Management Sucks

"**Management Sucks**" is the second episode of the third season and 18th overall episode of *Killing Eve*.

## Summary

Eve and Carolyn are reeling. Eve strikes up an unlikely alliance with Kenny's colleagues at the Bitter Pill. Villanelle finds that management isn't all it's cracked up to be.

## Plot

Eve is about to have a smoke outside a bar. A bus with a banner reading "Worry, grief, regret, let it all go....." passes by. She drops her cigarette in a puddle. A man blows smoke towards her. He saw her talking to herself earlier and he has noticed she drinks a lot. She assures him she's not drunk. He follows her back inside and says it was just an observation. He thinks she's defensive. She loudly asks if he's always such a dick, disrupting Kenny's memorial service.

Konstantin orders a vodka. Eve is struggling to take off her raincoat and she asks him to order a gin for her. He heard about her miraculous recovery. Eve hates the service. Konstantin says Kenny chose it when he decided to jump off the roof. Eve doesn't believe he jumped. Konstantin urges her to stay quiet to respect the family. She knows he only cares about himself. As he walks off, Eve runs into the man from outside. She comments he has a smug face. She then overhears Bear talking about working with Kenny and as she starts asking him about Kenny, the man from outside joins them. He introduces himself as Jamie Hayward, the founder of the Bitter Pill. He tells her to come to him with her questions about Kenny. She walks off to the bathroom.

Audrey is crying in there as Eve gets in a stall. She takes Kenny's phone out of her bag and smiles at the picture of himself on the lockscreen. Carolyn enters the bathroom and tries to get into the unlocked stall, but Eve pushes back. Carolyn can't bring herself to deal with Audrey's grief and leaves.

Carolyn stares at a collage of pictures of Kenny. Konstantin briefly comforts her with a hand on her shoulder. She appreciates it but soon walks off. At the buffet, he meets Geraldine Stowton, Kenny's sister, who comments on their mother's lack of grief. Geraldine then remembers Konstantin from one of her mother's dinners where Konstantin comforted her as a girl when she was crying after a nightmare. Carolyn comes up and asks her daughter to have the dreary music changed. Carolyn tells Konstantin that her daughter moved in to help her with her grief. As the music changes, Carolyn catches Eve as she's about to leave. Eve hasn't responded to any of her messages. Carolyn asks if they can talk. Eve asks if she believes he jumped. Carolyn says yes. Eve leaves after screaming at her.

Villanelle strolls down the streets of Barcelona.

She enters a mansion. She checks the water pressure in different rooms and opens the door to the garden as she sings. As she inspects some furniture, Dasha told her she promised her the best. The mansion has everything Villanelle asked for.

Villanelle and Dasha are having lunch. Villanelle sees a beautiful woman walk by and comments she likes the neighborhood. Dasha says having lots of lovers is good. Villanelle only has to realize that they are different from those people. They can't have normal relationships. Dasha tells her she can't go down that path again. Villanelle maintains she dealt with it. Dasha says the Twelve are happy with her work. They want her to work with somebody first before she gets promoted. She will oversee a new recruit and give him orders.

At MI6, Carolyn and Mo are about to enter a meeting. He points out her blouse is buttoned up wrong. She claims she likes it like that and heads in. She sits down at the head of the table and greets her team. As she begins the meeting, Paul gets up from the ground and says they weren't expecting her so soon. She and Paul simultaneously start talking to different members of the team. As they both continue, Paul loudly calls for a break.

Once alone, Paul tells her it's too soon. She thinks it's her decision whether she's taking up leave or not. She deems herself fully capable of doing her job. He knows she thinks he's a self-serving prick. He says her son's death is bigger than the job. He thinks she has to start taking care of herself.

Konstantin meets with a messenger from the Twelve. He is told he is to stay put in London to keep an eye on Carolyn.

At work, Eve is told she has a visitor.

