Characters / Killing Eve

Character page for the Killing Eve series.

Beware of spoilers!

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• British Intelligence
• The Twelve

Leads

Eve Polastri

Eve Polastri

Played By: Sandra Oh

"Frankly, I don't give a shit anymore. She is outsmarting the smartest of us, and for that, she deserves to do or kill whoever the hell she wants. I mean, if she's not killing me, then, frankly, it's not my job to care anymore."

One of series' two co-leads. Eve is a bored, desk-bound MI5 security services officer with a fascination with female assassins.

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• Ambiguously Bi/ If It's You, It's Okay: Bill suggests Eve is bi because of how she recalls Villanelle, despite not showing any real categorical inclination toward women, although she does give Jess a foot massage in the office. By the end of Season 1, nearly everyone is assuming Eve is crushing on Villanelle. By the end of Season 2, she seems pretty honest about it with herself.
• Badass Boast: To Villanelle, while at knifepoint: "I am gonna find the thing you care about... and I am gonna kill it." It loses a lot of its weight, however, when her husband comes home seconds later and Eve immediately starts sobbing and begging her not to do anything.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Eve wanted a little excitement in her life and her job and she got both after being recruited into Carolyn's task force to chase down a psychopathic killer. Now her friend is dead and she's being stalked by said killer, who knows where Eve lives.
• Berserk Button: Bill’s death is a sensitive topic for Eve to the extent that she attempted to stab Villanelle during dinner when she treated it with levity, and threatening someone that she’ll throw them out the window if they made a mockery of his death by making a joke.
• Bile Fascination: Eve has this for female assassins and serial killers, even to the point where she actually gave how she might murder her husband some serious thought.
  Eve: I'd paralyze you with saxitoxin and suffocate you in your sleep, chop you into the smallest bits I can manage, boil you down, put you in a blender, then take you to work in a flask and flush you down a restaurant toilet.
• But Not Too Bi: Eve becomes obsessed with Villanelle, and Bill suggests that she is physically attracted to her, which is hardly subtle. However, Eve never shows attraction to any other women (except for a comment about Rose Tyler).
• But Not Too Foreign: She speaks with an American accent and was raised in Connecticut, but it is stated that she was born in England.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: She loves Villanelle, but is afraid of what being around her brings out in herself. Ultimately, though, she can't give her up.
• Consistent Clothing Style: Eve always wears plain, dark, and battered clothes: black trousers, a button-up shirt at work (a T-shirt at home), sometimes with a blazer, and always with her waterproof mac on top. This underlines when she wears the dress Villanelle bought for her or tries to channel Villanelle by wearing more feminine clothes (which never lasts), and to contrast her with Villanelle's Unlimited Wardrobe.
• Enemy Eats Your Lunch: In "I Have A Thing About Bathrooms," Villanelle invades Eve's home just to have dinner with her.
• Fair Cop: Subverted. Not that Sandra Oh is in any way unattractive, but Eve is not portrayed as a sexpot. Doesn't seem to stop her from catching Villanelle's eye, though.
• Happy Ending Override: Season 2 is largely about Eve getting so swept up in the romance and excitement of her relationship with Villanelle that she's blindsided by consequences of her actions that ought to have been obvious, from her husband choosing to leave her rather than thinking it's cool that an assassin is helping them spice up their marriage to Villanelle shooting her in the back when she rejects her.
• Has a Type: Blonde women apparently, as she is obsessed with Villanelle and finds Rose Tyler from Doctor Who to be adorable.
• He Who Fights Monsters: While Eve is bored and unfulfilled at the beginning of the series, she seems genuinely surprised when she realizes how violent and alienated she's become.
• Hollywood Homely: The attractive 40-plus-year-old Sandra Oh plays Eve, who according to the book, is a frumpy, supposedly semi-attractive 40-plus-year-old woman with a fairly bad taste in clothing. This may be a case of Adaptational Attractiveness to be fair.
• Ignored Expert: Eve was convinced that the string of unattributed murders was the work of a single female assassin. She is correct, but with the exception of Carolyn nobody believed her, and accused Eve of merely adding a little spice to an otherwise boring job.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Several times, notably when she loses Villanelle in "The Hungry Caterpillar."
• In Love with Your Carnage: With Villanelle's, although not as overly as Aaron Peele: she describes a lot of Villanelle's murders as beautiful and intelligent, which Villanelle loves.
• Improbable Weapon User: She uses a toilet brush to try and defend herself from Villanelle. Suffice to say Villanelle was a little nonplussed as to why, and with Aaron Peele's letter opener in the Season 2 finale.
• It's Personal: Despite her fascination with assassins it becomes this after Villanelle murdered her friend.
• Jumped at the Call: When Carolyn invites her to head up a task force dedicated to hunting Villanelle, her response is, essentially, "Hell yes!"
• Kick the Dog: In Season 2 onwards, she gets more and more of these.
  • Telling Kenny bluntly to leave it when he reminds her of Bill and warns her not to take the job.
  • Leaving Hugo behind after he gets shot, as he begs her not to, to find Villanelle instead.
• Naïve Newcomer: Although she did work in intelligence, she has never done anything remotely as dangerous or high-stakes as the Villanelle case.
• Nightmare Fetishist: With Villanelle, she is completely obsessed and more than a little infatuated with her danger and violence.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Sandra Oh doesn't use a British accent despite playing an MI5 agent, which is explained In-Universe by her character being a British citizen raised in North America.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Villanelle says this but whether it's fully true remains to be fully seen.
  Villanelle: Like us, you mean.
• Oh, Crap!: Twice in "I Have A Thing About Bathrooms," the first during a terrifying close call with Villanelle, and again when Villanelle invades her home while she was alone.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The PIN to unlock her phone is 1-2-3-4.
• Plot Armour: Villanelle shoots in ruins and, being a trained assassin, you'd think she'd have killed her given that she deliberately intended to. But nope, Eve survives.
• Preserve Your Gays: Eve manages to avoid being killed by a sniper thanks to Villanelle saving her life.
• Properly Paranoid: She's always right about Villanelle's Manipulative Bitch tendencies, no matter how spurious it seems.
• Race Lift: The books' Eve is a white Englishwoman. The TV Eve is British Korean, and played by Korean-Canadian Sandra Oh.
• Replacement Goldfish: She replaces Anna for Villanelle. Both are older women with long dark curly hair who show Villanelle a lot of attention.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: When she decides to try on one of the dresses Villanelle sent her.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: She comes across this way during parts of Season 2.
• Thrill Seeker: Eve longs for a thrill, but when she gets it, she finds out she can't quite deal with it as she hoped.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In Season 2, for some understandable and less understandable reasons. She struggles with the knowledge that she stabbed Villanelle, but she also aggressively pushes away Niko and Kenny in her desperate pursuit of her, even going so far as to be cruel to both when they won't help her.
• Worthy Opponent: She and Villanelle are this to each other, even if Villanelle is usually a step ahead.

