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S03.E01: Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey


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Airs April 12, 2020

After Eve is shot by Villanelle, she's trying to move on. Villanelle is also moving on until she's approached by someone from her past. Caroline is being undermined at work and Kenny is looking for more information about the twelve.

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Nooooo, Kenny!!!! 😞

Overall I thought this was a really, really solid episode that felt like a return to S1 form and also really flew by (I don't think I looked at my watch until the 40-minute mark and was stunned we were that far in), the mark of a good episode.

First: characters on this show need to stop having emotional one-on-ones with Eve, because clearly it only gets them killed! I knew Kenny was a goner once the first shot of him in the death scene was him alone in that big empty office, and the way they kept filming over his shoulder only confirmed it. I do kind of get the logic of killing Kenny--it's one of the few things that could realistically get Eve back in the game at this point AND working with Carolyn, and I also think the writers didn't quite know what to do with Kenny last season--but I also think it's a big risk, as the Eve/Kenny friendship was really solid and sweet and one of the few relationships that could give a real glimpse into Eve's head and (usually) make her more sympathetic. RIP, Kenny. You were the nicest person on the show and super cool and Eve and Carolyn are going to unleash hell thanks to your death. (And to quote Eve: if anyone says "they killed Kenny," I will throw them out the window!)

Kenny's scene with Eve was easily the best of the premiere and I liked what this episode did with Eve more than what all of last season did with her combined. She feels more grounded and real, more like S1 Eve. She is content to leave her life as a wreck and cut herself off from everyone because she doesn't feel she deserves any better, but also clings to this dream of returning to "normal" that clearly isn't going to happen. Hopefully this season does better by her than last season did, but this was a good/promising start for seeing where she is right now.

I'm liking Dasha and Villanelle's stuff as well, as The Twelve has always been one of the more interesting/compelling plots for the show and delving into their mythology can only be a good thing, and I like the clear suggestion that she is what Villanelle could become in 40 years because that has a lot of potential. Their relationship is interesting so far, so I'm on board, though I could have used more "moping" Villanelle to make her return to the assassin we all know more impactful. I also am curious to see where they go with Konstantin, who clearly is under pressure at work as much as Carolyn is.

I am on the record as really finding the character of Niko tiring, but I'm glad he got a moment where he got to stand up for himself and tell Eve to GTFO. He has more than earned it and it's the only healthy, sane thing for the dude to do (no joke intended). I also do feel really badly that he is in a mental ward. Eve really fucked his life up.

Of course Hugo is suing MI-6! That is just so on brand.

That first scene of Villanelle's wedding felt like the bad kind of fanservice and was way too OTT. This show can do better.

Overall another soft reboot of the show (seemingly clearing the Kenny/Niko decks, refocusing on The Twelve). We'll see where it goes, but this was a solid start. It can't be said enough, poor Kenny though!

[ETA: I did have to laugh that the S1/S2 recap had so many plot points from S1 and like NONE from S2. Even the show itself knows S2 was a hot mess!]

Edited by stealinghome
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15 minutes ago, Ramona said:

I'm upset about Kenny.  I need to re-watch, but I'm hoping it wasn't Villanelle who killed Kenny, is it?  

My instinct is to say it was Dasha. When Kenny is at his desk, after he's asked once "who's there?", he hears a door open and shut then heels clicking on the floor. Villanelle heard the same at her wedding before seeing Dasha. 

However, Villanelle made a point of mimicking Dasha's kill so maybe she was yet again recycling her mentor's method? I still kind of feel like it was Dasha.

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I would bet anything that the 12 ordered that one guy, can't remember his name, Villanelle's previous handler, to kill Kenny. He was just waiting in London to kill Kenny once the 12 had Villanelle working for him again. I doubt it was Dasha since she was in Spain with Villanelle, though anything is possible.

Over all, I liked the episode, but both V and Dasha felt very hammy to me, almost like someone was writing the scene with how they thought 2 psychopaths would try to outdo each other. Why would Dasha do that if her future was riding on V returning to the fold? It just didn't make sense. You could explain away V's odd choices since she focus-less now that Eve is "dead" and she's not killing.

