#ke_s4

[wearevillaneve]

There is hope that in Season 4, the show might be able to tighten things up as Jodie said in an new interview with the Wall Street Journal (sorry, the article is behind a paywall).   Time is a valuable commodity and the only upside of the pandemic-forced delay is Laura Neal and the other writers will have the time to tell their story without being rushed to do so.

[wearevillaneve]

While we’re waiting, what’s next for...Carolyn?

From the BBCAmerica page on everybody’s favorite master spy, Carolyn Martens:

Charismatic, erudite, fiercely well read, and irreverent, Carolyn is a principled yet ruthless leader in her field. As a young agent on the ground in Moscow in the '80s, she cultivated one of MI6’s most valuable assets and has since saved the world at least three times. (This makes Carolyn sound like she’s on some Avengers: Infinity War level.  Then again, this is Carolyn we’re talking about. She might be able to talk Thanos out of snapping half of life out of existence.  Or at least inform him which half of it needs a permanent vacation).

Carolyn has formed intimate relationships with her foreign counterparts on more than one occasion — an occupational hazard. She’s divorced four times and her only child, Kenny, is living back at home, and working for her — she’s obsessed with her work. (This statement is no longer fully accurate.  After Season 3, we learned Kenny was not Carolyn’s “only” child.  Only the child she claimed, as her daughter Geraldine is a wonky carrot in Carolyn’s life and one she barely tolerates.   As for all the intimate relationships with her foreign counterparts and the four ex’s, Carolyn gets the job done and if that includes sleeping around on the job, it gets results). 

A literal and strategic woman, Carolyn is smart enough to know when someone has a specific talent, and is not shy about pointing out qualities, or perspectives other people have that she might lack. She saw Eve’s ability when everyone else dismissed her, and she admired and encouraged her and then hired her.

In Season 1, Carolyn set up a secret unit and put Eve in charge of it. She needed a group that could be invisible and work without the restraints of typical MI6 protocol — but is Carolyn more entwined with the Russians than she lets on? Whose side is she really on? And is Eve fooling herself that she’s the only one Carolyn has ever singled out for special treatment? At the center of Killing Eve’s dark little heart is Carolyn.  Without her there is no Villaneve.  It was her machinations and manipulations that put them together and for reasons all her own she pulls them apart as her needs dictates.   Carolyn is rarely surprised by what Eve does in her relentless pursuit of Villanelle.   She gave Eve the job of finding the elusive assassin, but while she may not have known it would become a shared obsession between the two women, she certainly has found ways to use it in furtherance of her own hidden agenda.

Unlike the characters of Eve and Villanelle,  Fiona Shaw had no template for the character of Carolyn Martens.  She doesn’t exist in the original novellas by creator Luke Jennings.  Shaw along with the KE writers, led by Phoebe Waller-Bridge built Martens from scratch and now she’s one of the most enigmatic personalities on television.   Not quite a hero and not quite a villain, Carolyn is playing a game only she knows what the rules are.

In an interview, Shaw explained how Carolyn shows up in a way far different from her previous roles.  “It’s not like anything I’ve played. I normally play characters who express something people can’t express. Suddenly I’m not expressing anything at all. I find that really, really hard to do. I’ve enjoyed it tremendously because I know a lot more than I say. So I have to keep on saying things that don’t actually point you to the information. I thought, “How will they know what I know if I don’t tell them?” and, of course, the key is to just not tell them. I’ve begun to trust the dark web of Carolyn’s mind. I’ve enjoyed that experience very much, playing the non-information.”

How do you begin to play that?    

“It’s not just a mannerism. It’s an actual choice of thinking. It’s the way in which she thinks. She knows something and she has to not say it. Oddly, I think that is true with people I’ve known who have been in slightly secretive jobs. I know one particular person who I based Carolyn on a bit on who often hesitates before they speak, as if they have to file a lot of information first before they answer your question. So you’re never having a true conversation with that person. I think Carolyn is like that. You’re always given as much as you need to know, but no more.” 

Going into Season 4, we’ve learned Carolyn isn’t as walled off from her emotions as she believed she was.    Her demeanor toward Kenny seemed the same off the clock as on it: professional, curt, dismissive, and providing only as much info as necessary to get the job done.

Kenny’s death changed all that.   The walls she had built between her work and her emotions began to crack and the arrival of Geraldine accelerated the process.   Maybe the Carolyn Martens of the first two seasons is hands-on enough to put Konstantin on his knees and press a pistol against his skull while threatening to blow his brains out, but that was wildly out of character for the supremely assured spymaster.

But so was her executing Paul, her MI6 rival and declaring there was no point to try and take down The Twelve.   Was she speaking as a defeated outsider weary of a pointless fool’s errand, or as the scheming insider who is part of the shadowy terror organization?