Villanelle

Villanelle/Oksana Astankova

Played By: Jodie Comer

"Leave her alone. She's a parasite, Eve. She gets into your brain, she eats you up to make space for herself... burrowing in and creeping around... You still have something worth having - don't let her take it... You think she loves you? Then make her hate you. Hate is something she understands. It's manageable. Look what happens to the people she loves. She love you to death — same as Anna, Nadia, and look at me..."

— Konstantin Vasiliev

The series' other protagonist. Villanelle is a talented killer-for-hire who clings to the luxuries her violent profession affords to her.

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• Abusive Offspring: Villanelle's mother, Tatiana, claims she was one of these, saying that she and Villanelle's now-dead father were so terrified of Villanelle's psychopathic urges that her father took her to Moscow in a desperate attempt to stop her from hurting or killing any other members of their family. Tatiana herself is also shown to be emotionally abusive, though, and Villanelle denies that her father was scared of her, so it's highly ambiguous.
• Abusive Parents: Villanelle's mother is a narcissist who hurls verbal abuse at her children... but only in private. In public, she's very graceful and kind.
• Age-Inappropriate Dress: In the first season, she wears a pink tulle dress that looks like something a small child would wear. It hints at her overall (lack of) emotional maturity.
• And I Must Scream: In Season 2, she admits most of her entire existence is this. She feels nothing and is perpetually bored and listless, and doesn't understand why everyone else seems genuinely happy. She buys something she wants? Suddenly, she doesn't want it anymore. She kills someone? She still doesn't feel anything. She wakes up in the morning? Her first thought is, "I have to do this again?" Villanelle feels almost no true emotions, has no genuine connection to most people, and gains no real, lasting pleasure from anything she does, and this is how she feels all the time. Even her enjoyment of her job seems to come more from the fact that it's a break from all the monotony than anything. This revelation leads to what is probably the most heartwarming and most honest thing Villanelle has ever said to Eve.
  Villanelle: I feel things when I'm with you.
• Attention Whore: One of Villanelle's worst traits is her desperate need for attention. It really comes back to bite her in Season 2 when she fails to blend in with the Ghost's very subtle kills.
• Ax-Crazy: Due to her unpredictably violent nature and psychopathy.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Not all of her nice clothes are dresses. She wears a beautiful patterned suit to kill Bill in.
• Big Eater: Villanelle loves her food and is particularly fond of sweets, going so far as to put honey on the sausages that she’s cooking on a pan.
• Big Sister Instinct: She surprisingly shows this towards her younger brothers. She only becomes determined to confront her mother after finding out that she encouraged her youngest brother to self harm. She then makes sure that they're both out of the house before she burns it down and she leaves them with thousands, if not millions, to help them fulfil their dreams.
• Book Dumb: Played with in Season 2. Villanelle is an extremely talented and resourceful assassin, but her cover gets blown quickly with Aaron Peele because she can't be bothered to read the book Eve gave her.
• Bury Your Gays: Villanelle gets shot and killed by a sniper while saving Eve's life.
• Butt-Monkey: She brings a lot of it on herself but she suffers a lot of brutal humiliation throughout the series, and lacks any respect from anyone.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Although she does pretend to be moral and innocent in normal life, her tendency to be this is one of her biggest flaws. She likes to kill ostentatiously and elaborately, which draws attention when it shouldn't. Konstantin calls her out for this multiple times.
• Characterization Marches On: In the early episodes of season 1, Villanelle shows some passing interest it men. It appears fairly superficial—nothing like the obsession she displays with women—but it is briefly present, before being dropped.
• The Charmer: Villanelle is capable of being very charming, and uses that fact to get close to her victims, faking kindness, friendliness, and innocence effortlessly. Her actual personality is quite different.
• The Chew Toy: It's says something when even she recognizes the shitty days she's been having throughout the show.
• Closet Key: Villanelle's one for Eve, who wasn't into women before meeting Villanelle.
• Cute But Psycho: As her outfits are designed to accentuate, Villanelle can look very cute when she wants to.
• Daddy's Little Villain: Discussed in Season 3. Villanelle worshipped her dad, who died when she was young and describes him as the person who helped her to understand herself and taught her to fight. However her mother — also not a reliable narrator — insists that Villanelle ruined their marriage and her dad only took her away not because of favoritism but because he was afraid she would hurt one of them.
  Villanelle: He wasn't scared of me.
• Dark Action Girl: A trained assassin who is also a sociopath and has a dark, mysterious past.
• Dark and Troubled Past: The show flirts with the idea that Villanelle has one, that would make her more sympathetic or explain why she is how she is. In episode 1.05, Eve says, "I know something happened to you." Ultimately it is Subverted — her background wasn't great, no, but nothing "made her" this way.
  Ideas At Play: Maybe Villanelle has a tragic backstory that will explain everything? She doesn't, and if she did, it wouldn't change anything. Eve — and we as an audience — keep expecting something in this equation to change. Either Villanelle will become less likable and cross some kind of line, or we will come to understand this tortured soul and save her. But Killing Eve isn't interested in playing that game. It has put all of its cards out on the table. Villanelle will always be likable and enjoyable. She can't cross a line because she's already way too far past it.
  • Called into question again in Season 3 with the introduction of her abusive mother.
• Devil in Plain Sight: A major part of Villanelle’s M.O. As a woman, she’s the least likely person to be suspected of being an assassin. This is intentional according to the creator to demonstrate that psychopaths are walking among the people.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": She dislikes being called by her real name, Oksana.
• The Dreaded: The Ghost refers to her as “The Demon with No Face”. It is an allusion to Korean folklore known as the “Egg Ghost”, the faceless demon and the most fearsome spirit who brings death to anyone who faces them with no rhyme and reason. Villanelle may not kill out of nowhere and is quite deliberate in her killings but she’s certainly not one to be reasoned with when she’s intent on murder.