Also, I can't figure out why they have Eve's family friend/boss mention that her auntie asked about her, but not Eve's mother? Eve's mother, who I thought, had harangued Eve on the phone in season 1 about Nico- that person now has nothing to say after her daughter was almost killed, blew up her marriage to a man her mom didn't like, and lost her job? No mention of the mom, but yes to the auntie? Honestly, I can't really expect any better from a showrunner from FtWD, so considering that it was a solid premiere for them, I guess?

Edited to add- the reason I think what's his face was hanging around in London to kill Kenny. The 12 need Eve back in the game to control V.

Edited by william0102
Edited to add- the reason I think what's his face was hanging around in London to kill Kenny. The 12 need Eve back in the game to control V.
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5 minutes ago, william0102 said:

I would bet anything that the 12 ordered that one guy, can't remember his name, Villanelle's previous handler, to kill Kenny. He was just waiting in London to kill Kenny once the 12 had Villanelle working for him again. I doubt it was Dasha since she was in Spain with Villanelle, though anything is possible.


Edited to add- the reason I think what's his face was hanging around in London to kill Kenny. The 12 need Eve back in the game to control V.

Not sure who ordered Kenny to be killed or who actually pushed him off the roof, but I do agree that it was done to pull Eve back into MI6. I'll miss Kenny. He was one of my favorite characters and I wish they'd found another way to bring Eve & Carolyn back together.

 

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I think Kenny was killed because he was a a guy working outside of MI6 who was looking into the 12 without government machines to protect him. I doubt it had anything at all do with Eve or Carolyn -- just the kind of thing that happens when civilians get too close to the bad guys in TV shows and movies.

I thought V felt flat, too. Eve stuff was pretty good though. I don't like office politics in things like this, so the new guy at MI6 inspired dread in me. 

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1 hour ago, william0102 said:

I would bet anything that the 12 ordered that one guy, can't remember his name, Villanelle's previous handler, to kill Kenny. He was just waiting in London to kill Kenny once the 12 had Villanelle working for him again. I doubt it was Dasha since she was in Spain with Villanelle, though anything is possible.

Edited to add- the reason I think what's his face was hanging around in London to kill Kenny. The 12 need Eve back in the game to control V.

Oh shit, it didn’t even occur to me that Konstantin might have killed Kenny. I kind of like the idea though—Konstantin and Carolyn have been doing a delicate dance for a while and this would blow it sky high. 

49 minutes ago, whiporee said:

I thought V felt flat, too. Eve stuff was pretty good though. I don't like office politics in things like this, so the new guy at MI6 inspired dread in me. 

Yeah I’m not really interested in Carolyn’s new a-hole boss. If we must, bring back Carolyn’s determinedly quirky boss from last season.

I thought Villanelle’s stuff felt a bit perfunctory tonight (it was clearly Eve’s hour, though it was also a more “ensemble” episode than we usually get). We got one OTT scene of her showing she’s not over Eve, and then most of her scenes were an exposition dump about The Twelve and then she killed someone with typical V flair. I’m hoping that now that we’ve established the new status quo, future episodes will give V meatier material. Though I liked the strong emphasis on Eve here. S2 got a bit lured/seduced into the trap that is Villanelle but the show works best when it really is about Eve first and foremost.

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First, credit to whoever on the show did research for the first scene. Gymnastics has changed a lot since the 70s so a bar routine from 40 years ago looks very different from the ones you would see today (or even in the 80s). They got the leotard style right too. As soon as Dasha punched that guy, I liked her.

Poor Kenny! As soon as I saw him at work with his headphones on, I knew he was going to be attacked, kidnapped, or killed.

I assumed that Constantin was being pointed toward finding Eve at the restaurant where she works now. I thought the message was written on a takeout menu from that restaurant.

Edited by ElectricBoogaloo
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Quote

First, credit to whoever on the show did research for the first scene. Gymnastics has changed a lot since the 70s so a bar routine from 40 years ago looks very different from the ones you would see today (or even in the 80s). They got the leotard style right too. As soon as Dasha punched that guy, I liked her.