She and Carolyn sit down on the restaurant's small terrace. Carolyn starts with some small talk but Eve is not having it. Carolyn says they both know Kenny did not take his own life but she has to be discreet. People can't know she's looking into things. While she would do anything for Kenny to be alive again, Eve tells Carolyn she doesn't work for her anymore after what she did in Rome. Carolyn shows Eve a picture of the paprika-covered kill victim, which proves that Villanelle is alive and working again. Eve can't help Carolyn. Carolyn thought she'd want to know. On her way back to the kitchen, Eve throws up.

Dasha tells Villanelle she will be working with Felix Telep, who has shown great potential. Villanelle will have to guide him, make sure his plan is clean and his character work is strong. If he sucks, she has to encourage him. Villanelle would prefer to just have him watch her work. Dasha says management is not easy. Being a Keeper takes patience and responsibility. Villanelle says she has neither. Dasha points out they only give houses like these to the best. Dasha believes in her.

Eve is out drinking. She tries out some passcodes to unlock Kenny's phone. She receives a call from an unknown caller but she doesn't answer. She then receives texts addressing her directly and telling her to pick up. She answers the second call. It's Jamie. He tells her not to speak. They are tracking the phone and they both know she can't unlock it. As he tells her to bring it in, she hangs up. She receives another text telling her that she knows it's important.

Eve arrives at Bitter Pill. Bear tells her they didn't know for sure she had the phone but the police didn't find it and Eve was the last person at the office. They enter Jamie's office. Eve says the phone stays with her. Jamie asks her what Kenny was working on. She dodges and asks why he hired Kenny. He replies Kenny had integrity, worked for MI6 and was a whiz online. She thinks Jamie wanted him to look into something specific but he assures her their investigators chose their own stories. Jamie tells her the longer she keeps the phone, the colder Kenny's death grows to be. Eve demands to see the files that Kenny was working on in exchange for the phone. Jamie concedes. Eve hands them the phone.

At a bus stop at the Côte d'Azur, Villanelle meets Felix. She comments on his youthful looks. He assures her that he's tough. He grew up with five older brothers and beat the crap out of all of them. Villanelle says anyone can fight; it takes a special person to kill. Felix says he took out the entire family and dance teacher of a kid that bullied him.

Villanelle tells Felix she's a big deal in the industry so he'll have to follow every order. She will kill him if he makes her look bad. He's excited about the travel that the job comes with. She asks about the bully. The kid beat up his boyfriend. After everything Felix had done, his boyfriend was done with him. It's the worst when someone you love doesn't love you back.

Konstantin pretends to run into Geraldine by accident at a newsagent's shop. She's sorry that she didn't get to say goodbye at the funeral but as a hyperempathic person, she was overwhelmed. She asks if he's staying in England long. He says he has some unfinished business. He shows her the magnet he was about to send to his daughter. She comments she used to collect magnets like that as a kid. Carolyn used to bring her and Kenny little bottles of booze from the countries she visited. Konstantin hands her the magnet, which makes her emotional. Moments of kindness mean a lot to her right now.

Villanelle and Felix show up at a kid's birthday party dressed as clowns. The child that opened the door runs away when he sees them.

As they blow up balloons for the kids in the garden, they observe their target. A girl asks Villanelle for two balloons. With a helium voice, Villanelle tells her that life is shit and to get used to it. As their target heads into the house by himself, Villanelle tells Felix to stick to the plan, a clean and clinical cut behind the ear. Felix follows the man inside.

Inside, Felix reveals the knife hidden inside his clown honk and considers it for a moment before heading into the bathroom.

Villanelle closely listens from the garden. Once it has taken too long for her liking, she starts walking up to the house. Children start following her so she turns around to scream at them. They scatter.

Inside, she finds Felix beating up the man. Felix tells her he improvised. Villanelle then shoots both the target and Felix. She comments that management sucks.

At Bitter Pill, Bear reveals some things he found on the phone, including pictures of Kenny and Audrey. Bear isn't surprised as Kenny started wearing deodorant. Bear is glad he was 'getting some' before he died. Uncovering the rest is going to take a while as Kenny knew what he was doing. Eve asks Jamie for the thumb drive with the files of Kenny's investigation. Jamie says the police have it as it was in his pocket. Eve grabs the phone and starts to leave. Jamie wonders aloud why she deems herself so crucial in the investigation into his death. He thinks she may be too scared to admit that Kenny may just have been an unhappy kid. He wonders why she would walk away from this if she didn't believe it was suicide. She leaves anyway. She stops at Audrey's desk but Jamie calls her into his office.