• Easily Forgiven: By Konstanin for shooting him.
• Enemy Eats Your Lunch: In "I Have A Thing About Bathrooms," Villanelle invades Eve's home just to have dinner with her.
• Even Evil Has Standards: She's absolutely mortified when she's mistaken for a pedophile.
• Fake Brit: In-universe. Villanelle can do a very good posh British accent. This is also put on Comer, who speaks with a Liverpool accent in real life.
• The Fashionista: According to Jodie Comer, since Villanelle doesn’t have friends, family or routine, she uses clothes to express herself and to finally have the life that she’s always wanted in order to dissociate herself from the difficulties she experienced in her early life.
• Faux Affably Evil: She can be funny, friendly, and charming, but as her interactions with Anna showed us, even with those she claims to love most, these emotions can fade quickly and she will become just as ruthless and dangerous with them. Often, this doesn't even need to be the case; despite her obsession with Eve, she refuses to spare Bill, though she could easily have gotten away from him.
• Faux Fluency: Jodie Comer isn't really fluent on many languages and it shows, particularly her German and Aussie accents. And while her French is... passable, her pronunciation and intonation are way off. There is not a chance that she would pass for someone that actually lives in Paris and is understood right away by French people.
• The Fighting Narcissist: Villanelle is beautiful and she knows it; she's also highly intelligent, manipulative, and a formidable fighter. Whenever her skills are questioned, she makes up for it swiftly and woe to the person who incurred her wrath.
• Freudian Excuse/Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Discussed. Villanelle's mother was a verbally abusive, bitter Control Freak, but all the same, we see evidence that Villanelle was an extremely violent, out of control Enfant Terrible. Which was actually responsible for Villanelle's behavior is left very ambiguous.
• Groin Attack: She killed her first victim by castrating him. She also did the same to Frank in "I Have A Thing About Bathrooms."
• Has a Type/Likes Older Women: As evidenced by Eve and Anna, her old language teacher, it appears that Villanelle has a thing for awkward, smart, older women with thick, wavy hair. The physical traits are particularly emphasized with the woman whom she had pretend was Eve (1.03), and women on the street who she checks out (1.01 and 1.02). As well, another factor seems to be that Eve and Anna both paid lots of attention to Villanelle, which she clearly enjoys. When Eve goes to visit Anna, Anna explicitly tells Eve as she leaves:
  Anna: Now be careful. You're her type.
• The Hedonist: Every time she comes home from a successful hit she is seen always treating herself to designer clothing, expensive sweets or something else fancy.
• Humble Goal:
  Eve: What do you want? Honestly — don't be a dick.
  Villanelle: Normal stuff. Nice life. Cool flat. Fun job. Someone to watch movies with.
• It Amused Me: Villanelle would kill even if she didn't have to, as we learn, and when she has an advantage, she finds certain ways of killing funny.
• It's All About Me: Which goes along with her being a sociopath. Villanelle cannot comprehend anyone else's real needs except for her own.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Fashionable: Villanelle steals Eve's luggage, then returns the bag — now full of personally-selected designer clothes and shoes. After that, she spies on Eve trying on a dress. Unbeknownst to Eve, Villanelle picks her out and leaves her a belt to match.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Whenever she has a Pet the Dog moment it's most likely an act to get what she wants.
  • The first scene she appears in has her seeming being friendly towards a child, before messing up the child's ice cream.
• Karma Houdini: She violently murders people in the most gruesome ways and gets away with it. Justified since she is a professional assassin.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Villanelle gets shot dead on orders given by Carolyn Martens in the final episode.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Villanelle always wears very beautiful clothes, even when she's on a job unless she needs to wear a uniform (such as in the prison).
• Known Only by Their Nickname: Villanelle is actually a codename, revealed in one episode to be a brand of perfume. It is also revealed in a later episode that her real name is Oksana Astankova. (Amusingly, Eve decides to name her "Villanelle" all on her own after she receives a bottle of perfume from her.)
• Large Ham: Jodie Comer chews as much scenery as possible playing her.
• Leitmotif: This song is probably the closest thing to this for her.
• Likable Villain: She definitely is one, but the show avoids nailing down what kind. She's too cruel to be Affably Evil, too genuine to be Faux Affably Evil, not self-pitying enough to be a Jerkass Woobie, and her Freudian Excuse may or may not exist because of her Multiple-Choice Past.
• Love Makes You Evil: While she had a history of violence prior, Villanelle's first victim was her language teacher's husband, whom she killed and castrated because she was in love with his wife.
• Mask of Sanity: Villanelle has no trouble blending in with others (such as the boy she meets in Paris) despite the fact that she's a sadistic, extremely violent assassin who needs to kill.
• Master of Disguise: Villanelle loves to dress up to commit her murders.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Not acknowledged in-universe, but some of the details of Villanelle's Season 1 backstory and Season 3 Origins Episode don't quite add up.
• Nothing Nice About Sugar and Spice: A highly trained assassin, she is also a huge Francophile, has an extremely feminine dress sense, including wearing couture gowns to her therapy sessions, and she's a psychopath with almost no empathy who enjoys killing people.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Comer's Russian accent (among many other accents) tends to noticeably slip a lot.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After she murders her mother, Villanelle starts to perform her murders less professionally and with far less enthusiasm.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Sparing her little brothers from her arson rampage and leaving them thousands of dollars so that they can go and see Elton John.
  • In the Season 3 finale, she offers, with total sincerity and no strings attached, to walk out of Eve's life forever if that's what Eve truly wants. It's easily the most selfless thing we've ever seen her do, and it's a stark contrast to her attitude in Season 2, where she angrily declared "You're mine!" when Eve rejected her.
