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And at his wedding gift.
His wedding gift, clasped round my throat.
A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.
Here, beauty and violence dance alongside each other.
Its something the women ofKilling Eveknow all too well.
Scarfing down pasta at a lavish restaurant acts as both come on and threat.
Gifts of dresses are the first act in a long waltz of seduction.
Mirrors take on multiple thematic dimensions as these women study their reflections, searching for something they cant name.
Eve and Villanelle consume each other and the world around them with unapologetic zeal.
At first blush, the gold-encased lipstick Eve finds in her purse inThe Hungry Caterpillaris just that.
But its also Villanelles form of a love letter.
Sandra Oh infuses a bright spark of lust within the scene as she studies the gift.
Later, when Eve slips the lipstick across her lips, you’re able to hear the smear.
The lipstick is the color of freshly spilled blood.
She touches the wound, teasing it ever so gently, not despite the pain but because of it.
Shes dazzled to feel something, anything.
The second season is woven around such moments.
When Eve and Villanelle dress up, they paradoxically reveal truths about themselves that they could never communicate otherwise.
Established roles are reversed and refracted, turning the season into a hall of mirrors.
Its easy to be seduced by Villanelle as Eve has been.
Villanelle is wild and wildly self-possessed.
I dont understand the concept of it …
Most days I feel nothing.
I dont feel anything.
Her voice drops to a husky whisper.
And its so boring.
I hurt myself, doesnt hurt.
I buy what I want, dont want it.
I do what I like, I dont like it.
I am just so bored.
With Eve, Villanelle feels something beyond this crushing boredom.
Quite romantically, that side is communicated by her unruly, fabulous hair.
Much of the second season has been spent underscoring how Eve acts as a mirror to her.
Hes too normal for you, Villanelle notes about Eves marriage to Niko.
Like us, you mean, Villanelle bluntly notes, leaving Eve speechless.
If Villanelle looks at Eve as a mirror, Eve looks at Villanelle as an escape into feminine excess.
Villanelle can and has discarded people in ways Eve cannot.
Do you want me to love you, or do you want me to frighten you?
Eve says she doesnt know, but delighted lust glides across her face and body like silk.
Eves quest for sexual release through proxies reaches a crescendo in the penultimate episode of the season.
Are you going to listen all night?
she asks, her voice taking on a flirtatious lilt.
You should let yourself go once in a while.
Eve turns to Hugo asleep in bed.
Her face marked with curiosity and need, she wakes Hugo by straddling him.
We get exactly what we think we want: Eve and Villanelle are irrevocably bonded by a reality-shifting murder.
With that first spray of Raymonds blood, Villanelle closes her eyes in pleasure.
But Eve isnt emboldened by her entry into murder shes sickened by it.
Eve now comes face to face with the cost of aligning herself with Villanelle: her very soul.
Its a work about obsession from the initial seduction to entrapment.
But what is revealing aboutKilling Eveis that it doesnt tell a neat story.
Its the dynamic between Villanelle and Eve that proves the richest reconsideration of Bluebeard.
But that isnt necessarily how it began.
What has defined our Eve more than her curiosity?
Furthermore, Warner notes, In myth and fairy tale, the metaphor of devouring stands in for sex.
But that isnt their future.
As Eve herself notes, after finally seeing Villanelle more clearly, You want me to be a mess.
You want me to be scared.
But Im like you now.
Here, the mirror Villanelle expects Eve to be cracks.
Eve isnt a void; shes brimming with emotions and desire.
And Villanelle isnt a savior but a monstress meaning to collect Eve, not love her.
The Bloody Chamberends with the heroine being saved by her mother before Bluebeards sword can slice through her neck.
Eve has no such heroes to come rescue her from the bloody chamber she has found herself in.
The price of Eves curiosity is paid in blood.
