Villaneve

Villaneve is the femslash ship between Eve Polastri and Villanelle | Oksana Astankova from the Killing Eve fandom.

Season 1
"Are you alright?"

- Eve's first words to Villanelle.

Eve works as an MI5 security officer who has been, off the record, keeping tabs and collecting information on an assassin she believes to be operating internationally. Villanelle is this assassin, unbeknownst to Eve, who works for an organization called The Twelve.

Eve's theory first comes to fruition when a Russian politician is murdered in broad daylight. His girlfriend, Kasia Molkovska, is the sole survivor of the attack and Eve decides to go interview her (illegally) to see if she can find out anything about the killer. Recordings from the interview confirm Eve's suspicions- the killer was a woman. Eve is excited to see her conjecture proved right, and decides to go back to the hospital that Kasia is being held at once more to get more information. Villanelle, in fact, is at the same hospital at the same time, as she's been ordered to kill Kasia and leave no witnesses to her murder.

Eve is at the sink in the hospital bathrooom when Villanelle exits one of the stalls behind her, dressed as a nurse. She walks up to the sink next to Eve and seemingly cannot look away from her. Eve catches her staring and asks if she's alright, to which Villanelle silently makes to leave. Before exiting, she turns back to Eve and tells her to wear her hair down. Eve, though confused, listens, and returns to Kasia's hospital room with her hair down. Unfortunately, Villanelle has already killed Kasia and 3 other hospital workers.

Eve is fired for this incident but re-hired by Carolyn Martens onto an off-the-books mission to track down Villanelle herself.

Villanelle undergoes a psychiatric evaluation by her organization and a drawing of a woman (done by Villanelle) with dark curly hair is brought up by the psychiatrist. He believes it to be a woman from Villanelle's past who is revealed later, but it is widly accepted by many that this drawing is in fact Eve.

Later, Villanelle is informed by her handler Konstantin Vasiliev that a woman in London is leading a team just to find her. She is immediately excited by this, to Konstantin's exasperation. She learns Eve's name and searches her up in hopes to find a picture. Meanwhile, Eve is talking with her new team about Kasia's murder, consisting of Elena Felton, Kenny Stowton, and Bill Pargrave, when she remembers she saw Villanelle, who she thought was a nurse at the time. She asks Kenny for profiles of all the nurses who were on duty that night.

As Villanelle finds a picture of Eve online, and Eve fails to find a picture of Villanelle, they both concurrently realize who the other is.

Eve is next seen describing Villanelle to an MI6 sketch artist. She describes her in painstaking detail, showing her interest in the other woman despite only having seen her for a few seconds. Villanelle, now knowing who Eve is, takes great eagerness in engaging her in a game of cat and mouse. She travels to Berlin for her next kill, and uses Eve's name to commit her kill at a sex clinic, prompting Eve's team to investigate.

While she waits for Eve to arrive, Villanelle takes a woman home who is meant to resemble her, an older woman with dark, curly hair. She calls the woman "Eve" and asks to be chased in a twisted version of hide-and-seek.

When Eve arrives in Berlin with Bill, Villanelle is watching from across the street. She steals Eve's suitcase when she isn't looking, and takes it back to her apartment. She rummages through her clothes and puts on one of Eve's scarves. Konstantin arrives and is angry with Villanelle for staying in Berlin after her assassination, informing her that Eve is now here. Villanelle feigns ignorance, and corrects Konstantin when he pronounces Eve's last name wrong. The woman who Villanelle had sex with the night before returns, and when Konstantin leaves, she dresses her in Eve's clothes.

Eve, having no clothes for the trip now, goes shopping. Villanelle follows her throughout the store, and hangs up a belt for her outside of her dressing room, elated when Eve finds it and likes it. Later, in her hotel room, Eve and Bill discuss a dinner Eve is going to for more information on Villanelle's sex clinic kill. Bill asks if she's ever been into women, and pokes fun at her description of Villanelle's police sketch, insinuating that she may be attracted to Villanelle.