• Polyglot: She can speak Russian (though she refuses to when she has the choice), English, Italian, Spanish, French, German, and is learning Mandarin.
• The Power of Acting: In addition to being fluent in multiple languages, Villanelle can do a perfect accent (English, Scottish, American, French, Italian) and it helps her to get close to her many victims. It's also shown that she can imitate a child's voice perfectly.
• Pragmatic Pansexuality: Villanelle seems to only be attracted by women, but will have sex with men if it aids her goals.
• Professional Killer: She's an assassin. Though she'd probably be killing either way.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: To Anna. It's mentioned numerous times that she continued to write Anna letters for years after she went to prison for killing Anna's husband.
• Psycho Lesbian: Villanelle, who is romantically attracted to women and is a trained, ruthless assassin.
• Psycho Pink: Villanelle's first Iconic Outfit is a puffy pink ballgown made by Molly Goddard that she wears to a psychiatrist's appointment while she's convincing the Twelve that she's still psychotic enough to kill anyone they want. It gets a Call-Back in Season 2 when she wears a pink tutu and a pig mask to string up and kill an adulterous husband in Amsterdam.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: As shown in her interactions with Irina (Konstantin’s daughter), Villanelle is this at her core: a petulant child who throws tantrums, screams, and reacts immaturely when frustrated, doesn’t get what she wants, or perceives that someone is actively putting obstacles on what she wants to do.
• Psychotic Smirk: Villanelle delivers a chilly one to Bill, right before she turns the tables on him and kills him.
• Really Gets Around: She’s a woman who’s characterized by her big appetite. That includes having her bed as a rotation of beautiful men and women.
• Sadist: Villanelle rarely just kills her victims, instead preferring some pretty slow and horrific methods of assassination such as making an asthmatic asphyxiate to death after convincing her to try on poisoned perfume, or forcing a man to breathe in carbon monoxide while he is strapped helpless to a table.
  Villanelle: You know I like the breathy ones!
  • Even more disturbing is that she enjoys watching the life slowly fade from her victims' eyes, too.
• The Scapegoat: Unbeknownst to her, she is being set up as this by the Twelve in Season 3 by pining Kenny and Niko's murders on her just so Eve would think she was responsible.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Although money isn't Villanelle's only motivation, it is one of her major ones.
• Self-Made Orphan: Villanelle kills her mother due to the latter rejecting her when they reconnect.
• Sinister Sweet Tooth: A ruthless killer with some very saccharine tastes, befitting her characterization as a Psychopathic Woman Child: she puts honey on frying sausages, treats herself to ice cream, and places such value on high-quality pastries that she barely manages to hide her dislike of the heated fruitcake served by Frank's mother.
• The Sociopath: Complete lack of empathy? Check. Highly immature at times, and often does what she does For the Evulz as much as she does for the money? Check. Able to convince an ex-girlfriend to turn on her partner, promise her a life she deserved and then crush her under her car, all in the same scene? Check. However, she does have people she seems to genuinely care about — in her own, deeply unhealthy and terrifying way — which hints she may not be a straight example.
• Stalker with a Crush: Villanelle develops as one for Eve, going as far as stealing her clothes, spying on her and asking a female sexual partner with similar thick wavy hair if she can call her 'Eve.'
• Statuesque Stunner: She's 5'8".
• Suppressed Mammaries: How she hides her identity with her first in-series kill.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Very downplayed, as she's still an unrepentant murderer, and she's never really good or nice, but as the series goes on, she gets more humanizing moments and signs that she does care for Konstantin, Eve, and her family (besides her mother). Just as she brings out Eve's worse qualities, Eve brings out her humanity.
• Toxic Friend Influence: She brings out and encourages Eve's darker qualities. However, said darker qualities were clearly always there, and even she eventually acknowledges that she can't blame it entirely on Villanelle's influence.
  Villanelle: Do you think I'm a monster?
  Eve: I think we all have monsters inside of us. It's just that most manage to keep theirs hidden.
  Villanelle: Well, I haven't.
  Eve: No. Neither have I.
  Villanelle: I think my monster encourages your monster. Right?
  Eve: I think I wanted it to.
• Troll: Villanelle takes pride in getting under people’s skin as much in her ability to charm and win them over.
• The Un-Favorite: When she found her mother, after thinking she was dead for years, she had three other children and made it clear she wanted nothing to do with her.
• The Unfettered: Villanelle is completely unfazed by any block in her way, including being stabbed in the stomach, surrounded by armed guards, and nearly being killed. None of that will ever stop her. She doesn’t abide by any rules of society or any moral principle. She merely sees them as an interesting hurdle to ignore and something to actively subvert for no deeper reason that she sees herself as someone with no limits.
  You need to calm down.
• Villainesses Want Heroes: So far, both of her major crushes on the show are generally moral, innocent older women (Anna and Eve).
• Villainous Crush: Villanelle has got it bad for Eve, and isn't shy about showing it.
• Villain Protagonist: We see as much of her as we see of Eve.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Konstanin. She's always criticizing what he wears and disobeying him, and it gets significantly more vitriolic after she perceives him to have betrayed her at the end of Season 2, but he actually wins her back over, because he just knows her too well.
• Where I Was Born and Razed: Villanelle burns down her mother and remaining family's new house after killing her mother and kills her stepfather, stepbrother, and stepbrother's girlfriend in the process.
• Wicked Cultured: Stylish clothes, a fancy (if messy) Parisian apartment, an appetite for designer products and nice food, taste for classical music and able to speak several languages? Villanelle sure qualifies.
• Woman Of Wealth And Taste: Her job pays her very well, judging from her designer wardrobe, a gorgeous apartment, and taste for fine food.
• Would Hurt a Child: She'll certainly drag them into her assassinations and kidnap them, at least. Given her psychopathy, it's unlikely she sees children any more as people than she does adults.

