Killing Eve Season 4 Episode 4 Fashion Recap: Back to Business

We never thought we’d say this when it comes to Eve, but Villanelle who? Killing Eve season 4 episode 4 begins and ends with what we’d been hoping for between Eve and Villanelle, except instead of the latter, it’s Hélène. She’s prowling the stage of the theater that her father bought her as a child simply because she loved it so much wearing striped Chloé track pants, stilettos, and another casual knit top that would look dowdy on anyone else, doing her best to hide how impressed she is with Eve for tracking down the elusive Twelve member named Lars Meyer. (By cozying up to his wife, who happens to be Hélène’s ex, no less). “On the subject of exes, I hear you’ve had a busy night,” Hélène says, alluding to Villanelle. “You got her arrested, wow—I’m impressed.” (And maybe a tad turned on?) She grasps Eve’s hand—yup, the one she burned by holding it down on a stove the last time Eve proposed teaming up—and challenges her to a race to tracking down Lars.

Little does Hélène know that Eve, who’s proving loyal to her go-to leather biker jacket as ever, has a leg up: Yussef has managed to find out what Lars actually looks like by trawling through all 7,432 of Fernanda’s social media posts and uncovering a snapshot of him on her t-shirt that’s miraculously high-res enough to work with facial recognition. At the same time, little does Eve know that Hélène has found some crucial backup of her own. Villanelle only has to endure about 24 hours in prison after Eve’s vicious betrayal before Hélène comes to the rescue in another suit with a silk blouse buttoned all the way up to the top. Eve’s plan seems to have backfired: Villanelle is now so determined to get revenge, she accepts Hélène’s assignment to take out Carolyn, who turns out to be one of the last people on Earth to have known her as the (relatively) harmless Oksana back at the orphanage in Russia.

Hélène seems to be rubbing off on Villanelle: She’s looking better than ever (lately, anyway) in a striped ensemble that goes perfectly with the vintage sky blue convertible she uses to kidnap Carolyn in Havana, Cuba. It turns out hostages aren’t the only things the assassin keeps in her trunk: She takes out a wrench after unceremoniously dumping Carolyn on the beach. “Oh, come on—you’re more inventive than that,” Carolyn says of her choice of weapon. “You’ve always been more inventive, even when you were a child.” Coming to after a concussion, Carolyn recounts the time a nine-year-old Villanelle used a pendant to amputate the finger of another orphan for stealing her pudding. She may no longer be religious, but Villanelle hasn’t given up on her soul-searching: Unlike Carolyn, who laughs with amusement, she looks horrified to learn she’s been “evil since birth.”

Kudos to Carolyn for not only maintaining her composure, but managing not to get any blood on her gingham suit. “Fancy a sandwich before you dash my brains out?,” she asks. They head back over to her safe house, and surprisingly bond over the many courses that the housekeeper seems to believe is Carolyn’s last meal. Villanelle isn’t immediately convinced when Carolyn asserts her belief that they would be a good team, but she feels comfortable enough to reveal it was Hélène who sent her, and can’t help but resist when Carolyn informs her that one of the victims of the “torturous” murderer who’s been after members of The Twelve (and who isn’t Hélène after all) is cooped up next door.

Carolyn is right when she supposes that the torturer’s move to stuff her victim’s toes up his nostrils might inspire Villanelle. She sets about severing his remaining digits and succeeds in extracting the following information: The ruthless puta in question is tall, and is stationed at a restaurant named El Hombre de Dos Caras. Carolyn grabs her straw hat and they head over with no idea what they’re looking for—at least, until a similarly outfitted man, whom Carolyn later informs is an “old flame” she believed to be dead, appears and promptly flees.

Let’s be honest: Between Villanelle’s incarceration and religious aspirations, this season has yet to deliver anything close to the tulle Molly Goddard dress that made such waves in season 1. It wasn’t until this episode’s final scene that we haven’t minded much at all. Eve and Hélène get butt naked at the latter’s apartment when Eve rejects the latter’s suggestion to make herself a drink and instead joins her when she draws a bath. Sounds sexy, but the tub squelches as a naked Eve does her best to squeeze in, and it isn’t long before she unearths Hélène’s daughter’s mermaid toy. It’s awkward enough that Eve somehow manages to rattle Hélène.

Soon enough, Hélène returns the favor. Back in their clothes, slurping up her homemade soup, she suddenly remembers to fill Eve in on a bit of “news.” “I got Villanelle out,” she says, casually. “She’s free. I thought you’d want to know.” It takes Eve a minute, but she recovers—and, just before heading out, goes in for a kiss.