Bill spots Villanelle as he is walking Eve to the train station, recognizing her because she is wearing Eve's scarf. Eve gets on the train safely, and Bill starts to trail Villanelle through Berlin. During Eve's dinner, she recieves multiple voicemails from Bill informing her where he is and what he is doing. Eve panics and goes after him, knowing how dangerous Villanelle can be.

Villanelle lures Bill into a nightclub, and unfortunately Eve cannot make it to him in time, and witnesses Villanelle stab him to death on the nightclub floor. At Bill's funeral, Eve vows to kill Villanelle with her bare hands.

After this stunt, Villanelle is put on a team of 2 other assassins for her next target, Eve's boss, Frank Haelton. One of the two assassins is her ex-girlfriend from prison, Nadia []. Eve, grieving Bill, finds her suitcase on her doorstep after the funeral. She opens it to find all of her clothes gone and replaced with very expensive new clothing. She also finds a perfume box labeled "La Villanelle". Inside is a card, "Sorry Baby x" scrawled on it. Eve is thrown into a panic, knowing it's from Villanelle. She brings the suitcase to Kenny and Elena for forensics, mentioning the perfume bottle and deciding that she is now going to call the assassin Villanelle.

"That's what we're going to call this asshole from now on. Villanelle."

- Eve, 1x04, Sorry Baby

Eve and Elena find out that Frank is actually a mole for Villanelle's organization, and track him to a house in Buckinghamshire. Villanelle and the two other assassins are already after him at this time. After Eve receives a call from Frank asking for help, they park on one end of a field where he comes running, Villanelle hot on his tail.

As they're about to drive away, Eve pauses, and looks up in the rearview, where Villanelle is. As Elena yells at her to drive, Eve instead opens the car door and gets out. She comes face-to-face with Villanelle for a second time. They share a tense moment as Eve draws closer, but Villanelle draws her gun up to stop her. Eve places one hand over her heart and the other in the air, most likely conveying to Villanelle that she has no intention to harm her. Villanelle falters, and lowers her gun- before putting it underneath her own chin instead. Eve panics and yells out, but Villanelle just laughs, revealing she was messing with her. Villanelle aims at Eve again and shoots at her feet, and runs away while Eve is recovering.

While talking with Frank, he reveals he heard that one of the assassins was called Oksana. When Kenny searches for her, he finds a prison record for an Oksana Astankova, who died in prision in Russia in 2014. Eve identifies the mugshot as Villanelle.

Eve returns home with her suitcase, Kenny having concluded it was covered in Villanelle's DNA. She tries one one of the dresses and looks in the mirror at herself, not used to these type of expensive clothes. She also tries on some of the perfume Villanelle sent her, before hearing a noise downstairs. When she goes to investigate at the front door, she finds nothing, but when she turns around, Villanelle is in the hallway. She chases Eve upstairs into her bathroom and ends up on top of her. Villanelle turns on the faucet over Eve's face in an attempt to shush her screaming, claiming she just wants to have dinner with her. When Eve shakily agrees, they both return to Eve's kitchen.

Eve heats up some shepherd's pie her husband had made, and Villanelle remarks that she's shaking, suggesting to put on a sweater that's hanging up. She says she won't look, yet a few moments later gets up to help Eve out of her dress, looking her up and down and saying she has a very nice body. They both then sit down to eat.

Villanelle starts to cry, telling Eve she is being controlled by her organization, saying she doesn't want to hurt people and that "they make [her] do it". She apologizes for killing Bill. Eve does not buy it, responding with a simple "bullshit". She calls Villanelle an asshole and reveals that she knows her real name, Oksana, to Villanelle's surprise and intrigue. Eve tells Villanelle the many things she's gathered about her, and Villanelle sits in rapt fascination. She tells Villanelle she knows about her psychopathy.