Characters Associated with Eve

Niko Polastri

Niko Polastri

Played By: Owen McDonnell

Eve's husband. Niko is a Polish maths teacher and Bridge tutor who worries about his wife's new job. He has an aversion to violence, and can’t understand Eve’s fascination with darkness and criminality.

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• Back for the Finale: Not physically, but Eve fantasizes about him and the other important people in her life as she's attempting to move on and find happiness in the series finale. That he's really gone tells her it's a part of her life she can never return to.
• Butt-Monkey: His relationship with Eve collapses, she is only attracted to him when he's pretending to be a much darker person, she ultimately leaves him only to come back after nearly killing Villanelle, he's threatened multiple times by Villanelle, he gets pursued by Gemma despite only wanting things to go back to normal with Eve, he ultimately leaves Eve, Gemma gets killed in front of him by Villanelle, he ends up in psychiatric care due to it, and he gets stabbed with a pitchfork, nearly killed, and left almost unable to speak by Dasha.
• But Not Too Foreign: He is Polish but according to his backstory he was born in England.
• Morality Chain: Seems to keep trying to be one to Eve, although it doesn't really work, especially in Season 2.
• Morality Pet: To Eve. Even after they separate in Season 2, Eve cares for him and wants him to be okay.
• Nice Guy: One of the nicest characters in the main cast. Also, the most boring.
• Non-Action Guy: He has no interest in physically defending himself, even when Villanelle appears to threaten him both in Oxford and at home.
• Only Sane Man: Often represents this to the cast in general as he genuinely appears pretty appalled by the violence and cruelty Eve indulges.
• Pacifist: Niko has a strong aversion to violence, and though he perhaps can’t admit it to himself he prefers it if his wife is working in a boring desk job than in close proximity to danger.
• Plot Armor: Unusually, recognized in-universe by Villanelle. She'd like nothing more than to kill him as she did with Max (her last major crush's husband) but she knows Eve would never forgive her. So she kills Gemma instead.
• Porn Stache: And boy is Niko's truly glorious. Villanelle at one point says he looks like "someone put a mustache on some fudge."
• Rule of Empathy: Played with. Niko is not that popular due to being one of the main obstacles between Villanelle and Eve, but in-universe, Villanelle recognizes he has to survive because it would be a Moral Event Horizon for her in Eve's eyes.
• Trauma Conga Line: During Season 2, Niko's job is nearly compromised when Villanelle starts spreading rumors of Niko having a relationship with Gemma. After murdering Gemma, Villanelle locks Niko in a storage unit with Gemma's corpse. By Season 3, things are still no better: Niko is suffering from PTSD, and decides to leave Eve in London and head home to Poland. After he is nearly murdered by Dasha (in an attempt to frame Villanelle in front of Eve), he is hospitalized and unable to speak. After everything that's happened, it's no surprise that he wants nothing to do with his estranged wife.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: In the first season, he has a normal London accent, but come Season 2 and he's inexplicably speaking with a posh upper-class accent.

Gemma

Gemma

Played By: Emma Pierson

A teacher at Niko's school.

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• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She is ridiculously complimentary to Eve, but as Eve rightly susses, only so she can worm her way in with Niko.
• Crazy Cat Lady: Not in actuality, but she has a cat and Villanelle lampshades this trope.
• Dies Wide Open: We don't actually know if she died like that, but her eyes are wide open when Niko finds her body.
• Disposable Love Interest: To Niko, although whether he actually has feelings for her or is just using her as a Living Emotional Crutch after the breakdown of his marriage to Eve is a mystery.
• Everyone Can See It: That she has a crazy crush on Niko.
• Nothing Is Scarier: We don't see how Villanelle kills her, but we do see her body afterward, and it's pretty gruesome looking.

Characters Associated with Villanelle

Konstantin Vasiliev

Konstantin Vasiliev

Played By: Kim Bodnia

Villanelle's handler, Konstantin is a Russian intelligence agent who recruits and runs assassins for a shadowy organization known only as The Twelve, telling them whom to kill and then paying them after the deed is done.

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• Affably Evil: So far. He is unfailingly polite and funny to Eve, even after she's figured out his huge secret. Even after Villanelle shot him he was still willing to (mostly) let it go and move on.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Throws himself into this when Carolyn threatens to shoot him in Season 3, a marked difference from his attitude in earlier seasons (see Face Death with Dignity below)
• Amicable Exes: He lives with his past lover Carolyn in Season 2.
• Cool Old Guy: Even when Villanelle is acting up and generally being a dick, Konstanin takes it in his stride and can banter back.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight:
  • Subverted with his heart attack. Villanelle finds him having it, and cradles him for a minute before being distracted by Eve (and he doesn't die anyway).
  • Pam kills him, but her immediate regret has her tearfully cradling him as he slowly passes away.
• Driven to Suicide: At gunpoint. Not that it worked out for Villanelle.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: If you believe that he loves Villanelle, as he tells her he does. He also seems well-loved by his daughter and wife.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • When Konstantin tries to rein Villanelle back from her obsession with Eve Polastri, she responds by subtly threatening his daughter. He is shocked that she actually knew he had a child and that she knew where she was to threaten her.
  • He also says that he genuinely loves Villanelle and goes to great lengths to help her out, despite the fact that she shot him.
• Evil Mentor: Deconstructed. While he is Villanelle's mentor in murder (and trained her, as Eve figures out), Villanelle has done plenty of evil without Konstanin, and he mostly just gave her an outlet for it.
• Evil Old Folks: He looks like somebody's favorite uncle, but he is a Russian intelligence agent that runs a network of assassins for The Twelve.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • He says this more or less verbatim: "To dignity in death!" Ultimately subverted, however, as Konstantin was merely pretending. However, he nevertheless does seem totally willing to do so at any given moment, which is necessary in his profession.
  • When Pam slits his throat, he's instantly resigned to his fate, and only expresses how happy he is for her to have grown as a killer.
• The Fagin: He recruited and trained Villanelle, who was in prison as a teenager at the time.
• Family Man: He was one before, and his family goes into protection in Season 2 which devastates him.
• Friendly Enemy: To everyone — he's funny and polite to Eve even after she's discovered his secret connection to The Twelve, and he, of course, stays this to Villanelle even when she's trying to kill him.
• The Handler: He is this for Villanelle, Nadia, Diego, Pam, and perhaps more.
• Informed Attractiveness: Despite being a heavy set older man he is referred to by multiple female characters as sexy both in photographs as a younger man and by those who have seen him recently.
• Not Quite Dead: Villanelle shoots him in the heart at the end of Season 1. And he survives with apparently no physical effects. Though his heart is significantly weakened in Season 3, leading one to wonder whether he'd have even had any heart problems if Villanelle hadn't shot him.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When Villanelle makes a thinly veiled threat to him about the daughter she wasn't supposed to know he has.
  • And again in "I Have A Thing About Bathrooms":
  Villanelle: What number are you? [...] You're not Twelve.
  Konstantin: Oh, dear.
• Papa Wolf: He's very protective of his daughter, begs Villanelle with dignity not to kill them, and is only determined to be reunited with them in Season 2.
• Parental Substitute: Konstantin is possibly the closest thing Villanelle has to family. Not that it ever stopped her from openly defying him and threatening his child.
• Pragmatic Villain: Konstantin is not a psychopath, he’s more pragmatic and self-interested than that. He merely does whatever he needs to survive.
• So Proud of You:
  • He says this to Villanelle even as she is forcing him to commit suicide by pills. Doesn't stop him from throwing a whiskey glass in her face and giving her the finger.
  • He also expresses this after Pam kills him, believing she's made the metamorphosis from a timid killer to a strong one.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Villanelle. She's always criticizing what he wears and disobeying him, and it gets significantly more vitriolic after she perceives him to have betrayed her at the end of Season 2, but he actually wins her back over, because he just knows her too well.
• What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: Pam is genuinely sorry to have killed him, especially since she didn't need to; Helene hired her before she was killed.
• Wild Card: Who's side is Konstantin on? Even he doesn't really seem to know, or maybe just doesn't care.
• Worthy Opponent: To Villanelle.