I was on my high school's gymnastics team and I don't remember the single parallel bar being a women's event back then. I was always the parallel uneven bars.

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11 hours ago, william0102 said:

I would bet anything that the 12 ordered that one guy, can't remember his name, Villanelle's previous handler,

The only other handler was Raymond, and Eve killed him with an ax. 

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11 hours ago, whiporee said:

I think Kenny was killed because he was a a guy working outside of MI6 who was looking into the 12 without government machines to protect him. I doubt it had anything at all do with Eve or Carolyn -- just the kind of thing that happens when civilians get too close to the bad guys in TV shows and movies.

Same. Kenny wasn't using secure computers to dig around, which seemed really dumb, and he's smarter than that. Or supposed to be, at least.

I loved the scenes in the restaurant. 

Harriet Walters (Dasha) is chewing the scenery with that role, but I can't say I blame her.

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17 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

I was on my high school's gymnastics team and I don't remember the single parallel bar being a women's event back then. I was always the parallel uneven bars.

Dasha wasn’t doing a single bar routine (which is called the high bar and is a men’s event). She was shown on the uneven parallel bars with the old school awkward transition from the low bar to the high bar. 

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I am still so sad about Kenny, I always liked him and thought that he added a good energy to the show, especially in his interactions with Eve. From a narrative perspective, I am not sure the show will do much to justify killing him other than to start the season off with a bang. 

I am glad at least that this was more of an Eve centric start to the season. I feel like one of the things that hurt the show last season was that the show got too infatuated with Villanelle (much like Eve herself) to the point that the show lost its balance. With Villanelle having so much screen time, especially in exploring her backstory, she lost some of that mysterious charm, her evil rubbed off on Eve, and the show just lost its equilibrium between the cat and mouse, and trying to figure out which one was which. Hopefully this season will strike more of a balance. Obviously Villanelle is a huge part of the show, but Eve needs to be the star to keep the show grounded. 

Villanelles old coach (handler?) is chewing scenery so hard that even Villanelle is trying to catch a few scraps for herself, but at least its adds some new energy to her scenes. In general I felt like a lot of the stuff with Villanelle was just turning wheels until we get to when her part of the plot gets kicked into gear. The wedding though, was pretty amazing.

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Trying to decide how I feel about them doing essentially a gentle reset here to some of Season 1's impetus. (Eve witnesses the brutal killing of a beloved male colleague, establishing emotional stakes for her; The Twelve comes back to prominence) I feel like they're tacitly acknowledging they tread some water in S2 that was essentially just putting story off they didn't want to burn through too quickly. For example I said this in another thread but I think the note V's ex girlfriend slipped under the door of her prison cell, addressed to Eve, was originally supposed to be about either The Twelve or Oksana's family, and I feel both will be explored more this season since they weren't much addressed last season. I'm along for the ride but wondering how much Season 2 really mattered, then.

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Poor Kenny.   

It will be interesting to see Carolyn's reaction, and behavior going forward.   Sad that the last conversation with her son was an argument. 

I want to feel sorry for Nico, but if he wasn't actually cheating with the murdered woman, then he was going to be.    Eve warned him about Villanelle, and he pretty much ignored the warning.    

I loved when Eve told the cook the truth about his girlfriend.   

I wish that instead of Kenny getting pushed off of the building, that he would have turned the tables on the assassin, and that person would have gone over the edge instead.    That would still give Kenny, Eve, and Carolyn the reason to go after the Twelve again. 

Edited by CrazyInAlabama
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I liked it, but Eve actually remains the weak link of the show for me. I don’t understand what her purpose is, besides being obsessed with Vilannelle.

I didn’t find Dascha/V to be cartoonish, but Comer is “can watch her read a phone book” territory for me, so I probably wasn’t watching with a terribly discerning eye. 

(I found myself distracted by aspects of the show (I don’t know what the toilet paper joke was about, if it was a reference to last season, but obviously it only made me think of current events). And Spain, and Rome. 😕 Not the show’s fault. I’ve only just recently started watching scripted shows again after a couple of months of virus news and comfort shows like GBBO.)