When Eve brings out her prison file and asks about one of her crimes, castration, Villanelle changes the subject by making a joke about Eve's sweater-shirt combo, to which Eve barely manages to not smile. She asks Villanelle why she killed Bill- Villanelle grabs Eve's hand over her prison file, telling her he was slowing her down. This enrages Eve, and she makes to grab a steak knife on the table. Villanelle jumps up to slam her other hand over Eve's. When Eve tries again, Villanelle pulls her up and pins her to the fridge with the knife. Villanelle leans in and eagerly finds that Eve is wearing the perfume she sent her. They are then inturrupted by Eve's husband and his friend coming home. Villanelle steals Eve's phone, which has the location for Frank's safehouse in it, and her dress. She kills him later in the episode, and puts him in Eve's dress.

Villanelle is sent to a prison in Moscow to kill Nadia, who she attempted and failed to kill by running her over when they were pursuing Frank. Eve and Carolyn hear that Nadia is alive and go to interview her about information on the Twelve, offering her protection in return. They successfully get their interview; When questioned about Villanelle, Nadia tells Eve to talk to a woman named Anna. When Nadia returns to her cell, Villanelle is there. Nadia tells her that a woman was asking about her and that she can help the both of them. Villanelle immediately knows it's Eve, asking her if it was an "Asian woman with amazing hair". Nadia confirms, and Villanelle seems an odd mix of bashful and smug, knowing Eve is still interested in chasing her.

Eve goes to see Anna, who was actually Villanelle's old language teacher that she had an affair with. Villanelle was a child at the time, though Anna takes no responsibility for taking advantage of that. Anna bares a vague resemblence to Eve. She gets to look through all the old letters that Villanelle sent Anna, and while she's out of the room, Eve looks through some of the other gifts Anna recieved. She finds a coat with a secret pocket in it, cash and a passport inside. Eve takes it and replaces the coat. She gives Anna her phone number in case Villanelle comes by and leaves, not before also stealing a picture of Villanelle from her school days.

Villanelle eventually does show up at Anna's after being broken out of the prison in Moscow. She has taken Konstantin's daughter, Irina, in a kidnapping and has been holding her hostage until she can see Konstantin again. Anna pulls a gun on her but Villanelle seems unphased, only wanting to know where Eve is and asking for her phone number. Instead, Anna turns the gun on herself and takes her own life in front of Villanelle and Irina. Villanelle looks externally unbothered, and goes to take her money and passport from the coat she left here. She finds it gone; in its place, a note from Eve that reads "Sorry Baby x". Villanelle smiles slightly at the sight.

She calls Eve from Anna's phone and arranges a meeting at a nearby cafe. Eve shows up with Konstantin. Konstantin just wants his daughter back, and asks Villanelle not to break his heart. She responds, "Don't break mine." After a moment, she looks to Eve, and continues, "you either."

Villanelle ends up shooting Konstantin, and her and Eve end up in a stand off, both pointing their guns at one another. Eve begs her to come with her, somewhere it can just be the two of them. Villanelle's grip on her gun shakes, and after a moment, she lowers it, and runs away. Eve watches her go, lowering her own gun, pained and disappointed.

Later, Eve is supposed to return to London with Kenny and Carolyn, but decides at the last minute to head to Paris on a last-minute lead to Villanelle. She finds her apartment and is annoyed by how much of a lavish lifestyle Villanelle has been living. She trashes the entire apartment before Villanelle comes back. When she does, Eve panics and grabs a knife, shoving it in her pocket, before grabbing a gun. Villanelle is amused by the whole situation and tells Eve she couldn't shoot her because she likes her too much. Eve doesn't confirm or deny this. They both sit down, Eve on Villanelle's bed and Villanelle at her vanity. Eve gives a whole monologue about how she thinks about Villanelle all the time, and Villanelle returns these feelings. They lay down in Villanelle's bed together, and she brushes a hand along Eve's face. Eve tells her she's "never done anything like this before". Villanelle reassures her and leans in (presumably to kiss her) when Eve stops her- with a knife pointed at her stomach.

