
However, Eve has bigger fish to fry than obsessing over her new Twelve contact. She will figure out who Lars Meier is because she realizes that Hélène doesn't even know herself. With the help of Yusuf, she finds a single Instagram shot on Fernanda's timeline, and facial recognition brings back a photograph by Eugenie Allard, which only identifies him as "a revolutionary." Allard is long dead, but her Parisian daughter, Annie (Caroline Lonq), has the whole photo roll in an antique shop, bringing Eve back to France.
Carolyn is getting all the good locations this season, first Mallorca and now Havana. The safe house is a significant upgrade from the one in Moscow, complete with housekeeper Benita (Anna-Marie Everett), trained to deal with nasty business. Unfortunately, the company is less of an upgrade, and the tortured Russian agent, Rustem (Sebastian Abineri), is a jerk who insists he's not telling anyone anything, especially a woman like Carolyn. Frustrated, she wanders outside to consider her options and is kidnapped for her trouble.
Villanelle's envelope has also led her to Havana and Carolyn, her next victim. Despite the kidnapping and Villanelle hitting Carolyn over the head with a pipe wrench for no good reason, the two wind up having a lovely lunch. It's a scene that genuinely manages to recapture the spirit of the series where they decide to team up, as Carolyn exchanges her life to the Russian Agent Helene wanted dead in the first place. But not before Villanelle does what she does best, and tortures a lead out of the man to continue the search for the Twelve.
Said lead is a restaurant: El Hombre De Dos Caras, where the two commence a stakeout and play Truth or Dare to pass the time, wondering what they are waiting for. As suspected, the answer is a man who is recognizably Eve's Lars Meier (Ingvar Sigurdsson) who shows up in a fancy peach suit and a Panama hat. Carolyn recognizes him instantly — he's an old flame — and is shocked, as she believed the man dead. Unfortunately, he also recognizes her and makes a run for it riding away on a Vespa. (Villanelle gives chase but fails to stop him.) Carolyn decides it will be best to make tracks to Berlin, and Villanelle lets her go.
Speaking of watching characters return to their old roles from the first season, Konstantin's brought Pam to Margate. However, her new flat has nothing on the one Villanelle resided in Paris (or in Barcelona in Season 3). Pam is also more recalcitrant than Villanelle, who was happy to go murder on command, while Pam initially refuses. Konstantin is not pleased, but he's stuck with the assignment and with Pam. Pam, meanwhile, heads to the beachside carnival to get her mojo back and then proceeds to prove herself to Konstantin by digesting and reinterpreting his order in her own way, suggesting she won't be a total waste of her time.
When Hélène gets word Eve is on her home turf, she sends a text inviting her over for a shave and a bath, which was supposed to be sex times, but, no, not much. When that turns out to be a bit awkward, they have soup and watch reality TV instead. That's when Hélène drops the bomb on Eve that Villanelle is out of jail, and that it was Hélène herself that sprung the girl. (She doesn't mention the assignment, but Eve doesn't need to be told that.) When Eve protests, Hélène disagrees — this is what Eve wants. Eve hates to admit it, but she agrees.
And I suppose that brings us back to the places where we began. Eve and Villanelle chase each other around the Globe. Carolyn is doing her going rogue routine, on the run from MI-6, where she deserted, and from the Russians, from whom she's also fled. It's all a bit complicated, unnecessarily so, and with only half a season to go, it still seems to be struggling to end all this satisfactorily. I will say this: with so much setup, I will not be surprised if the series does not stick the landing.