Then there’s the matter of Carolyn’s relationships with Konstantin, Villanelle and Eve.  All three of them have seemingly been dismissed by her from her future concerns.  Her friendship/alliance/affair with Konstantin is dead and buried.   She has no use for Villanelle if she’s not using her skills to kill for MI6.   If she buys Konstantin’s b.s. explanation that Kenny was a clumsy idiot who “fell” off a building (she doesn’t because she’s not stupid) and she’s not going to bother busting The Twelve, what use is there to have a busybody like Eve underfoot? By circumstance or by plan, Carolyn will find some reason to trouble herself with Eve and Villanelle again.   Konstantin is always skulking around and sniffing about, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he and her were running some scam as when they faked his death at the end of Season One (boy, they never did bother to explain the why and how of that, did they?). Ranking only behind Villanelle and Eve as a complex and compelling character,  even three seasons in, its hard to know whether Carolyn can be trusted to do anything that doesn’t serve an agenda only she is aware of.    Going into Season 4, the fog of deceit, deception and deadly games of spycraft may part and we’ll find out whose side Mrs. Martens is really on. Or not.

[wearevillaneve]

Waiting for new Killing Eve/Sandra/Jodie content be like…

Carolyn:  Maybe it's time you went cold turkey?

Eve: What do you mean?

Carolyn: [LAUGHS] You know precisely what I mean.

Villanelle: I like turkey.

I like turkey too.   And I agree with Carolyn.  This blog needs to go cold turkey.

I’m not going to stop posting entirely.   I’m  just not going to continue trying to post new content all the time when there is no new content to be posted.

Consider this:  were it not for the pandemic, the fourth season of Killing Eve would have finished shooting by now.   We’d know who the new cast members were and who would be returning from Season 3.  

But we don’t.

We would have pics from the set, both official and unofficial.   We might even have some vague ideas on what is on and off the table for the fourth season of Killing Eve and even if it was the last one.   

But we don’t because the fourth season hasn’t even started shooting and probably won’t until June when the show is supposed to start shooting.  Put that down in pencil, not in ink because we don’t know for certain KE will start shooting in five months.  No matter what Sandra or Jodie or Fiona or even Sally say, it’s only a guess. 

There’s a lot of Tumblrs that are still doing their best to update consistently and regularly even without new Killing Eve content.   Jodie’s doing fashion shoots and she’s got two films (Free Guy, The Last Duel) in the can, a TV one-shot, and she’s doing an audiobook version of Alice in Wonderland.   Sandra has her animated voiceover work as well as The Chair at Netflix and her Sam Raimi produced horror flick, Umma that may drop a trailer one of these days.  Fiona Shaw is keeping busy and so is Kim Bodina. 

Just not on Killing Eve.

Otherwise, while I love The Kiss, The Dance and The Bridge scene how many more times can it be re-posted before it becomes a bit redundant.  I do not want this blog to become increasingly redundant.   I’d rather back off and post less frequently and watch the hits go down further than they already have than to keep on grinding away until this becomes not a labor of love, but only a labor.

The brilliant Killing Eve Incorrect Quotes has disappeared.  It was here and now its gone and nobody know why or if it will come back.  My favorite podcast, Well, Well Villanelle, despite proclamations by the hosts that they have more episodes in the chute, haven’t posted a new one since last June.

The writing is one the wall.  There will be no new KE content until at least the summer of 2021 and no new shows until 2022.   That’s too long a wait to keep pumpin’ out daily updates for a blog.  At least it’s too long for me.

I like turkey too.  Cold turkey not so much, but I can choke it down.

See you around on Tumblr.   Only less frequently.

[wearevillaneve]

Here are the opening lines of the fourth season of Killing Eve.   I am speaking this into existence.  (concept by lavillanelleke)

[wearevillaneve]

2022 seems like a lifetime away.  The waiting really is the hardest part.

[wearevillaneve]

Fiona Shaw says June 2021 will be when Killing Eve starts shooting Season 4. How’s that hit ya?

[wearevillaneve]

Sandra to Associated Press on shooting Killing Eve S4 "We definitely pushed an entire year... hopefully next year"

You may now start screaming and crying uncontrollably.

[wearevillaneve]

I watched Wynonna Earp today.   I have thoughts.  

There comes a time when you are or you aren’t, you do or you don’t,  you will or you won’t. 

Over promise.   Under deliver.   We have been patient.

We have settled for crumbs while starving for a meal.

It’s not enough.  Not anymore.   At some point you have to move beyond foreplay.   Stop the teasing.  Stop stopping on the verge.

A half-measure isn’t going to get it done.  Neither is 99 and a half.  It’s all or nothing at all. 

Whatever you want from Season 4, if you don’t want Villanelle and Eve to be actual, authentic lovers, you’re watching the wrong show.

If Wynonna Earp can do it on Sy-Fy, Killing Eve can do it on AMC.  It only requires them to stop toying with the fandom and give them what they have been waiting for.