Killing Eve – S1E7 – I Don’t Want to Be Free

Previously on Killing Eve, “Take Me to the Hole”

Eve and Carolyn learn about Nadia’s murder, and Konstantin uses that to ice them out of the investigation. Oddly, Carolyn gives up and instructs Eve and Kenny (who just got to Moscow!) to go home. She has no interest in investigating Anna — their last lead to Villanelle — nor does she want Kenny poking around in the prison’s security footage.

Of course, Eve never does as she’s told and goes to meet Anna while Kenny focusing on trying to prove Villanelle entered the prison to shut up Nadia.

Anna (Susan Lynch) was Villanelle teacher and the two had an unhealthy relationship, though Anna insists it wasn’t romantic. It was for Villanelle and she took it upon herself to murder and castrate Anna’s husband. Anna shares a box of mementos connected to Villanelle with Eve; she also gives Eve the coat Villanelle had sent to her while in prison before she “died.” Eve finds money and a passport for Villanelle hidden in the coat’s lining, but keeps that bit of information to herself. Instead, she insists on leaving the coat after Anna offers it to her. This feels like an attempt to draw out Villanelle.

In prison, Villanelle kills her cellmate Inga, before Inga can murder her with the razor blade she had hidden in her mouth. Villanelle is then taken out the prison and freed when the police caravan is ambushed. Her saviors take her to an apartment where she meets her new handler, Anton, and gets a new assignment.

All season we’ve bounced between characters when trying to figure out which are being hunting and which are doing the hunting; is Eve obsessed with Villanelle as much as the assassin appear to be fixated on Eve? This week, several actions now cause us to wonder if Carolyn has been playing everyone all along.

Villanelle greets Konstantin in his daughter’s room with a gun. She has his family tied up somewhere and says she’s just there to kill him, per her new instructions. At first, Konstantin appears to have accepted his fate and asks that he be allowed to overdose on pills instead of being shot. Villanelle agrees, and despite his profession of love and admiration, she pushes him to keep swallowing. Konstantin has no intention of overdosing or being shot, and he jumps Villanelle before making his escape via boat.

Back at their temporary Moscow headquarters, Kenny tries to wrap his head around his mother’s relationship with Konstantin and Eve wonders if her husband is still made about the whole assassin being in their house and the slap Eve gave him when he confronted her about it. Their personal problems are quickly forgotten when they see Carolyn visiting Villanelle on the prison’s security cameras. Well, maybe their personal problems are truly just beginning.

I suspected Carolyn might be part of The Twelve and that the other members might not have any idea who the other member are. If so, Carolyn’s long game may have been rooting out the assassin one of the members is using in order to either get to them or foil whatever plan requires Villanelle’s target be killed. This might also explain why she immediately sent Villanelle after Konstantin.

Still so many questions and just one more episode for answers.

Oh, and I don’t trust Anna.