All good things must come to an end. In the case of Killing Eve, all decently-good-binge-watch things must come to an end, too. Like most series finales, this one was bound to be disappointing in some way or another just by nature of bringing a multi-season plot (especially one that included such intricate details) to a close. As series finales go, Killing Eve’s is pretty average: incredibly rushed, yes, but it brought the series’ long running tension between its two leads to a close in a way that made sense.
Last week we left off with Eve about to be murdered on a remote island off of Scotland. Obviously, that doesn’t happen, and she and Villanelle escape the island and get on their way to this mysterious Twelve meeting with the hopes of bringing down the whole thing. They don’t have cell service and have to hike through some moors, where they run into a couple whose meet-cute was that the woman gave her now-boyfriend her kidney. She reads our leading duo’s tarot cards, and reveals that Villanelle’s future is “the sun,” apparently the most holy and awesome card to get, and Eve’s is “death.” Eve and Villanelle get bored of them and steal their van.
As any good road trip story must go, Eve and Villanelle (finally) kiss. Instead of feeling too climactic and overdone, it feels more like a goofy release of tension, and I give the show credit for doing it right. The film student in me feels obliged to mention that we appropriately break the 180-degree rule a few times as we enter this new territory in their relationship. For the first time, there seems to be a glimmer of happiness in our protagonists’ eyes: whatever they have is incredibly problematic and rooted in fear and murder, but the whole point of the show is that they are still completely obsessed with each other anyway. The arc feels complete in the right way, though it seemed a bit cheap to wait until the last twenty minutes of the show’s whole run for it to happen.
At this point, things take a turn. Eve and Villanelle run into Carolyn and Pam at The Barn Swallow bar, where they’re expecting to crash the meeting of The Twelve. Eve sort of thanks Carolyn for steering her life in this direction, and Villanelle weeps at the knowledge of Konstantin’s death. Eve gets word through the phone she stole of Gunn earlier that the meeting location has changed to a party boat, so she and Villanelle depart.
Turns out The Twelve have decided to crash a wedding. Eve and Villanelle are let on board with one of the grooms thinking Eve is the officiant, so she’s tasked with distracting the party while Villanelle takes care of The Twelve. Eve gives a speech obviously directed at Villanelle about how messiness and ugliness strengthens relationships, at which Villanelle heads downstairs to finish the job. After she gasses the catering service, she discovers The Twelve below deck and slaughters them all in one of the messiest montages I’ve ever seen. Horrible CGI blood spurts in slow motion as Twelve members, whose faces are never shown, are massacred by an unwavering Villanelle; shots of Eve dancing with the wedding party are spliced in randomly. Villanelle makes her way upstairs with a blood-stained shirt, and Eve meets her outside. Villanelle, relieved, tells her that the job is done. They embrace, their work finally over, just before Villanelle is sniped. They jump into the water, but it’s too late: Villanelle is dead. We see a watchful Carolyn say “jolly good” into a walkie-talkie as Villanelle’s body sinks to the bottom of the Thames and Eve, screaming, surfaces. The end.
The whole sequence on the boat was a mess. If the entire plot-level point of the show was to root out the Twelve and finish them, it was the most poorly executed climax I have ever seen. I am, perhaps controversially, glad that Villanelle died even if it played into the “bury your gays” trope that often sees queer characters killed off just after they experience happiness. Perhaps it would have been better if both had died. Even the death, though, felt hastily done and crammed into the last moments of the series. We never see its consequences on a seemingly forever alone Eve or on the assassin herself, Carolyn.
Part of the show’s uniqueness came from the fact that a different woman became the head writer for each season. Screenwriter supreme Phoebe Waller-Bridge set the bar impossibly high, but each subsequent season has lost its way a bit more each time. Though I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed Emerald Fennell’s second season, its centrality on big data psychopath Aaron Peel now feels remote and completely irrelevant. Last season’s inclusion of Carolyn’s other child, the insufferable Geraldine, feels similarly forgettable. The same goes for even some elements of this season: Konstantin’s daughter Irina being freed from prison, the existence of Pam, and the letter Konstantin left for Carolyn. Because the show was dealing with so many plots and head writers, some of those finer details got lost in the shuffle and were apparently forgotten about. Though a spinoff series has been announced, it doesn’t seem like any of those questions will be getting answered: it will focus on Carolyn’s earlier life during the Cold War, that we got a snippet of earlier this season.
Overall, Killing Eve was an awesome show. It became a mediocre one as the writing couldn’t match the quality of performances. The last season is getting more online hatred than it deserves, but some of that criticism is more than fair, especially regarding the horrid pacing. That said, it did accomplish what it needed to by finally resolving the tension between its charismatic leads. So… bare minimum?
Emmy is a big fan of all things TV and movies. Among her current favorites are The Matrix, Midsommar, Titane, and Fleabag. Catch her on Letterboxd @ewenstrup !