Killing Eve recap: [SPOILER] came to a fork in the road

Aww, Niko. It's nice to see you happy, buddy! Our newest episode of Killing Eve finds Eve's erstwhile husband in Poland, where life is absolutely goshdarn idyllic. Geese waddle, a horse-drawn cart trundles by, laundry sways gently in the breeze, and Niko snaps a selfie, smiling in the sunshine. An old lady in a babushka greets him warmly and congratulates him on his great new gig as a bakery delivery man. Welcome home, Niko! What a life! The bread is plentiful, the beer is cold, your ex-wife's frantic texts are easy enough to ignore. And surely there's nothing sinister lurking in the background of this pastoral paradise, no matter how much the camerawork might suggest otherwise… right?

Well, whatever. We're back in London now, where Eve spent the night at the Bitter Pill offices (and has the B.O. to prove it.) With Charles Kruger dead, they're back to square one, with nothing but that mysterious Geneva account and a handful of murders to go on. There's something familiar about this Catalan thing, Eve says, the woman with a mouthful of spices… but she's interrupted when a bakery box arrives with her name on it. All together, now: Awwwwww. The cake is in the shape of a little red bus, commemorating Eve and Villanelle's first kiss, and the inscription says, "Happy Birthday, Eve."

Eve, ungrateful wretch that she is, pitches the cake off the edge of the roof. (And is clearly instantly sorry, although whether this is down to heartbreak or hunger remains an open question.) But later, things are looking up. After Eve takes Jamie up on his offer of a place to stay, the two trade increasingly fraught confessions. (Him: "I took a piss in the shower." Her: "I stabbed someone." Him: "My best friend died from the drugs I gave him." Her: "...Wait, really?")

“Do not think that you are the only self-loathing a--hole in the room, ever," Jamie says. It's the start of a mini-pep-talk: Eve could make different choices, he tells her. And she does! Niko has texted her back, at last, asking her to join him in Poland. So while the rest of the team looks into the connection between the saffron murder and the 1978 killing (Dasha's) to which it was an homage, she heads off to save her marriage. Cut to Poland, as Eve pulls up to the little farm in a taxi, and spots Niko at the other end of the lane. She calls his name. He waves, tentatively — but he seems surprised to see her. I wonder why!

Well, whatever. There's a whole cast of characters on this show, remember, and we have to check in on all of them. Here's Villanelle, swanning around her apartment, eating pink batter out of a bowl. She's tried to bake a birthday cake for Eve, but it looks like something from Nailed It. Dasha arrives with good news: Villanelle is getting the promotion she's been longing for, and all she has to do, literally the only thing, is sit tight in Barcelona and avoid traveling.

Villanelle, following instructions? Well, you can give her credit for trying. She stays in Barcelona for about five minutes before Konstantin approaches her with a quid pro quo: if she kills Charles Kruger's widow, he'll tell her where to find her family. He also gives her more good news about Eve's relationship status.

"The mustache is gone?" Villanelle asks, and then, just to demonstrate how much this whole saga has upset her usually-impenetrable composure, she promptly develops an uncontrollable case of hiccups.

She's still hiccuping when she arrives at Mrs. Kruger's house, which leads to this show's weirdest interaction between predator and prey since Frank Haleton tried to negotiate his way out of an undignified bathroom death in season 1: Mrs. Kruger, not knowing that she's about to die, tries to cure Villanelle of her hiccups by scaring her, to Villanelle's delight and confusion (it's almost like she's thrilled to discover that she still has the capacity to be startled.) Cue a whimsical musical interlude as the two tiptoe through the tulips, literally, a fun little chasing game that ends when Villanelle finally catches her new friend and strangles her with the garden hose. But hey, for a couple of minutes there, it was good, clean fun!

Unfortunately, the fun ends here. By now, it's clear that all these storylines are taking place concurrently — and if you're wondering where Dasha has been during all this, get ready for some bad news. That shadow that came briefly into focus back in the cold open, lurking behind Niko? That was Dasha, who has been sent by her own keeper to "drive a wedge" between Eve and Villanelle. She's the one who's been texting Eve from Niko's stolen phone; she's the reason Niko seemed so surprised when Eve showed up. And she's the unseen shadow lurking behind Niko as the timelines converge upon this tragic moment.

Eve calls Niko's name.

Niko sees her, and waves, surprised.

And Dasha shoves a two-pronged pitchfork — the one she just adorned with a little ribbon and a card that reads, "Still got it!" — into Niko's neck.

The good news (or, perhaps, the straw we're delusionally grasping at to keep from losing our whole entire minds right now) is that the last time we see Niko, he's not dead! I mean, not completely. He's still twitching. Maybe we'll find out next week that [extreme Miracle Max voice] he's only mostly dead, and therefore slightly alive. Let's cling to that, shall we? And let's not dwell too deeply on the fact that Eve, instead of running to her husband, fell to her knees and watched him die (sorry, mostly die) from a distance, without ever touching him.

And for what it's worth, it doesn't end here. It ends here, wherever this is, as Villanelle gets off a train and stands alone on the platform. The only sign is written in the Cyrillic alphabet; we don't know where she is, except what the text overlay on the last shot tells us:

HOME.

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