Villanelle

Villanelle is the villain in the Netflix series Killing Eve. She is a very talented, lovely young female  psychopath. She is employed as an assassin by the mysterious Twelve. They employ her to kill various high-profile people which she does with verve and style. They reward her with large sums of cash and a nice apartment in Paris. She socks some of the money away and spends what she wants on designer clothes.

Problem for Villanelle is that she doesn't feel anything. She enjoys the killing, and she enjoys having nice things, but her constant refrain is 'I'm bored' which she repeats at volume in the most inappropriate settings, kind of like a toddler. So perhaps she enjoys the killing because while she is on this mission she isn't bored.

She is in love with Eve Polastri because, near as I can tell, Eve is not boring. Eve is enamored of Villanelle, but she is conflicted because Villanelle is the killer Eve has been tasked with catching.

I'm starting to feel some sympathy for Villanelle. I mean, imagine what it would be like to not feel anything. You would have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, much less getting anything done. Then again, I wonder how many working stiffs only keep getting up and going to work because they have trained themselves to do so. You work at the same tedious job for decades and you might not feel anything anymore either. Maybe that's where workers going postal comes from.

While Villanelle is a prolific killer, she has only killed one person (that I recall) who wasn't an assigned target. Since we don't know the affiliations of her targets, we don't really know whose side she is on. She might even be working for the same people as Eve, and they are just letting Eve investigate to see how much she can find out so they can fix whatever chinks she finds in their security.

I mean, there's the case of Andrew Peel. He is the scion of a wealthy family who has murdered the rest of his family. He is now in control of some data mining software that can reveal anything about anybody. He is offering it to various unscrupulous characters. Eve and Villanelle (wait, what? Yes, secret spy missions make strange bedfellows) are sent to find out who his customers are along with the caveat to not kill him. Villanelle kills him anyway on account of he wanted her to kill Eve. Or maybe she disliked him. What, feelings? Well, she is in love with Eve, so a bit of loyalty there.

The best part is that nobody is upset about Peel's death. Killing him put a stop to the sale to the evil software package, which is like the best possible outcome. Now we begin to suspect that Carolyn sent these two to Rome because she suspected this is what would happen. You know, a win-win situation. Either they actually get the information she wanted, or they flake out and kill him. Either one works for her.

Carolyn and Villanelle are both angling to move up in their respective organizations. I wouldn't be surprised if we find Villanelle and Carolyn going to the same meetings.