i was thinking about Killing Eve – and wondering about kindness in it, its often not there yet in a way its central in its absence
her old boss, of the Berlin nightclub scene, there was kindness there (not in that scene), and as something they (Eve and he) could play against at times
her hubby, kindness there too — but is she taking that for granted, was he reminding her last night, is Eve in rebellion against it?
Villanelle seems to be, mistrustful of it – needing it, certain of it when she’s not kind in a way
she and her boss in playful kindnesses and playfights in the context of their barren realities
The Ghost given a kind of kindness maybe
lots of situations set up for kindness that becomes impossible
but what is kindness maybe a better question – is it love, substitute that word above and i’m struck, maybe its love’s absence, hunt for, despair at its loss that is holding all of it together, holding all together, yet somehow present in/through/despite all those misconceptions of it, misappropriations, actions in its name withholding it? impossible to hold as it makes vulnerable in a world agreed to be harsh to it?
what’s found in these faulty methodologies that may be seeking it somehow even in rejecting it – is found to be utterly empty — and so, hey, on they go again, a new project to hold onto, repeat, repeat, repeat, giving what it gives, a sense of progress, that just brings more emptiness, only the certainty of having bottomed that particular emptiness
Vilanelle crying, Eve too in the mirror, her boss lurking behind — may they become their opposite? dare they write them turning inside out, something for Villanelle miraculous, do we have ways that way now — and as to Eve’s fall?
and all this a mirror for us all
do we dare to see any escape from their entanglements and reciprocities — is this what all our advances have brought us to, in practice no other way?
A. H / K. H-H (30th June 2019)
a blind catch in the sun 
lots of the situations are striking me right now as set up for kindness or love to be there — sharing dinner, playful conversations, bringing hubby breakfast in bed — but that’s not what’s there or not quite what’s there, instead there are charades of it before we see it is not there — and sometimes people need it and are drawn on in the charade only to find it cruelly taken, as they were unable to get off some narrative they had . . .
Carolyn and Konstantin sharing a meal and a laugh, we enter amidst their intimacy in a way (based on laughter it seemed at another, at experience, sure in their certainties) — Konstantin though holding on in his heart to his family, asks a favour to be dismissed ‘do not ask me again’ — the clarity this gives a man who has been shot (?) and is in such loss, surely part of how he comes to act as he does, surely another valid reason to stay on a certain path, another rejection instead of embrace
but we, I, kind of expect it to be there, in fact surely they all do too, its why they keep creating these situations, to kind of have it there with them whilst they mull on how they are not holding i and must hold something else (??) – and that brings attention to this outside the show, for me
and Villanelle as a work of art set on always destroying such invitations to perfections as she does not believe what they hold is real, or safe, certain of our uncertainty and imperfection, she’s proving herself right to herself in each of these situations as she’s not known anything else, anything right in imperfection, uncertain, holding true unfashionably . . . and superficially she is correct, but wholly ignorant of something else, or unable to accept it . . .
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its unkindness that’s given certainties and rewards! those protecting us from it fascinated and threatened by it, drawn into its language
and how its pointing out, is it, that this has become the language of so much between us
that amidst those situations that suddenly shock us by their horrific turns we realise, i realise, when was i that we had any sense amidst their reasonableness that love was lost
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