Killing Eve: The Female Version of 24?

Killing Eve, a new drama airing Sundays at 8pm EST on BBC America, is a bit like the female-centric version of 24.  Only in this case, the villain is perhaps more interesting than the heroine.  Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh, of Grey's Anatomy fame) stars as Eve Polastri, a bored American MI5 agent working in London who yearns to be a part of the action.  She's mostly confined to desk duty, but she often likes to speak up and give her two cents during meetings, despite her superiors' obvious annoyance.  When her team begins investigating an assassin who's been taking out high-profile targets all over Europe, Eve's boss Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw), a dour and humor-less woman, recruits her to lead the investigation.  Eve is thrilled, but little does she know what she's in for.  The assassin, the ominously named Villanelle (Jodie Comer), is not your typical hit woman.  In the opening scene of the pilot, she playfully smiles at a young girl eating ice cream in a café, then knocks it into the girl's lap and laughs as she walks out.  She also playfully pretends to be dead to surprise and scare her handler Konstantin (Kim Bodnia) when he enters her apartment.  She's twisted, but also quirky and playful. 

Oh is magnetic onscreen, and she manages to convey more depth than what has been written for her character thus far, but the real star of the show is Comer as Villanelle.  She does bad things, but viewers still (in a way) root for her and want to know more about her backstory.  You can tell that Comer is absolutely relishing in the role, with every goofy grin and sly smile.  She's a badass but also a girly girl (as evidenced by her bright pink poofy dress in episode 2), a contradiction of sorts but also a statement about women in the modern world.  The kill scenes, especially in episode 2 (only 2 episodes have aired so far), are unique and extremely entertaining, if you are entertained by violent death on TV.  I am, and you can admit to it too (no judgement).  She takes out one man in his Tuscan villa with an antique hairpin in the eye, in one of the most gruesome death scenes I've ever seen on television.  In the same episode, she kills a perfume magnate with a poisoned fragrance that she lets the woman spray on herself, watching with a silent smile as the woman gasps for air and falls to the floor.  Finally, the European location settings on the show are breathtaking.  In just the first couple episodes the show visits London, Paris, Tuscany, and Berlin, giving viewers a sense of the European style and flair that serve as the backbone of the show.

It's hard to judge the long-term success of a show by just 2 episodes alone, but judging by what I've seen so far I'm hopeful that Killing Eve will become a modern action classic.  The show has already been renewed for season 2, so at the very least it will have a chance.  Eve has the potential to be a more restrained version of Jack Bauer, and Villanelle could easily go on to rival the best TV villains of all time, like the Trinity Killer on Dexter and King Joffrey on Game of Thrones.