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4 hours ago, CrazyInAlabama said:

Poor Kenny.   

It will be interesting to see Carolyn's reaction, and behavior going forward.   Sad that the last conversation with her son was an argument. 

I want to feel sorry for Nico, but if he wasn't actually cheating with the murdered woman, then he was going to be.    Eve warned him about Villanelle, and he pretty much ignored the warning.    

I loved when Eve told the cook the truth about his girlfriend.   

I wish that instead of Kenny getting pushed off of the building, that he would have turned the tables on the assassin, and that person would have gone over the edge instead.    That would still give Kenny, Eve, and Carolyn the reason to go after the Twelve again. 

Did I miss something? How did person get Kenny on the roof?

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3 hours ago, kieyra said:

 

(I found myself distracted by aspects of the show (I don’t know what the toilet paper joke was about, if it was a reference to last season, but obviously it only made me think of current events). And Spain, and Rome. 😕 Not the show’s fault. I’ve only just recently started watching scripted shows again after a couple of months of virus news and comfort shows like GBBO.)

The TP was a reference back to when Eve started to work at Carolyn's off-site office. When she asked about the toilet, she was told either to bring her own loo paper or be very conservative with what she used. I can picture the scene, but the details are fuzzy. It was a running gag across several episodes. 

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Poor Kenny. He did not deserve that. I've been expecting him to die since last season, but him being dropped from the roof and watching him sail past the window was cruel. 

Now I can't think of anything else.

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They just showed Kenny working at the computer, and then he heard some noises, and after that Eve came in the office looking for him, and he sailed past the window.  

I did enjoy the wedding scene, and the two women in the car leaving was hysterical. 

Edited by CrazyInAlabama
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23 hours ago, Sharper2002 said:

These bastards killed Kenny. 
Poor Nico. That was a sad sight. 
Not going to lie, Villianelle’s wedding looked amazing before it all went to hell. At least they sent her off in style. 

What is happening with Nico?

Eve is laying low and apart from him so that V. don’t learn that she is still alive?

Or I thought at the end of season 2 that V. didn’t intend to kill her.  If she did, it wouldn’t have been just one shot.  She’d have left no doubt, so I suspect that she knows Eve is alive.

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37 minutes ago, scrb said:

What is happening with Nico?

His side piece was killed by V. The British spy people made it look like a suicide. He’s tormented over her death, and the fact that her family thinks it was suicide.

I got the impression he was in some kind of mental health facility/home but I wasn’t paying full attention. 

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5 hours ago, kieyra said:

I don’t know what the toilet paper joke was about, if it was a reference to last season, but obviously it only made me think of current events

2 hours ago, xtwheeler said:

The TP was a reference back to when Eve started to work at Carolyn's off-site office. When she asked about the toilet, she was told either to bring her own loo paper or be very conservative with what she used. I can picture the scene, but the details are fuzzy. It was a running gag across several episodes. 

This gifset pretty much sums it up.

2 hours ago, DrSparkles said:

Did I miss something? How did person get Kenny on the roof?

It wasn't shown, but I'm assuming the assassin herded Kenny to the roof, as Kenny/we heard what seemed to be a series of doors being firmly closed (and I assume locked). The other option is that the assassin was someone Kenny knew (Konstantin? One of his new coworkers?) and convinced him to go up there somehow.

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20 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

First, credit to whoever on the show did research for the first scene. Gymnastics has changed a lot since the 70s so a bar routine from 40 years ago looks very different from the ones you would see today (or even in the 80s)

 

17 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

I was on my high school's gymnastics team and I don't remember the single parallel bar being a women's event back then. I was always the parallel uneven bars.

 

17 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Dasha wasn’t doing a single bar routine (which is called the high bar and is a men’s event). She was shown on the uneven parallel bars with the old school awkward transition from the low bar to the high bar. 

I finally had time to go back and get screencaps for you, @peacheslatour!

