Anyone with a heart couldn’t fail to be moved by Villanelle’s agony at having to slide her feet into a pair of Crocs in the first episode of season two’s Killing Eve, which hit BBC One screens last night.

Murder, deceit, cruelty, a dagger to the gut – nothing comes close to the pain this fashionista with a firearm appeared to feel upon realising that her sartorial choices were to suffer if she wanted to survive. Such are the compromises this irrepressible assassin may have to learn to endure.

The return to our screens of the charismatic Killing Eve character who gives zero f*cks is long overdue. Here is a woman who meets the beauty standard, but whose lack of interest in male sexual attention in a society where women’s acceptability is so often invested in their ability to conform to sexual and gender norms, is wholly refreshing. Rarely has a female character been less in need of “saving” than she. In almost every sense, Villanelle is deviant and I’m an absolute sucker for the underdog.

While the award-winning show has been critiqued for being yet another example of how queer women are portrayed as mad, bad and dangerous, I consider Villanelle to be an indisputable delight. Is she a psychopath? Undoubtedly.

Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Show all 11 1 /11 Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Jodie Comer (Villanelle) Jodie Comer has wowed fans as everyone’s favourite assassin Villanelle and it’s not the first time she’s taken on a challenging role. She starred as abducted teenager Ivy Moxam in the BBC series Thirteen (2016) and played a 23-year-old mistress in Doctor Foster (2015-17). She’s set to join a star-studded cast in action-comedy Free Guy and will be directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (both in 2020). Getty Images for BBCAmerica Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Sandra Oh (Eve Polastri) Before she joined MI5 (and later MI6) as Eve Polastri, Sandra Oh was best known for playing Dr Cristina Yang in Grey’s Anatomy (2005-14). She had a smaller role as Vice Principal Gupta in teen flick The Princess Diaries (2001), and voiced Hiko Yoshida and Katie in American Dad! (2005-13). Oh’s next project will see her working alongside Seth Rogan in Amazon’s animated series, Invincible (2020). Getty Images for AMC Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Fiona Shaw (Carolyn Martens) Fiona Shaw was killing it on screen long before she starred as MI6 boss Carolyn Martens. The Irish actor was cast in the 1998 version of The Avengers and played Petunia Dursley in five of the eight Harry Potter films. She also had a cameo in the second series of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s other TV success story Fleabag (2019). Shaw is currently filming the drama Ammonite, which stars Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet, and is due for release in 2020 (US). Getty Images Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Kim Bodnia (Konstantin) Against the odds, it looks like Kim Bodnia's character Konstantin has made it to series two of Killing Eve. Villanelle’s cool and collected handler starred in a number of foreign-language films and TV shows before Waller-Bridge’s series, including Danish crime drama The Bridge (2011-18). He has finished filming After the Harvest II, which is yet to announce a release date. Getty Images Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Sean Delaney (Kenny Stowton) RADA graduate Sean Delaney is new on the acting scene. Prior to landing a role as an MI6 computer whiz in Killing Eve, Delaney starred in the daytime mystery drama Midsomer Murders (2016). Twitter Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Kirby Howell-Baptiste (Elena Felton) Killing Eve has put Kirby Howell-Baptiste on the map. She previously landed a number of smaller roles in shows such as the Netflix series Love (2016-18) and House of Lies (2015), which also stars Kristen Bell. She now has credits including the HBO crime comedy Barry (2018) and The Good Place (2018-19), and she is set to star in the Veronica Mars reboot (2019). Getty Images for The Critics' Ch Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series David Haig (Bill Pargrave) We were all shouting at our screens when Bill Pargrave met his sorry end in Killing Eve. Fans of actor David Haig need not fear – they can also see him as short-tempered spin doctor Steve Fleming in The Thick of It as well the much-loved Richard Curtis romcom Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). Haig will next appear in the forthcoming adaptation of TV series Downton Abbey, due for release September 2019. Getty Images Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Darren Boyd (Frank Haleton) It’s hard to forget Frank’s sticky end in Killing Eve – sorry to remind you. Prior to his stint as an MI5 boss, Darren Boyd enjoyed a number of cameo roles in well-known films such as Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016) and The World’s End (2013). He also starred in medical drama Green Wing (2006) and satirical dark comedy Four Lions (2010), which follows four incompetent British terrorists. He recently made an appearance in the Anna Paquin comedy series Flack (2019). Getty Images Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Owen McDonnell (Niko Polastri) Irish actor Owen McDonnell, who plays Eve's less-exciting relationship prospect, has previously appeared in small roles in big British shows such as Spooks (2009) and Silent Witness (2014). He also starred as Michael Coyne in the BBC series My Mother and Other Strangers in 2016. BBC America Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Edward Bluemel (Hugo) Before the second season of Killing Eve, new kid on the block Edward Bluemel has appeared in war drama The Halcyon (2017), A Discovery of Witches (2018) and successful Netflix comedy Sex Education (2019). He has also been cast in the comedy How to Build a Girl, based on the novel by Caitlin Moran. It is due for release in the US in 2019. Getty Images Killing Eve: Meet the cast of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s killer TV series Nina Sosanya (Jess) A new face for season two, Nina Sosanya is most recognisable for playing the prime minister’s chief of staff Annie in Love Actually (2003). She was also a star of the BBC series Last Tango in Halifax (2012-15) and has made appearances on shows such as Silent Witness, Vera (both 2012) and Marcella (2016). She has been cast in the fantasy series Good Omens, alongside David Tennant, due for release in May 2019. Getty Images