Irina Vasiliev

Irina Vasiliev

Played By: Yuli Lagodinsky

Konstantin's beloved daughter. By his description, she's amazing... but annoying. So, so annoying.

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• And Your Little Dog, Too!: She doesn't have a specific reason to run her stepfather over, except causing more trouble, but she does seconds before she and Konstanin are due to leave.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Even Konstantin agrees she can be pretty hard to deal with.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: By the time she returns, she's a young teenager and she's seriously bratty, throwing tantrums over minor details and hating her stepfather who is actually very indulgent of her.
• The Bus Came Back: After appearing for only an episode, Irina returns to recur for a couple of episodes in Season 3, and then the penultimate episode, Konstanin's final episode, in Season 4.
• Daddy's Girl: It's clear Konstantin adores her, though he seems to finally disown her after she kills her stepfather.
• Daddy's Little Villain: She abruptly runs her stepdad over in Season 3, killing him, in front of Konstanin.
• Face–Heel Turn: She abruptly runs her stepfather over in Season 3.
• Little Miss Badass: Well, not many tween girls would respond to being kidnapped by a psychopath with annoying the crap out of her. She also shows remarkably little fear, given the situation.
• Little Miss Snarker: As Villanelle finds out the hard way.
• Mafia Princess: She appears to have a pretty comfortable life, thanks to Daddy's work with the Twelve. It's unclear if she knows exactly what he does, but she does seem to know it's something illegal.
• Morality Pet: Konstantin genuinely loves her, and seems to be a genuinely pretty good father.
• One-Scene Wonder: She appears only in 1.08, and is an absolute joy in it.
  • The Bus Came Back: She returns in Season 3 and recurs throughout it.
• Pity the Kidnapper: She has no problem mouthing off at Villanelle, and in general makes the experience just as (if not more) miserable for Villanelle as it is for her. Konstantin even lampshades it.
  Konstantin: I need to find my daughter. She's going to drive that woman crazy.
• Polyglot: She speaks Russian, English, French, and Mandarin Chinese. Justified, since children pick up languages very easily, and Konstantin clearly made a point of teaching her.
• The Stoic: Nothing seems to frighten her.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Seemingly through a combination of teenage hormones, being separated from Konstanin, and her parents' divorce, Irina has gone from being a stoic kid who insisted she could see good in Villanelle to someone who killed her stepfather minutes before she's due to leave Russia.
• Walking Spoiler: The fact that Konstantin has a daughter is a surprise.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: She's pretty damn smart, speaking multiple languages and being way more emotionally mature than Villanelle.

Anna

Anna

Played By: Susan Lynch

A language teacher in Russia.

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• A Deadly Affair: Anna and Oksana's affair culminated with Oksana murdering Anna's husband, Max.
• Driven to Suicide: Anna shoots herself rather than shooting Villanelle.
• First Love: She was Villanelle's, and became the prototype for Villanelle's type.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: What Oksana did to her husband, Max.
• Non-Answer: When Eve is questioning her.
  Anna: She had a... fixation.
  Eve: Was it reciprocated?
  Anna: I was her teacher; I was married.
  Eve: But... was it reciprocated?
• Teacher/Student Romance: She and Oksana had an affair when Oksana was her student.

Raymond

Played By: Adrian Scarborough

Villanelle's new handler after she escapes from Julian in Series 2, until Konstantin takes back over.

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• Ax-Crazy: The first thing he does when he sees Villanelle is choke her out, For the Evulz. And he comes back to kill her just because he hates her. And all with an ax!
• Evil Counterpart: A very relative example to Konstantin. Konstantin and Villanelle are Vitriolic Best Buds and he is a borderline Parental Substitute (of a dark variety) to her who lets her get away with far more than he should. Raymond doesn't care for her, is extremely ruthless, and will kill her at the drop of a hat.
• Evil Redhead: He has ginger hair and is brutal even by the Twelve's standards.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Even Villanelle is surprised when he turns out to be so aggressive and vicious.

Dasha

Dasha Duzran

Played By: Harriet Walter

Villanelle's former handler, who has returned to lure Villanelle back to the Twelve in Season 3.

