Killing Eve.
So this week, I have Covid, and when I saw the positive test, I had this surreal moment where I couldn’t quite believe it. I’ve been dodging Covid for the last three years, convinced multiple times that I had it (even one time lost my taste) just to have a test prove otherwise. I have never had the double line, and I know that this is a good thing, that it makes me more fortunate than not, but for some reason, not having it for so long, especially when I was convinced I did, made me feel like I might just be invincible. Like Kyle XY without his belly button, maybe I was some anomaly to this whole thing. Very the-world-revolves-around-me logic, I know. But anyway, in a twist of fate, this time I was sure I didn’t have Covid, was already doing a little victory dance when the timer was halfway done, and then I looked over, checked one more time just to see that yep, the line was very faint, but it was there.
At this point, if you’ve had Covid, you might be like, Yeah, Angela, that’s how it goes. You take the test, you get the double line, you have Covid. Nothing that profound about it. But it was kind of profound to me, to believe that because it hadn’t come to me yet, it would never come, and then, surprise! to have it come when I least expected it. And it was weird to suddenly not have the energy to write or to read or to write emails or to figure out what I’m going to do with my class next week. All I had energy for was lying on the couch, and I’d just finished watching The Other Two, so I didn’t even know what to do, lying there. I didn’t have the energy for this kind of decision—choosing a show—figured the best thing to do was dabble until I found something that stuck.
I tried a lot of things. Reality TV: the new season of The Ultimatum, but I can’t ever quite grasp why these people are together if they continue to want such drastically different things. Movies, but I know how it’s going to go, things are going to get hard and then easier, hard and then easier, and then finally resolve somehow. Epic TV: I want to see Game of Thrones, but there are too many seasons and the episodes are too long and I don’t have the energy for those kinds of emotional stakes when I have to prop up my pillow to keep from coughing.
I landed on Killing Eve. A lot of people have recommended it to me because it’s queer, and I’d stayed away from it because I figured it might be gory (considering the title). And it is kind of gory, but it’s also this weirdo show with two incredibly talented protagonists—Sandra Oh, who I love from the little bit of Grey’s Anatomy I’ve seen so far (another intimidatingly epic show) and Jodie Comer, who had me from the beginning of the show when she tips over a kid’s ice cream after smiling at her from across the shop. I’ve seen about a season and a half sitting on my couch with no energy for anything else, and what I love about it so far is that the show just lets them be obsessed with each other. They meet in a hospital bathroom, Villanelle likes Eve’s hair and tells her so, and from that quick moment, this whole fascination for the other—this mega crush—sticks, even though the things they want seem to be in opposition.
The longer you watch the show, the more you see that they might be more similar than even they thought, and it’s satisfying to watch that unfold, to watch them inch closer and closer together, even though morally you should be rooting for both of them to be punished or something, considering the people they’ve killed or the deaths they’ve let slide. It reminds me of the best moments in You—I think it’s season 2, where two people gravitate toward each other because of their mutual badness, and somehow the mutuality of this badness seems to make it good. Or at least good to watch. Good to root for. Killing Eve is like that but even better because it’s queer, and I love how the show is queer, everyone seeming to veer at least a little towards bi, and no one skipping a beat about it unless your crush is an assassin.
It’s lovely, and it’s enticing, and it keeps unfolding, which is great because up until today, I didn’t have the energy to do anything but watch it and then call my boyfriend to tell him everything that’s happening (considering nothing else is happening in my actual life), until he said maybe you should write about it this week. And today, I woke up and I put on real clothes for the first time in three days, and I took off my bonnet and made some tea. I wrote this today—I have the energy to write again!—even if I’ll be back on the couch to watch more of this show as soon as I’m finished.
Image: BBC America
