Killing Eve, series three, episode one, review

HERE’S Villanelle! In making her return to the small screen everyone’s favourite couture-clad assassin does not do anything as vulgar as an impersonation of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. No axes through the door for this gal.

The third series of Killing Eve, which starts next Monday on iPlayer and on BBC1 on April 19, begins instead with a reminder of the carnage in Rome. Yes, Villanelle (Jodie Comer) really did shoot the apple of her eye Eve (Sandra Oh) and leave her for dead. Ah, but is it murder, or is Eve still alive?

A sneak peek of the first episode was granted on condition there would be no spoilers in reviews. But we all know, having seen the trailer, that while Eve bit the dust in Rome she did not buy the farm.

The new series finds some characters moving on, and others stuck. Villanelle is in an Italian villa that is only slightly less gorgeous than her trouser suit; Kenny (Sean Delaney) is still investigating The Twelve (and wearing shorts); and lethally crisp Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) has a new boss at MI6. Among the new faces is Harriet Walter playing a figure from Villanelle’s Russian past, complete with a thick as borscht accent to rival Comer’s.

Killing Eve works best when the original gang are together and the story heads in one direction. The last series had too many plot strands and took an age to get going. At first, new showrunner Suzanne Heathcote (Fear the Walking Dead) looks as though she has fallen into the same trap, only to confound such assumptions in truly shocking fashion.

Heathcote takes over from Emerald Fennell and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (now executive producer). Tall heels, but on the strength of this, she is going to fill them.

In the crowded home makeover market a show can struggle to stand out. Like the burlesque dancers sang in Gypsy, you gotta get a gimmick. Changing Rooms had smiley, smiley Carol Smillie and Handy Andy; Sarah Beeny’s Double Your House for Half the Money did what it said on the paint tin; while Love It or List It has Phil and Kirstie combining couples therapy with advice on partition walls.

Your Home Made Perfect, back for a second series on BBC2 last night, uses virtual reality to show homeowners what a finished build is going to look like. Imagine if that technology had been available back in the Changing Rooms days. Given a glimpse of some hideous MDF table or animal print wallpaper, victims could have said a firm “get lost” to Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen right from the start.

The first of the new run featured Silvia and Julian, who had bought a 1940s bungalow near Brighton four years ago. The garden was lovely, but indoors was a maze of poky rooms.

Enter architects Robert Jamison (man bun, chunky charity shop necklaces, every inch a hipster), and Laura Jane Clark (shades of Jessica Rabbit in her pencil skirt), with their competing plans.

Robert went for a lot of wood, different floor levels, and, the piece de resistance, a wooden bath in the kitchen. Told you he was hip. “That’s mad,” said Julian, speaking for the nation. Silvia thought it was “crazy beautiful”.

Robert also incorporated a bedroom off the kitchen area that could be curtained off. A bath in the kitchen, a space for sleeping. Just think: all those Glesga rooms and kitchens in the tenements were achingly trendy and ahead of their time. Makes you wonder what people were complaining about (other than living ten to a room, hot and cold running vermin, etc).

Laura Jane’s design was more conventional, although she did put in a staircase that had no banister.

The couple went for the bolder scheme, bath and all, and it did look lovely when presenter Angela Scanlon went back to see the finished home. Silvia thought the whole experience had been “transformative”. It had certainly transformed Julian. Gone was the sensible haircut and clothes, in favour of long locks and double denim.

The final bill was £85,000. Worth every penny, said the happy couple. You did wonder, though, whether it would not have been cheaper and less hassle all round just to keep the old place and buy a couple of VR headsets. But where is the fun, or the home makeover show, in that?

Killing Eve premieres on iPlayer on April 13 and on BBC One from April 19.