Killing Eve Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: Preemptive Mourning

This was the Killing Eve episode you've been waiting for. At least, I assume you're tuning in week after week in hopes that Eve (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle (Jodie Comer) will finally reunite after that awk stab moment in Paris. Past episodes this season have brought them close, but it's now that they've not only reunited, but teamed up. But the question is this: Is Villanelle really helping Eve, or is Eve unknowingly helping Villanelle?

We don't have to worry about that right now. Instead, it's more fun to enjoy these two charismatic stars on our screen, especially as the plot involving the other serial killer — the Ghost — thickens.

Ahead is everything that went down on Killing Eve's fifth episode of season 2, "Smell Ya Later."

Back on the #grind, Villanelle's latest hit begins with a strawberry milkshake and ends with murder in a car wash. In other words, another Wednesday for our villain. In her spare time, she's taken to staring down statue impersonators in hopes of making them flinch, but Villanelle is the one flinching when she's handed her next assignment. It's Eve.

At first Villanelle thinks this is some kind of joke Konstantin (Kim Bodnia) is playing on her, but it's genuine. he reminds her that this is her job, and accuses Eve of making her weak. To get ready for the most conflicting murder of her life, Villanelle goes into pre-emptive mourning, ordering room service champagne and making a hotel employee stroke her hair.

Eve's day is equally as thorny. Their interrogation of the Ghost isn't working, and Eve's been spoiled by the excitement of Villanelle. She attempts to break through to her newest killer, and ends up asking if she's ever heard of a fellow female assassin by the name of Villanelle or Oxana (her birth name). Now that is something the Ghost will talk about, because turns out Villanelle has a moniker of her own in the serial killer community (I hope they have a book club): the demon with no face.

Eve learns from Jess's (Nina Sosanya) trip to Amsterdam that Villanelle has gone freelance, and thinks putting Villanelle and the Ghost in the same room will help them get to the bottom of what's happening. To do that, Eve puts out out a hit — on herself. Now that will get Villanelle's attention.

Eve is attracting some attention of her own, but not for a good reason. Jess points out that Eve never does any of her paperwork, something Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) has turned a blind eye to because she doesn't want a paper trail of Eve's unorthodox methods. But she can't escape all aspects of corporate life: the team must sit through a bumbling presentation about psychopaths that Eve considers a waste of time, especially because she's able to contradict some of the statements, especially about how to control a psychopath, which is something she's about to attempt by introducing Villanelle and the Ghost.

Don't tell Eve, but this whole presentation was a charade ordered by Carolyn to evaluate the rogue agent, particularly how Eve reacted to images of gore (barely flinched) compared to an image of Villanelle (she was transfixed). The presenter's professional opinion is that Eve is too close to her subject.

Back home, Eve learns Niko (Owen McDonnell) has to go to Oxford for a few days to help out with a spelling bee — perfect news for Eve, who needs the house empty for a while to carry out her grande Villanelle plan (turns out, Niko's absence is another Carolyn scheme). Eve and Niko's chat is interrupted by a delivery, which end up being flowers from Villanelle in anticipation of Eve's funeral. For reasons we already know Eve needs a therapist for, this turns Eve on, and she ushers Niko upstairs to have sex.

The next day is the big day, which requires Eve to wear a bulletproof vest. The only person who isn't going along with the scheme is Kenny (Sean Delaney), who has soured on Eve due to her increasingly erratic behavioir. When he tries to encourage her to come clean about stabbing Villanelle, Eve informs him she'll be re-assigning him to a new project.

But Eve has changed, and even she's starting to notice. When she's waiting for a train, a man pushes past her, and we watch her come moments away from toppling him onto the track in front the oncoming train. At the very last moment, she pulls back.

Once home, our two protagonists finally reunite. Dressed as if for a funeral, Villanelle arrives at the house ready to kill her victim. Eve asks her to take her shoes off. The two banter, having to make up for four episodes of absence, and mainly talk coyly about their fears the other had forgotten them. Neither will apologise to the other for what went down in France.

Finally, Eve comes clean and says she took out the hit on herself, but Villanelle says she must do what she's been told. She hands Eve "cyanide" pills, and Eve takes them, thinking she was calling Villanelle on her bluff. Villanelle begins freaking out, saying she didn't think Eve would actually take the pills, and Eve runs to the sink as Villanelle stars laughing. Double bluff.

But the games are over and Eve takes Villanelle to the Ghost, who has been taken out into the forest and put into a metal shed. Eve gives her one last chance to talk, to say who she's working for and why she killed Allister Peele, but she stays silent. So finally, she brings out the big guns. We don't see what Villanelle does to the Ghost, only that it works: Allister Peele's son took out the hit on his father.

The episode ends in Oxford, where Villanelle has donned her best schoolboy look in order to casually run into Niko. She apologises for making those fake complaints to the school, and reveals herself to be Villanelle. She explains she just wanted Eve's attention, and taunts him, fends off his attack, and strolls away with her sweater still snugly around her shoulders.