Villanelle pauses for a moment, but seems assured that Eve could not do it, even telling her so. Eve then immediately goes through with it and stabs her in the abdomen, climbing on top of her. Eve seems angry and revengeful, until Villanelle looks up at her, utterly betrayed, and says "I really liked you."

Eve immediately regrets what she's done, pulling out the knife in a panic and running out of the room to try to get something to help. Villanelle's walls have gone back up and she angrily fires her gun at Eve when she attempts to reenter the room. Villanelle manages to escape, to Eve's horror.

Season 2
"I think I might've killed her."

- Eve talking to Carolyn on the phone.

Eve fears she may very well have killed Villanelle by accident, heading home in shock. Villanelle, meanwhile, takes a cab to the hospital where she meets a boy in the bed next to her. She tells him that the person that stabbed her did it to show her how much she cared about her. The boy thinks this is stupid, but Villanelle vehemently defends Eve for it, going as far as to say Eve did it because she loved her.

Eve shifts in between shock and mania as she returns to her home in London. She takes a bath and stares at her hands, like she can't believe what she did to Villanelle. She later meets Carolyn in a park where she admitted she went to Paris to find Villanelle. Carolyn asks if she has "any feelings" about where she may be now. Eve looks irritated at this and responds, "No. No feelings."

In the hospital, Villanelle tells Gabriel she needs to visit her the woman who stabbed her in London, referring to Eve as her girlfriend. She says she's sure Eve won't stab her again, and that she knows her better now. She kills Gabriel in a mercy act and leaves an apple with a bite taken out of it at the scene.

Later that night, Eve tosses and turns in bed. Villanelle, in a family's car she snuck into, is on her way to London, and looks up at the ceiling, concurrently with Eve. Villanelle is eager to see Eve again.

Eve continues to search for any incidents involving stab wounds in Paris, trying to find Villanelle. Later, she's introduced to a new team by Carolyn, entering as an outside "expert on female assassins". The new team is composed of Kenny (again), Hugo Turner, and Jess.

Eve gives a briefing for their new mission, and mentions Villanelle. Eve looks at her mugshot on the screen for a long moment. She describes Villanelle in flamboyant terms and defends her when Hugo calls her sloppy. When she finally finds something about a murder in a hospital in Paris, she asks for photos of the crime scene. She sees the apple Villanelle left behind and knows it's for her.

Villanelle sits in the bath, in the house of a man she tricked into bringing her home for a few days. She runs her hand along her stab wound, zoning out and most likely thinking of Eve and what this now means to her.

Back at the office, Eve and her team are discussing a new murderer. Eve doesn't think it's Villanelle, as she knows her too well and Villanelle puts more "fun" into her kills; This new assassin isn't as interesting to Eve. When her suspicions are confirmed, she is excited at the thought of Villanelle having to compete against someone.

Villanelle attemps to break out of the man's house she's in when he continually refuses to get her medicine. She uses the house phone to call MI6 and asks for Eve, growing frustrated and upset when the machine does not recognize what she's saying.

Eve dubs the new assassin "The Ghost". Jess says now they can drop their investigation on Villanelle, because she's not relevant anymore. Eve backtracks at that, arguing that Villanelle could still be important to them. Carolyn inturrupts them to show Eve a recording of Villanelle yelling into the phone line from earlier. Carolyn specifically lets Eve hear "Eve Polastri, you piece of shit!" perhaps to make her think Villanelle was speaking to her- while she was in fact talking to MI6's automated system.

Now that they have Villanelle's location, they go the house she was at. Unfortunately, they arrive seconds too late, and Eve is unphased by the dead man in the living room and moreso upset that they missed Villanelle. Villanelle is across the street, with her new handler from the Twelve. He chokes her up against the window when she becomes angered at his attitude, and they drive directly past Eve, who is walking up to the house. Villanelle watches her go past, delirious from her untreated wound and the choking.

Eve finds that Konstantin is still alive, and finds him in Carolyn's protection. She asks him where Villanelle is, but he tells her she doesnt want to know. He tells Eve that she should make Villanelle hate her, because that's easier for her to deal with than love. Eve will die if Villanelle loves her.