High and low bar visible behind the coach:
597101108_dasha1.thumb.jpg.a2c1dec218332ec3f4942b7aef1b6ada.jpg

Dasha walking under the low bar before mounting the high bar:
144829679_dasha2.thumb.jpg.a15df93ee3623d03f1b055337008c1cc.jpg

Transition from high bar to low bar:
1213662557_dasha3.thumb.jpg.1b5b4a77fddc058fef28f32b881539dd.jpg

Transition from low bar back up to high bar:
1467573389_dasha4.thumb.jpg.f8eb2bb229294f546b1980d15316a0d5.jpg

 

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7 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

This episode was over 42 minutes without commercials which is pretty average for hourlong shows that aren't on premium cable/pay channels.

Well, perception is reality!  Maybe it just seemed like there were a million commercials or maybe the breaks were shorter but more of them?

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5 hours ago, HerkyJerky said:

Well, perception is reality!  Maybe it just seemed like there were a million commercials or maybe the breaks were shorter but more of them?

I think there were at least 2 or 3 extra minutes of commercials, since the show ran a few minutes past the hour. And there were a couple times that it seemed it came back from commercial, had one scene, then cut to another commercial, awkwardly (which is why I noticed).

Edited by rur
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One thing I fell in love with during season 1 was the unexpectedness of the plot lines. I did not get the same sense of unexpectedness during this episode with the exception of Kenny's death.  I hope there is a huge payoff for that as he really was my favorite character as he demonstrated humanity and compassion towards others.  It's almost like all the other main characters do not possess what one might consider to be essential traits of humankindness.

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On 4/13/2020 at 9:40 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

First, credit to whoever on the show did research for the first scene. Gymnastics has changed a lot since the 70s so a bar routine from 40 years ago looks very different from the ones you would see today (or even in the 80s). They got the leotard style right too. As soon as Dasha punched that guy, I liked her.

I think those bars were too far apart for 1974. Compare to this from 1976: https://youtu.be/h60cf63AyYw. 

 

 

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18 minutes ago, Athena5217 said:

I think those bars were too far apart for 1974. Compare to this from 1976: https://youtu.be/h60cf63AyYw. 
 

In the 70s, you were allowed to change the distance between the bars for each competitor based on their height. In some old videos, you can see the coaches and gymnasts adjusting the bars before chalking them for the next girl. 

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4 hours ago, dubbel zout said:

Those were bits that never made it into the episode. 

Appreciate the thought, but that wasn't what I meant. Those bits were prefaced with the cutting room floor info. I was talking about the insertion of commercials in the show proper.

Edited by rur
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15 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

In the 70s, you were allowed to change the distance between the bars for each competitor based on their height. In some old videos, you can see the coaches and gymnasts adjusting the bars before chalking them for the next girl. 

Yes, but much closer together, & almost none of those moves would have been done then. I'm sure there's a kip in the routine somewhere, but the bars were variable to get the exact right distance apart to wrap your hips around the low bar with your hands on the high bar (at the right distance, everything was easy, just a little bit off & it hurt!)

Here's a good video of the evolution of uneven bars, 1950s to 2000s.  For the first half of the 1970s, including featuring Tourischeva et al in the leotards that inspired this one, see 1:32 to about 1:45 or 1:50. (Comaneci's one bar release move was the first of its type - apparently she rotated a Brause too fast once (straddle front flip from low to high) & they realized she could recatch the same bar),  but that was 1976.  (The bars are too far apart for a Brause now, I imagine - the shaposh sort of fills the role)

 

The low to high bar transitions in the episode's video didn't exist then. The Pak salto was first done in 1991, & while the Shaposhnikova was first done around 1980, it needed a tight pike to fit between the bars at the time. 

 

 

Edited by akr
found a better video - Just Shaposhnikova, full routine, 1979. The eponymous release is her first between-bars skill.
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I'm not the type to drop a show without giving it a chance just because I don't like a plotline or character, or even the death of a character I really like. That said, Kenny seemed to be the heart of the show, the empathetic center, and I'm wondering what it will be like without him.  I will definitely watch to see, but if they don't give me an emotional connection again, it won't be with the same attention.

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