【The Exotic Time Machine】

Killing Evemight never be The Exotic Time Machineas brilliant as its first season, and that's okay. Better shows have crumbled under the weight of their own legend. But BBC America's thriller about an international assassin and the agent caught in her web is at least making a solid comeback effort.

Killing EveSeason 3 opens months after Villanelle (Jodie Comer) shot Eve (Sandra Oh) and left her for dead, conveniently without turning to look back as she left and see if that bullet actually did what it promised. Of course it didn’t, because this is the story of killingEve — not of having killed her.

Still, Eve’s current life is no picnic. She’s separated from husband Niko (Owen McDonnell) and cut off from MI6, haunted by everything that happened in Rome and likely everything since Villanelle came into her life.

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But this is a game of cat and mouse, after all, and soon enough the cat (or is Eve the mouse?) picks up a thread of Villanelle’s return and can’t let it go. There’s no ego in it this time around, no burning desire to catch a notorious killer and close this case for good. Eve is terrified, for herself and everyone she knows to lose what remaining normalcy they have.

Jodie Comer as Villanelle, who still dresses to kill. Credit: des willie / bbc america

Where Season 2 toyed with the two women's relationship to titillate fans who saw something there, Season 3 does so with clear intent. For one, Eve knows Villanelle's feelings for her and holds on to them as a weapon of last resort. She focuses her own energy as far as possible from how she might feel about Villanelle, because the answer is staring her in the face: She's obsessed with the chase. She liked a psychopathic murderer the way one gets along with a new acquaintance at drinks, and she genuinely misses the thrill and challenge of that companionship, whether acrimonious or amicable.

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Even with questionable stakes, Killing Eve Season 3 feels like a return to form.

Villanelle views the separation through the lens of her own psychopathy. In that version, she and Eve were in love and effectively broke up. She describes and thinks of Eve as an ex, feels her presence, misses her attention — what she wouldn't give for just another taste of that attention. Indeed, Villanelle has a hard time returning to business as usual with new handler (Harriet Walter) and new assignments — even a protégé. She leaves loose ends and extra bodies and there's only one person meant to pick up on them.

The first episode ends with a shocker, and there’s more where that came from. But killing off day players and secondary characters only highlights the show’s unwillingness to make bigger sacrifices. The same problem plagued Game of Thrones’ later seasons, which were full of empty bluster about how anyone could die, yet for some reason no one below a certain tier of billing ever did.

The first five episodes screened for credits introduce a slew of new characters, including Carolyn's daughter (Thrones' own Gemma Whelan), Kenny's new colleagues (Danny Sapani and Turlough Convery), and even members of Villanelle's — or rather, Oksana's — family. Yet none of these characters feel like they'll stick, because they likely won't. It's just subbing new pawns into a chess game before the more powerful pieces can be threatened. As more bodies inevitably pile up, Eve and Carolyn's guilt and trauma will inflate until there's room for little else.

Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) and Eve (Sandra Oh) try to overcome what happened in Rome. Credit: nick wall / bbc america

Even with questionable stakes, Killing EveSeason 3 feels like a return to form. There's no overarching mystery-of-the-month like last season's Aaron Peel storyline (though that did at least bring characters together), so we spend our time with Eve and Carolyn as they hunt the Twelve, and with Villanelle and Dasha on their missions. Comer and Walter pair fabulously, creating a dynamic entirely unlike Villanelle's with Konstantin (Kim Bodnia) yet no less compelling.

Three seasons in, we can confess what Eve Polastri won't, which is that we also love the thrill of the chase. Killing Evemay string us along for season after season, but if these award-winning actresses can keep us hooked with their killer chemistry and quality writing, we'll be here.

Killing Eve airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on BBC America and AMC.