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• Broken Pedestal: Villanelle greatly admired her at one time.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She genuinely loves her son, but it doesn't stop her being a sadistic murderer who abused Villanelle.
• Evil Old Folks: She is on the older side and she worked for the Twelve. It's made clear that she has always been that way, though, killing her past lover/mentor during a gymnastics training session.
• Evil Mentor: Dasha was a former mentor of Villanelle's, but betrayed her.
• False Flag Operation: She stages a near-fatal attack on Niko in order to create a rift between Eve and Villanelle.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Dasha is a firm believer in this, even going as far to expound such to the Spanish kids she teaches.
• Take a Moment to Catch Your Death: Dasha is technically rescued by Eve after Villanelle brains her with a golf club and taken to hospital in London. Then, in the time it takes Konstanin to be taken there and get ready to discharge himself, she collapses and dies while asking for her son.

Tatiana Astankova

Tatiana Astankova

Played By: Evgenia Dodina

Villanelle's estranged mother.

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• Abusive Parents: Abandoned Oksana in an orphanage, verbally and psychologically abuses her youngest son, B'orka, after he fails in a carnival game, and tries to throw Villanelle out of the house at the end of the episode.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Seems like a fun, loving, and fun-loving family woman but despite the benevolent face she puts on for the community, she bullies and manipulates her family members.
• The Bully: Criticises B'orka so relentlessly that he's started self-harming.
• Consummate Liar: Villanelle perceives her as this.
• Department of Redundancy Department: While ranting at Villanelle, Tatiana yells "You and your dark ... darkness!"
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Left ambiguous. Despite her callous and abusive nature, she seems to weep genuine tears of joy upon seeing Villanelle having returned.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Accuses Villanelle of laughing at things that aren't funny, although as Villanelle points out, she does the same thing.
• Evil Matriarch: Rules her household with an iron fist.
• Face Death with Dignity: She just stares blankly into the distance after Villanelle says that she's going to kill her. Of course, she might not have believed her. But she probably did.
• Faux Affably Evil: Dances happily after her family wins at a carnival, having told her youngest that he's an embarrassment to the family.
• Green-Eyed Monster: One possible reason for her banishing Villanelle from the household: She's worried that her family will love her more than her.
• Hypocrite: As Villanelle points out, most of the traits she hates about her are traits that she herself possesses.
• It's All About Me: Only seems to care about herself, even seeing her family as little more than extensions of herself because she abandons them when she doesn't want them and punishes them if they perceivably embarrass her by failing at anything.
• Jerkass: As you've probably realised at this point, she's not a pleasant person.
• Karmic Death: After she tries to send her own daughter away again, she knocks her unconscious and blows up the house with her in it.
• Lack of Empathy: Is perplexed when Villanelle asks her to clean her face instead of doing it herself, just because she wants to feel mothered.
• Narcissist: Shows traits of it, seeing her family as little more than extensions of herself, presenting an image to the community of a fine, upstanding mother and wife and secretly berating her family members, even her children for something as minor as losing at a carnival game, saying that they are bringing shame on the family, by which she means herself, refusing to accept blame for any of her actions and seeking to alienate family members whom she perceives as a threat to her authority.
• Never My Fault: Claims that she and her husband never loved Oksana because they thought that she was strange as a baby, due to never crying and justifies herself leaving her in an orphanage, saying that she did it to protect the family from Oksana's "darkness". As Villanelle points out, Tatiana is the real darkness in the family, not her.
• Silver Vixen: Is old enough to have grown up children but is still quite good-looking.
• The Sociopath: Villanelle seems to think so, stating that she inherited her own "darkness" from Tatiana.
• Unreliable Narrator: Is anything of what she said about Villanelle true? It's left very ambiguous; Tatiana is clearly a huge jerkass, but Villanelle did ultimately turn out to be a serial killer.
• Villainous Parental Instinct: Invoked and probably subverted. Tatiana thinks she has this, sending Villanelle away as a young girl because she beat up B'orka despite being a malicious narcissist herself.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Is seen as a pillar of the local community.

Hélène

Hélène

Played by: Camille Cotton

Villanelle's new handler in Season 3.

• Agony of the Feet: She gets her Achilles tendons slashed by Villanelle with a knife.
• Betty and Veronica: She's the Veronica to Villanelle's Betty over Eve's Archie. Bonus points for both competitors being blonde and brunette.
• Body Motifs: Feet in her case for some reason. Caroline accuses her of having a foot fetish for having a man’s feet cut off when she orders his death and two of her pivotal scenes with Eve and Villanelle are centred largely around her bare feet. Villanelle even slashes her ankles when she kills her.
• Bury Your Gays: The gay Helene gets her throat slashed by a jealous Villanelle.
• But Not Too Gay: She is revealed to be gay in Season 4, but is never shown with a woman and only kisses Eve once.
• Dissonant Serenity: Whether she's hugging Villanelle while calling her a monster or invites Eve into her home, Hélène is generally unflappable.
• Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Hélène is French, and people are frequently Aroused by Their Voice when they meet her. She's also called sexy by Villanelle.
• Face Death with Dignity: She begs Villanelle to just "get it over with" and finish her off with the knife. Justified since she was in pain.
• Heel–Face Turn: In Season 3, she was working for the Twelve. In Season 4, for some reason, she tracks them down.
• Replacement Goldfish: She tries being this as a substitute to Villanelle for Eve. It doesn't work.

Others

Aaron Peel

Aaron Peel

Played By: Henry Lloyd-Hughes

A young tech genius and multibillionaire computer mogul with a secret weapon that he plans to sell to the Twelve.

