Do we like them?

Do we like Villanelle?

A character from Killing Eve (2018–2022)

Our score: 3 out of 10. Magnetic, funny and great company on screen, but she kills for fun. We'd gladly watch her, but we wouldn't give her our spare key.

Villanelle is a young Russian woman who was abandoned as a child and now works as an elite contract killer. Her job pays for a life of designer clothes and a Paris apartment. The series, created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge from Luke Jennings' novellas, follows her game of cat and mouse with Eve Polastri, an overlooked British intelligence officer who becomes convinced a female assassin is behind a string of killings.

Villanelle is playful, theatrical and quick-witted. She is also manipulative and has almost no empathy, so she copies emotions rather than feeling them. Eve is one of the few people who sees through the act, and that fascinates her. Her mix of charm and menace is why audiences took to her. It is also why we can't call her a hero. Her kills are cold, and she often finds them funny.

Her score is 3 because she is so watchable, and because she slowly shows she can want connection and change. But she keeps doing terrible things along the way. We'd cheer for her to get away with a witty line, not with a murder.

By the end, her bond with Eve becomes the heart of the show, and the finale gives their story a bittersweet, controversial close. It doesn't erase what she's done.