Orchestrating a project with female protagonists in it is no unprecedented, unattained or some watermark matter anymore- however, the mark of an exceedingly good show lies in how vividly its makes deliver it to our tables, of course with a sheen of finesse. Killing Eve rises above from a sea of clichéd, scripted stories to grab some spotlight as an avant garde entrant to the club.

Adapted from Juke Lennings novellas “Codename Villanelle” is a detective thriller with a patina of exoticism that keeps us spellbound and asking for more.  The show follows the story to the line and gives a peek into a fierce, quicksilver and highly uncanny and dark trail that leads in the lives of all dramatis personae.

Oxana Vorontsova is a woman with an arresting charm but hold on, she also possesses a sense of strikingly engulfing killer vibe to herself. Whatever names you can add to danger as synonyms, you can’t miss out hers to top that list. She is a source of fright, a walking and breathing embodiment of threat; every brick of the city was under control or at least seemed so as long as she was confined to the walls of the Russian prison until one day- Oxana masterminds a gaol-break and sets herself out in the city air. This is when the bomb starts ticking, Oxana re-emerges as Villanelle- a lethal, professional liquidator who soon sets havoc, but, with her idiosyncratic touch of glamour to it.

This marks the need and beckoning of Eve Polastri, a headstrong, astute and streetwise Intelligence Officer with all the necessary skills on point to bring her prey down. Until Villanelle set the course of things to an obvious chase, Eve’s life was growing increasingly complacent but making her fidgety and restless, given she had to spend most of her time parked behind the desk. As their orbits collide, the two leading ladies are way too invested and obsessed on a mission to outdo each other.

The show closely follows their plans, the predator-prey chase and high-intense drama that their lives are. It’s a cloak and dagger world and there’s no escaping the actions and their denouements.

In terms of deliverance, the show inches progressively- a bumpy, not up to snuff start and after a few episodes takes that leap of excellence and the entire mood of the show to vibe on an altogether different, engaging tangent. For the Luke Jenning’s book club devotees, both the ladies of the show Jodie Comer as Villanelle and the Grey’s Anatomy star Sandra Oh as Eve Polastri make a perfect sweep in their roles.  Waller Bridge has undoubtedly put up a dogged determination as also a sensible stance in creating this project- she admits defying raised eyebrows upon casting all-females for the show. But as it turns out, the show as much as the novella pretty much has our hearts.