Audrey meets with Carolyn. As they walk, Carolyn says they briefly met at the funeral. Carolyn wants to ascertain that Kenny was happy. Audrey knows he was. She shares that he would sing to himself while he was on the loo. He also loved his new job. He did miss Carolyn. He said nobody kicked his ass like she did. Carolyn says she could be hard on him. Audrey says her mother used to tell her she was brilliant at everything, even when she wasn't. She wasted four years trying to become an artist with no talent. Sometimes someone being hard on you isn't a bad thing. Carolyn says the ancient Celts used to mourn death by wailing and shrieking. It was a public ritual. They weren't embarrassed by it. She says Audrey shouldn't feel embarrassed either.

Carolyn is listening to Dido's Lament in her car in the parking garage. Mo gets in with her. She turns the music down. She doesn't think there's any point to coming in to work because she's not allowed to do her work. There is also no point in going home as Geraldine has taken over the house and she wants to talk. She has her sandwiches so she can just sit in the car for a while. She turns the music back up and comments Dido's death was terrible. She turns off the music and says she can't investigate Kenny's death. She quietly weeps over her son's death.

Geraldine opens the door for Eve. She came to see Carolyn. Carolyn sends Geraldine away. Carolyn is not up to be berated after the day she's had. Eve tells her she has Kenny's phone. She needs to know who killed Kenny. Carolyn says when someone dies in the field, they can fuel you, in a good way. This is different. Eve understands. Carolyn pours herself another drink. She misses Kenny's smell. Eve asks Carolyn to get a hold of it. Unbeknownst to them, their conversation is listened in on through a mic hidden in the magnet Konstantin gave Geraldine, now stuck to the fridge.

Villanelle comes home from her trip to France and finds a note from Dasha saying her fridge has been stocked. As she starts unpacking, Konstantin comes up and compliments her new home. She starts throwing stuff at him and yells that he does not get to visit without an invitation anymore. He gives in and politely asks if he may visit, prompting Vilannele to kick him in the crotch and say she'll think about it. He says he missed her. She tells him about her promotion. Konstantin can't believe that she's trusting Dasha after what she did to her. Villanelle points out there would not be anybody left if she were to kill everybody who betrayed her. Konstantin says he had no choice in Rome. Now that she's back with the Twelve, she has to know she's not in control. Also, Eve is alive. He saw her with his own eyes. Her emotions swirl as he tells her not to go to London. She claims she's fine and tells him to go. As he goes to leave, she asks how he knows she's back with the Twelve. He never stopped working for them. He claims he cares about her and leaves. Villanelle starts laughing as she lets the news sink in.

## Cast

### Starring

* Sandra Oh as Eve Polastri
* Jodie Comer as Villanelle
* Fiona Shaw as Carolyn Martens
* Raj Bajaj as Mo Jafari
* Turlough Convery as Bear
* Steve Pemberton as Paul Bradwell
* Danny Sapani as Jamie Hayward
* Gemma Whelan as Geraldine Stowton
* Harriet Walter as Dasha Duzran
* Kim Bodnia as Konstantin Vasiliev

### Guest Starring

* Ayoola Smart as Audrey
* Sally Guinness as Taxi Driver
* Chan Woo Lim as Kitchen Worker #2
* Sunny Yeo as Waitress
* Anthony Shin as Kitchen Worker #1
* Stefan Iancu as Felix

## Notes and Trivia

* This is the first episode to feature an opening title sequence. It was used again, albeit with a different color scheme, for Beautiful Monster.

## Gallery

### Video

Management Sucks Killing Eve Next Sunday at 9pm BBC America and AMCSneak Peek Management Sucks Killing Eve Sundays at 9pm BBC America & AMCCloser Look Management Sucks Killing Eve Sunday at 9pm BBC America & AMC

## See Also

 **#02** | "**Management Sucks**"
 **#03** | "Meetings Have Biscuits"
 **#04** | "Still Got It"