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• Admiring the Abomination: He loves watching Villanelle kill people.
• Big Bad: He serves as this for Season 2.
• Big Brother Bully: Towards his little sister.
• The Bully: As pointed out by Villanelle, right before she breaks his nose with a book.
• Composite Character: Of Charles Augustus Magnussen and Mark Zuckerberg.
• Control Freak: His whole modus operandi. The fact that he can spy on pretty much anybody in the world at any time means that he can blackmail them into doing whatever he wants and he revels in having this power over others. While Villanelle stays in his hotel, he lavishes her with gifts but takes great pleasure in ordering her around, to the point of making her spit out food he doesn't like and making her sit in the same position while he leaves the room until he gets back.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He inherited the company started by his father, Anthony Peel after having him assassinated by the Ghost.
• Deadpan Snarker: Is prone to snarky moments, particularly when mocking Eve about how MI6 is an anachronism and asking her if she wants to search his office for any "weapons-grade plutonium."
• Diabolical Mastermind: He's basically a Bond villain!
• Evil Is Petty: Despite being a brilliant computer hacker, he screams at Villanelle for wearing the clothes he gave her "wrong" and... eating orange chocolates. He makes her spit it out.
• Evil Plan: To weaponize information by keeping files on all of the world's most powerful people and selling it to the Twelve. It's essentially the same plan Blofeld and C. have in SPECTRE.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's very polite and charming towards Villanelle whilst she stays in his hotel and ultimately Eve when she arrives but it doesn't conceal the fact that he's an Axe-Crazy, sociopathic Control Freak.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: A sociopathic CEO who wears little glasses and has a very blank stare.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He has a machine that manages to keep track of everyone.
• In Love with Your Carnage: The reason behind his obsession with Villanelle whom he sees as a kindred spirit.
• Jerkass: He's obnoxiously arrogant, to the point that Jess and Eve fantasize about him falling out of a window and landing face-first on a railing. In addition to this, he's a megalomaniacal psychopath.
• Karmic Death: Villanelle slashes his throat. He doesn't seem to mind.
• Lack of Empathy: Really? Do we need to say any more at this point?
• Manipulative Bastard: Uses his knowledge of people's private lives to threaten and control them.
• Nerd in Evil's Helmet: He looks, dresses and acts like a stereotypical, harmless computer nerd but is actually a deranged supervillain.
• The Peeping Tom: He records Villanelle at all times when she's in Budapest which it turns out he did to several other women before her.
• Psychopathic Man Child: All over the place. He's a supervillain who likes to play children's games with his younger sister and a Serial Killer who nevertheless flips out when Villanelle mixes up the clothes he gave her and wears it with a belt.
  YOU'VE RUINED IT!
• Psychotic Smirk: His default expression, even when being killed.
• Sadist: Revels in using his power and knowledge to humiliate others and loves killing people, filming himself doing it, watching them being killed or ordering assassinations.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Wears a pair of them.
• Self-Made Orphan: He hired the Ghost to kill his father, who was a single parent after his mother's death from an illness.
• Serial Killer: Ultimately revealed to be this.
• Smug Snake: Very smug and thinks he has Villanelle completely under his control. He's wrong.
• The Sociopath: Or psychopath at any rate, as Eve surmises. He uses his Dragon to assassinate his own father, along with anyone close to him at the company so that he could take control of it, uses his tech skills to spy on people's private lives and blackmail them with it and, it's ultimately revealed, personally kills people just for sport so that he can film himself doing it.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: The revelation that he likes to cut women's throats turns him into this.
• Tech Bro: The Corrupt Corporate Executive version. A serial killer who masterminded a device that could track every single person in the world, he hired the Ghost to kill his father and took over his multi-billion company. He also however totally echoes the nerd archetype, too, even wearing Nerd Glasses, having No Social Skills, and appearing to have Hollywood Autism, which crosses over uncomfortably with him being revealed as a serial killer.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Although he's initially shocked when Villanelle slashes his throat, he grins as he dies.
• Villainous Crush: Towards Villanelle, albeit more in a sadistically cerebral and mostly non-sexual way. He also has a really creepy love of watching her eat.
• We Can Rule Together: Offers Villanelle the world if she becomes his partner-in-crime. She refuses when he presses her Berserk Button by telling her to kill Eve. She's also had enough of being ordered around by him at this point.
• Wicked Cultured: Despite his fairly bland, but not scruffy dress sense, he owns fancy hotels, and dines on the finest food.

The Ghost

The Ghost

Played By: Jung Sun Den Hollander

Another female assassin in operation.

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• Badass on Paper: Despite her famed reputation for her discretion, Villanelle makes very quick work of her when they meet.
• Beneath Suspicion: How she manages to kill people with high security, posing as a cleaner and other menial workers.
• The Dragon: To Aaron Peel.
• Dragon Lady: An Asian woman who is very serious, viciously sharp, and mostly silent.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Eve first meets her picking her kids up from school. She gets her to come with her by threatening to shoot her in front of her kids if she refuses.
• Evil Counterpart: To Eve. Both are middle-aged Asian women who are overlooked by the large companies and interests they serve due to their age, race, and discretion.
• Foil:
  • To Villanelle. While Villanelle is a theatrical, attention-seeker when it comes to her kills, the Ghost is subtle and does not draw attention to her kills. Where Villanelle makes some of her kills explicitly look like murder, the Ghost does the best to make her own look innocuous. Villanelle is a young white woman, while the Ghost is a middle aged Asian woman.
  • Also to Eve. Both are disrespected Asian women who are frequently dismissed at their jobs and talented at discretion, but the Ghost kills for money and Eve catches killers.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Keeps a low profile and goes about her killings as discretely as possible, never leaving blood or a mess.
• Not So Stoic: Despite her usually cold, unflappable demeanour, even when Eve threatens to shoot her in front of her kids, she's tortured for information by Villanelle to the point that she's left in tears, calling Eve "a monster".
• Paper Tiger: The Ghost can be vicious, but Villanelle tortures her with ease and so she never really threatens Villanelle or Eve.
• Punch-Clock Villain: She kills people for Aaron Peele, but unlike Villanelle, she gets no pleasure out of killing and is only In It For The Money.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: In contrast to Villanelle, The Ghost is totally able and willing to blend in.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: We learn that she has children and she was a nurse… and that's about it before she's captured.

Amber Peel

Amber Peel

Played By: Shannon Tarbet

Aaron's sister.

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• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The "foolish" to her brother's "responsible."
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Very bullied by her brother but a genuinely sweet, kind person.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Kind, supportive, and sympathetic to Aaron's bullying, cold, arrogant demeanor.

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