Killing Eve star Sandra Oh says Eve will battle Villanelle's 'feral energy' in season 2

If the wait for season 2 of Killing Eve is killing you, that’s perfectly understandable. Forget that it’s been eight months since the critically acclaimed BBC America spy thriller scurried off the air (and that it will be several more before it returns); the season 1 finale concluded with MI6 agent Eve (Sandra Oh) winding up in bed with psychopathic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) and surprising her uncomfortably close foe with a knife shoved into the stomach. Villanelle managed to escape very much scathed at the end of the episode, so you can bet the drama will intensify and complicate in season 2.

“In many ways, it’s actually more intimate and darker,” executive producer (and new head writer) Emerald Fennell says of the new season. “What happened at the end of season 1 has really, really made an impact on both of our protagonists. It’s a ripple effect that both of them have experienced.”

It’s also a deeply personal thing that happened between these two — and one that will have far-reaching consequences for Eve, and will send her deeper into drama. “What struck me is what the stabbing does to Villanelle’s psyche — what this says about her and Eve,” Comer tells EW. “Does it make her believe that they have a very special relationship, or will she want revenge?”

Whichever is the case (and when it comes to this mercurial series, let’s guess that it’s probably both), Eve finds herself in deeper, and also possibly in over her head. “Eve’s state of mind is pushed to the absolute limit as she tries to contain the feral energy that is Villanelle,” Oh tells EW.

Speaking of which, how creative will Villanelle be this year in her masterful murders? “I don’t want to take away the pleasure of surprise,” answers Comer, “so all I will say is you can expect more, more, more from Villanelle.” As well as from her bonds with her highly conflicted pursuer. Oh says that she was struck in the upcoming stretch of episodes by “how Eve and Villanelle’s relationship progresses and deepens.”

And this intoxicating, complicated relationship is taking Eve down paths both dangerous and unexpected. “It’s going to be that tension between what we know is good for Eve and good morally, but there’s also this other darkness,” says Fennell. “It’s a constant tension for her between what she’ll choose. She doesn’t know. I don’t think any of us will know for a long time.”

Season 2 of Killing Eve debuts April 7.

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