both.

in season 1, when we’re introduced to eve, we quickly learn that she’s bored. with her job, with her marriage, and to an extent, with herself. she gets hooked on v not only because of the woman herself, but also because of what v represents. v is fully herself, and owns it, in a way eve doesn’t and maybe never has. primarily, eve wants more out of her life (“trouble’s not interested in me,” eve tells bill, and it comes off like she wants it to be). following villanelle’s tail helps her achieve that.

we see in season 1 that most people around eve think they know her and/or seek to constrain her. there’s bill and frank, who both greatly disapprove of eve speaking out about a possible female assassin (for differing reasons). there’s niko, who has an idealized version of eve in his mind (during one of their many fights, he says he knows her, that the eve who’s hellbent on going after v is not her; we the audience know how wrong he is). there’s carolyn, who notices eve’s disillusionment and uses it for her own reasons that still aren’t that clear. there’s also villanelle, who’s intrigued by eve and what she’s hiding beneath the surface---but in the season 1 finale, she still hasn’t figured it all out.

throughout season 1, eve is going against everyone’s beliefs and presumptions about her. she’s always breaking the rules, or at the least bending them. we see it in the first episode when eve does her own digging into the case presented to her to the point of risking the life of a minor, which ends in her losing her job. it also results in carolyn providing her another job, this one much more covert and dangerous.

all this culminates in the final scene of the season 1 finale, where eve presses a knife into villanelle’s stomach. villanelle is completely confident that eve won’t do it, that she can’t, because she too thinks she knows exactly who eve is. “you can’t.” “i can,” eve declares, moments before stabbing villanelle and proving her wrong.

i don’t see this eve in season 2. i caught glimpses of her, but season 2′s eve doesn’t have the same intensity. she’s not the same woman who tricked her husband into thinking she was having a severe nightmare, just for shits and giggles. she’s not the same woman who constantly toed the line, feeling confined in her boring life but afraid of what lingers outside of it and who she is when she’s not eve polastri, mi5 / mi6 agent. she’s not the same woman who stabbed villanelle, defying the labels and beliefs placed upon her by other characters.

in season 2, eve feels too much like she’s fixated on villanelle and villanelle specifically. it’s obvious that i ship them, seeing as their ship name is part of my url, but i feel like there was too much of an emphasis put on them. villanelle got an intriguing plotline about her psychopathy, and feelings, and whether she has them or not. but i don’t think eve was afforded a similar amount of consideration.

“don’t forget, eve, the most interesting thing about you is me,” villanelle tells her, and i don’t agree. eve was a force of nature, all on her own, in season 1. however, in season 2... it’s almost as if villanelle is right. which is why, although i enjoyed season 2, i’m not satisfied with the places it went with eve. for me, there just wasn’t enough exploration of her as her own person, outside of villanelle and their dangerous, addicting relationship.