Granted – Villanelle is probably not someone you want in your life, but her charm, comic timing and panache leave me, like so many others, utterly seduced. I’m no more excited by violence than the average person, but representations of women with power (even when this is abused) are so rare, that when we’re presented with one – particularly one as compelling as Villanelle – it makes Eve’s obsession with her completely understandable – and she’s not even queer.

Or is she?

In a recent interview with Gay Times, Sandra Oh’s response to the suggestion of romance between MI5 agent Eve Polastri and Villanelle led to accusations of queerbaiting: a term used to describe when a show leads an audience to believe that a character is queer to titillate and attract new viewers without ever developing this beyond hints.

“You guys are tricky because you want to make it into something … but it just isn’t,” said Oh.

To dismiss the palpable sexual tension between these two characters is naïve, and for Oh to categorically deny the possibility of any romance between the pair struck me as bizarre – but I don’t necessarily believe the show is guilty of queerbaiting.

Villanelle is played as an openly queer woman; her ex-partner even makes an appearance in season one. Eve – whose sexuality has never been clarified thus far – is clearly infatuated by Villanelle and I suspect Eve’s feelings for the assassin are as muddied and complicated as the viewers.

When Eve comes clean with Villanelle about her fixation at the end of season one, words effusively falling from her lips, Villanelle’s response clears up any ambiguity about her feelings towards Eve: “I think about you all the time. I think about what you’re wearing, and what you’re doing, and who you’re doing it with. I think about the friends you have, I think about what you eat before you go to work, and what shampoo you have, and what happened in your family. I think about your eyes and your mouth, and what you feel when you kill someone, I think about what you have for breakfast. I just want to know everything,” bleats Eve.

“I think about you, too. I mean, I masturbate about you a lot,” deadpans Villanelle.

Eve’s admiration for Villanelle seems to grow in conjunction with her increasing body count and ability to escape evasion, telling her colleague: “She is outsmarting the smartest of us, and for that she deserves to do or kill whoever the hell she wants.” As women in male-dominated worlds, who both share a passion for their work, their similarities aren’t perhaps as different as we might initially assume. Villanelle excels at her work and both Eve and the viewer can’t help but respect her for it.

Romanticising a (fictional) serial killer in this way might sit uncomfortably with many observers, but when she’s as exciting and fun as this, it’s hard to resist. While her behaviour is unquestionably reprehensible, she also represents freedom, however twisted.

Writer and producer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, seems to agree. Speaking to Andrew Marr in March, she said: “Seeing women be violent – the flipside of that – there’s something instantly refreshing and oddly empowering.

“We’re being allowed to see women on slabs the whole time and being beaten up,” said Waller-Bridge, adding that people are “slightly exhausted from seeing women being “brutalised on screen”.

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I’d also argue that fictional violent women on screen simply aren’t as much of a concern as violent men. When it comes to life imitating art, the number of women imprisoned in the UK for violent crime is incredibly low, compared with men. Dr Mark Freestone, a lecturer in psychiatry who was recruited to assist the Killing Eve writing team create a believable psychopath in Villanelle, said that female psychopaths are “as rare as hen’s teeth”.

This doesn’t make their offences any less serious, however, but the joy of programming like this is the opportunity it provides us to suspend reality from the safety of our living rooms. Villanelle’s violence is often cartoon-like, accompanied by her droll comments and childish faux concern. Viewers should also be reassured by the fact that the likelihood of falling victim to a female assassin in real life is mighty slim.

Rather than queerbaiting, Killing Eve is simply continuing to keep its audience on its toes by building tension between its two protagonists, who happen to be women. It’s impossible to say if equivalent friction between straight male and female actors would be as effective, but I’m more than content to watch it play out. A lack of rounded and realistic representations of queer women on our screens means that when they do appear, it’s easy to critique them for their failure to reach the impossible standard of being all things to all people.