Killing Eve's dark series one denouement saw Eve intimately stab Villanelle in the stomach, leaving fans contemplating how that act of brutality will affect their opaque relationship going forward into season two.
The award-winning show's producer Sally Woodward Gentle has revealed that they spoke with a psychologist to determine how a psychopath like Jodie Comer's Villanelle would interpret the stabbing, and whether it would fuel her lust for Eve, or deter it. Or if it could end up being a combination of both.
The new series returns to the scene of the crime 30 seconds later, with Eve once again chasing after Villanelle on the cobbled streets of Paris. But what will happen between the pair if they find each other again?
"We spoke to a psychologist who is used to working with psychopaths and we said, 'what would that stabbing mean?' and he said, 'well it could actually mean several things'," executive producer Woodward Gentle told the audience at a screening for the new series.
"It could raise a fury and a sense of revenge in her, or it could confirm everything that she thought, which is that there's this great intimacy between them, and now they're bonded. It could confirm everything that she believed - that they have have a very special relationship. We play off both of those possibilities as we run through the series."
Comer - who won a BAFTA for her performance as the Russian assassin last weekend - revealed that she presumed Villianelle would instantly seek revenge, and had to leave her own judgement of how she would behave behind.
"I was thinking, 'it's payback time!', and everyone was like, 'no, no, no...'" the Doctor Foster star explained. "Even for Villanelle, for that to happen for her, she still separates it and sees something else entirely and a connection between the two of them. And believes that she understands why Eve did it.
"It was so true to the character. It was Jodie that was like, 'it's payback time!' And I had to leave Jodie at the door."
Call the Midwife actress Emerald Fennell takes over from Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge on writing duties for the cat and mouse spy thriller, with Waller-Bridge recently saying that Fennell has put her own spin on the show with her unique style and sense of humour.
"Emerald is such a badass," the writer and actress said after collecting her BAFTA for Best Drama for Killing Eve. "It was painful and hard moving away from a project that was like family, but seeing Emerald take it on - it was was so cool to hand things over and have other people's input.
"[The second season] is fantastic and it feels so brilliant because Emerald's voice is so unique."
Killing Eve will be available as a boxset on BBC's iPlayer in June.
Naomi Gordon is news writer mainly covering entertainment news with a focus on celebrity interviews and television.