"You think she loves you? Then make her hate you. Hate is something she understands, it's managable. Look what happens to the people she loves. Look at Anna, Nadia, look at me. She'll love you to death."

- Konstantin to Eve, 2x03, The Hungry Caterpillar

Villanelle is forced to make her kills less flashy, though she doesn't know why until her new handler, Raymond, reveals that there is a new assassin. The Twelve is trying to make her kills look like the other woman's. Villanelle is sure that Eve will be able to tell it's her kill, though Raymond infuriates her with doubt.

Eve studies one of Villanelle's new kills and is not entirely sure it was her, since she had been forced to tone it down. She rejects the idea that Villanelle and The Ghost are working together because she knows Villanelle likes to work alone.

Villanelle follows Eve to an event at her husband's school, but before she can approach, Raymond walks up to Eve to ask for directions. He glares at Villanelle as a warning afterwards. She follows Eve into the school anyways, and talks with a teacher in the stairwell who has a crush on Eve's husband, but he is married, sadly. She tells the teacher she knows exactly how she feels.

Eve is with her husband in her classroom when she sees an apple on his desk. She freaks out and pulls the fire alarm, fearing Villanelle is in the building. When she doesn't see her, her husband is upset and tells her just to go home. Villanelle walks up behind Eve and drops a tube of lipstick in her purse without Eve noticing. When she finds it, it's named "Love in an Elevator", altering Eve to one of Villanelle's "unassuming" kills that took place in an elevator.

Eve gets Villanelle's location from Konstantin, promising his family's location in exchange. Konstantin gets there before Eve, and tells Villanelle they need to leave because MI6 is coming. When she refuses and they show up, Villanelle runs to the door. She sees Eve at the end of the hall through the peephole. She laughs quietly but Eve seems to sense it and looks towards her door. Eve walks up to the door, Villanelle having not taken her eye off her, and puts her hand up on the door. Villanelle is pressed up against her side, transfixed. She leaves before Eve opens the door. Eve is greatly upset and cries out in frustration when she finds the room empty.

Meanwhile, Villanelle is with Konstantin now, deciding to do freelance work. She asks him if Eve ever asked about her, to which he responds that Eve is more interested in another assassin. Villanelle doesn't believe him. He maintains this and tells Villanelle not to be jealous. She becomes upset and sulks against the window.

Eve comes across the lipstick Villanelle gifted her again. She puts it on in the mirror out of curiosity, and gets cut by a blade Villanelle had hidden inside. She watches the cut bleed in the mirror, and out of pure fascination, and possibly infatuation, she presses into the cut until it hurts.

Villanelle stalks her first freelance job, and visits a museum where she is interested in a painting of two men hanging upside down. She writes a postcard to Eve telling her that hopefully she hadn't forgot about Villanelle, with the painting of the men on the other side of the card. She looks hopeful as she writes it. Konstantin, later, tells her he thinks Eve is making her go soft.

She kills her mark, stringing him upside down in a nod to the postcard she sent Eve. She asks Konstantin when they are going home, referring to home as London. He recognizes she means Eve, and reiterates that she is not interested in Villanelle anymore. Villanelle, again, grows upset.

Carolyn intercepts Villanelle's postcard as it arrives at the office, and hides it so Eve does not see it. She sends Jess to investigate a new kill (Villanelle's), and when Eve insists it may be Villanelle and expresses her want to go, Carolyn shuts her down.

Villanelle waits across the street for Eve to arrive to investigate her kill. A car shows up, and she leans foward, hopeful and excited. When Jess climbs out instead, she looks confused, and then betrayed. She thinks that Eve has actually forgotten about her, unlike what she hoped in her postcard.

Villanelle takes drugs that are offered to her on the street as she wanders, extremely out of character for her. She visits a club but is overwhelmed by the amount of people, lights, and music. She almost kills someone at the club but Konstantin takes her home. The next morning, she looks at herself in her hotel bathroom's mirror, and completely breaks down.