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After serving up one of the most shocking cliffhangers in its three seasons, Killing Eve’s Are You From Pinner? pressed a momentary pause on the main drama, with an episode solely dedicated to Villanelle.
For years now, fans have yearned to know more about the assassin’s backstory, and this was finally addressed as she tracked down her birth mother in rural Russia.
We saw her mother Tatiana tearfully realising the daughter she’d believed to have been dead after dying in an orphanage fire was alive after all.
But while things started off well – with Villanelle even showing some rare signs of emotion towards brother Pyotr and half-brother Bor’ka – it wasn’t happy families for too long.
It was quickly revealed that Tatiana was not the cuddly mum she’d presented herself as, becoming verbally abusive to young Bor’ka, and later ordering Villanelle to leave the house, saying: “You not a part of this family. You do not belong here.”
An exchange between mother and daughter revealed Tatiana had abandoned Villanelle as a kid, as her father was worried she would harm them all.
When Tatiana then refused to acknowledge that Villanelle’s darkness came from her, the assassin killed her mother and her step-family by blowing up their farm house.
But with Villanelle giving her two brothers a reprieve, there were a lot of questions that needed answering as the credits rolled...
Who is Villanelle’s father and what happened to him?
The whereabouts of Villanelle’s father was kind of left ambiguous in Are You From Pinner?, although it was heavily implied he had died after Villanelle went into care.
However, is he really dead? We now know that Tatiana was a liar, and so she could have also been hiding what really happened to her ex-husband. If he is alive – and we firmly believe he is – his identity surely has to be significant, so could we be about to meet him too?
Will Villanelle recruit Pyotr as her protégé?
With Villanelle still keen to climb up The Twelve’s organisation and become a handler, we think she may have just found the perfect protégé in brother Pyotr.
We saw that he too has a dark side, which he is currently controlling by beating up old furniture, and Villanelle revelled in encouraging him to take his anger out on people instead.
Considering she spared him from death in the house fire, it’s probably not the last we’ve seen of him, and it would be amazing to see Villanelle nurture her non-existent management skills on her younger bro. We only hope he’s better suited to the job than Felix was in Management Sucks.
Is everyone in the house definitely dead?
It’s looking pretty likely, but the possibility one (or more) of them is still alive is also definitely something to consider – especially as we now know Villanelle has survived a fire herself.
Could they seek deadly revenge on Villanelle at a time when Eve will likely be after her blood too, following Niko’s demise?
How will this episode change Villanelle?
We’ve never seen Villanelle show any sort of remorse or emotion after killing any of her victims – not even when she walked away from a motionless Eve after shooting her in the Colosseum.
However, after killing her mother and her step-family, she was later seen having some sort of emotional breakdown on a train out of town.
Was this just a rare moment, or an indication that the character is softening?
Jodie Comer, who plays Villanelle, hinted at changes afoot for her character in an interview with TV Line, stating: “It becomes more apparent to me that the more we go on with each season, the more we can’t stick to formulas that may have worked in season one.
“It’s hard to keep that up and it not get tedious. We have to grow with her. We have to listen to what it is she’s saying and what she’s experiencing. And I think that felt true to where she’s at right now.”
Will Bor’ka get to see Elton John?
After being left a bundle of cash from Villanelle to finally go and see his hero, we really hope we’re going to get to see little Bor’ka doing his best Rocketman at an Elton gig in a future episode.
Have we seen All Around somewhere before?
Yula and her pals’ performance act definitely looked like something we’ve seen Britain’s Got Talent’s David Walliams press his Golden Buzzer for before.
Episode six of Killing Eve drops on BBC iPlayer next Monday at 6am.