The relationship between Hannibal and Will from NBC’s Hannibal paved the way for Eve and Villanelle’s romantic cat-and-mouse dynamic in Killing Eve. Both series focus heavily on dark topics of murder, moral corruption, and the ins and outs of crime-solving. Amid a proverbial battle between good and evil, both shows also explore the overarching intimacy between the two couples.
While hunting down a powerful assassin’s network called the Twelve, Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) attempts to suppress her romantic feelings toward Villanelle (Jodie Comer), an assassin she was originally hired to identify. Throughout Killing Eve, Eve is proven to be tempted by Villanelle’s dark nature and seductive confidence. The push-and-pull of dark and light sensibilities working against one another while incidentally enticing is just as notable in Hannibal where Special Agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) questions if he should be catching Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) or running away with him. In the series finale of Hannibal, following three seasons of their own cat-and-mouse game, Will comes to accept his own killer instincts after murdering the Great Red Dragon alongside Hannibal in a twisted and sensually elevated display of violence. The final season of Killing Eve draws closer to a culmination of the sexual tension and romantic feelings developed gradually throughout Villanelle and Eve’s equally destructive journey.
Pertaining to the relationship between Eve and Villanelle, Killing Eve puts into play various elements from Hannibal which makes that series starkly original and expands upon them. A theme shared between the shows reflects on the consequence that comes from giving in to the devil on one’s shoulder. Villanelle and Hannibal Lecter are both villains coded to fit the trope of the seductive tempter as they are depicted to be enablers of evil, as well as prolific murderers. They are portrayed as lonely individuals due to this lifestyle and gullible to the idea of finding someone to share it with. Will Graham and Eve Polastri, foils of their violent counterparts, have a unique trait that allows them to understand, connect to, and accept these otherwise irredeemable characters. Will harbors significantly high empathy and Eve is an expert in the field of female assassins. Because of the drastic differences between the characters’ motivations in their respective shows, both relationships get caught up in the will-they-won’t-they trope in regard to romantic advancements. Despite this, the series do not shy away from exploring their fatal connections in depth.
Hannibal was praised for its unique evolution of an intimate relationship between two men, with both Will and Hannibal non-conforming in their beliefs about good evil by their story’s resolution. Love narratively battles with contempt, another major shared theme between the shows; by accepting the good in someone, one must also accept the bad. As Will Graham mentions in Hannibal season 3, it is a “mutually unspoken pact to ignore the worst in each other to continue enjoying the best.” That notion is replicated in Killing Eve by the way Eve’s romantic feelings for Villanelle continue to spiral after countless betrayals. Killing Eve shares the accomplishment of turning subtext into text by Killing Eve season 3’s ending after Eve advances her relationship with Villanelle into overt romanticism by impulsively kissing her after a physical fight. Though they continue to return to a pattern of unspoken attraction and rejection, their relationship is leaning toward a revelation of mutual understanding much like Hannibal’s finale achieved.
Killing Eve and Hannibal’s LGBTQ+ representation has naturally been called into question for either being too transparent or open-ended in relation to same-sex love. The dialogue in Hannibal is criticized for its vague establishment of character motivations and plot, and Killing Eve’s final season is being critiqued for steering back from its focal couple. While both shows are undoubtedly sources for complex LGBTQ+ storytelling, the backlash indicates not everyone is satisfied with them. For better or worse, Villanelle and Eve’s tragic romance is particularly evocative of Hannibal and Will’s, and both have become staples in queer media. Killing Eve acts almost like a sister show to Hannibal, having followed in the footsteps of dramatizing an erotic and fatal courtship.
New episodes of Killing Eve release Sundays on AMC.
