I have a confession. I didn’t LOOOOOOVE Fleabag. I liked it, a lot. But I didn’t quite get the gushing and eulogising. They overdid the breaking the fourth wall thing, the hot priest was a selfish bastard, and there were a couple of continuity errors that bugged me. I know, I’m a prick. But it’s OK, because I still have a tremendous passion for Phoebe Waller-Bridge, it’s just that it’s channelled towards Killing Eve instead. God, I love that show. Less breath of fresh air, more bracing gust of sea breeze that knocks you off your feet. I adored everything about the first series – the flippancy, the killing, the outfits. And, unlike some people, I enjoyed the second series too, and developed a similar screenwriting crush on Emerald Fennell. There’s a question about whether it needed to be made, but they made it, I watched it, and it was a bloody sight better than most stuff on TV, so fine. Now there’s a third season, which might be stretching it, but if Harriet Walter’s doing the stretching (as Dasha, Villanelle’s former-gymnast slaying-trainer), then I’m good. This series also has a new showrunner, but Phoebe is still at the helm.

It starts well, with Dasha interrupting Villanelle’s wedding, causing a massive bunfight that sees them escaping in the bridal car, a fitting way to leave your new wife and run off with your ex-handler. Dasha wants to go back to Russia, and the price is tempting Villanelle back to work, which is difficult when she demands to be a ‘Keeper’ - a considerable step up for an unpredictable young assassin. She’s going to have to show she is worthy in a very dark kind of display, like one of Dasha’s acrobat routines, but with nifty slaughter.

Despite Villanelle declaring at her wedding that she’s much happier now Eve is dead, she obviously doesn’t mean that – either that she’s happier, or that she thinks Eve is dead. No assassin as talented and thorough as Villanelle would have left her mark bleeding out in Roman ruins without making sure. She meant to give Eve a fighting chance. And of course Eve is alive, though not well. She’s working in a Korean restaurant in New Malden, making Mandu as she listens to the lovelorn woes of fellow chefs, before drowning her own sorrows in red wine and tipsily texting Kenny do-you-remember photos of toilet roll. What I really love about Killing Eve is it gives all its characters a hinterland beyond the show. The kitsch ornaments that line Dasha’s Barcelona apartment, Carolyn Marten’s books and baths, Villanelle’s fierce fashion fetish - everything hints at the stuff they’re doing when you’re not watching them. Eve is spending most of her time eating Ramen noodles and getting pissed, while Villanelle dances round her apartment in a dressing gown, licking frosting off a spatula. STRONG LOCKDOWN IDENTIFY.

A Very Bad Thing happens at the end of the first episode – something unexpected, and horrible that pulls the rug from under your feet, reminding you this show has an iron fist in its Gucci glove. The perpetrator is probably Villanelle, or Dasha, or Konstantin or some other fun but brutal executioner, and I already know that whoever it is, I’ll forgive them, like I forgave (or forgot) when Villanelle killed Bill in Season 1. That’s what makes this better than most other things on telly – in Devs, last week, there were characters who’d had bad things happen to them, and I didn’t really care. In Killing Eve, the characters are often doing bad things, but I still care about them. And I guess that’s what having Fleabag in charge does for a show. She’s the Keeper, and she’s totally killing it.

• Killing Eve, Season 3, 8 episodes, BBC iPlayer
• Saving Missy, by Beth Morrey, narrated by Harriet Walter, available on Audible