As Killing Eve’s Villanelle, she pulled off perhaps the most fascinating performance: a vicious sociopath so cheeky we couldn’t help but root for her.

A strange man sitting at the table next to — and apparently within smelling range — of Jodie Comer has just leaned a little farther in, his sense of smell activated by an odor wafting his way. “Excuse me,” he murmurs into her ear, unsure if he should. “What perfume are you wearing? Is it … it smells so familiar.”

Comer is delighted. “Oh, it’s a bit strong, innit? It’s Santal 33! I doused myself in it when I got ready,” she exclaims in a dense Liverpudlian accent. As they exchange some niceties about sandalwood and cedar and Le Labo, a feeling hovers just outside of my rational thought. Villanelle, the assassin Comer plays on Killing Eve, once used perfume as a fatal nerve agent. Watching this scene now unfold in real life, it’s not that I think, Will she assassinate him? But there is something about the exchange that feels lifted directly from the show’s script. [ . . . ]

Continue at THE CUT: Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer Is TV’s Most Captivating Assassin