I am so mad: A review of Killing Eve, Season 4

I am so mad. Killing Eve is my show. My show for 3 years. I have a Killing Eve sweatshirt, phone case, 2 shirts, pajamas, a sticker, a poster… I love Killing Eve more than almost anything else. It’s been there for me forever, and I can’t thank it enough. But this is really, really bad. I knew this would happen since about episode 3 of this season. For those of you who haven’t seen it (and extremely severe spoilers right about now), Villanelle dies. At the very end. She and Eve are doing great, they’ve finally made up, they’ve killed all of the remaining members of the 12, and Villanelle gets shot by Carolyn, or someone Carolyn is ordering to kill them. Eve gets shot too, but as far as we know, she’s fine. And the show ends. 

For a bit of background: Eve and Villanelle are the two leads, they’ve been chasing each other around for three seasons. Villanelle is an assassin, and Eve started out trying to catch her, but along the way Eve has discovered she’s a little insane too and a lot of other stuff happens but there are the basics. Killing Eve has this charm to it. I can’t put it into words; you have to see it. There’s something about the show that makes me so happy. Villanelle is perfect, hilarious, witty, and so is Eve. They’re both smart, powerful female characters. This season lacked that wit and charm. Yes, it was still good, and it’s possible to miss that lack, but I didn’t feel the spark. The entire season seemed setup, and there were too many storylines, too many things that had to end before the finale that was drawing closer and closer every Sunday. It wasn’t possible. Then, I figured it out––one of them had to die. I didn’t believe it, not really. I thought I did––it had to happen––but when it did I was so, so shocked, I can’t have truly believed it. I’m still in shock, 20 minutes later, writing this. 

That last episode, Eve and Villanelle got their spark back. It was the first time they were together, truly, as themselves, and that’s probably why the spark was there. It hadn’t been there all season, but it was there now. I was so happy. This was the show I loved, this was the show it had always been. Eve and Villanelle are on the boat. Villanelle kills the 12. Eve is dancing her heart out. This is the show I remember. Villanelle comes to Eve on the dance floor. Once Eve sees her, she leaves. Eve follows. They’re on the deck of the boat, where they hug (or kiss? It happened too fast). Villanelle gets shot. She processes it. Eve gets shot. They jump off the boat, into the water, to safety. They’re both swimming; they’ll be fine. Villanelle gets shot again, in the back. Her body convulses. She won’t be fine. Why so fast? Everything in this episode happened too fast. Everything was just setup for this episode. I knew it would be fast, but not like this. This was too fast. 

Now, other complaints about the show, not related to Villanelle’s death. Pam kills Konstantin. Konstantin is one of four characters on this entire show that went from season 1 to season 4 (with Eve, Villanelle, and Carolyn). Pam’s first episode was the first of season 4. Something feels seriously wrong about that. It shouldn’t have been Pam. Anyone but Pam, who had no reason to kill him, who did it because she was misinformed, who did it after only 8 episodes of being on the show, who did it after Irina called him. Speaking of, that was a failed attempt at closing that plotline. I did not like that. But anyway, Villanelle killing Helene is fine. They’d had their thing going on for a couple seasons. With Eve brought into it, it was especially good. I liked that quite a lot (well, I hated it, as it made my calves hurt, but I like that she’s the one who did it; I just would have preferred a different killing method). But Pam killing Konstantin? No. The church thing was unnecessary. That was so out of character for Villanelle, and they never brought that back. We spent 3 episodes there! Why? I also assumed that they wouldn’t bring that back, but still––they should have if it was going to be around for that long. That reminds me––so many characters did weird things. Carolyn’s back story: good, I get how we needed that for plot development, but I’m sitting here puzzling over it. What did it mean? And why would Pam kill Konstantin? I don’t know her character as well, considering her newness, but I don’t really see her doing that. Plus, there are the issues I’ve already mentioned: the infinite number of storylines that weren’t closed very well, both ones opened this season and ones not, the lack of charm. 

If Killing Eve had a good ending that featured Carolyn deciding not to kill Villanelle or Eve, and the latter two running away happily ever after, I would be fine with all of the other problems. There’s this movie that I love where there are two happy gay characters and in the last 20 seconds, one of them gets shot. For no reason. Well, for revenge, but for basically no reason. It didn’t need to happen. So, I’ve decided to disown those last 20 seconds. Everytime I watch that movie, I pause it before the end, and imagine them together, happy, without having seen those 20 seconds. But I’ve seen her die. I know how the movie, how their story, ends. As much as I can try to picture Villanelle and Eve happy together, it won’t happen, because I know that Villanelle dies. 

I’d also like to add a disclaimer. In the hours following the episode, I did some research on what people thought about the episode. I knew fans wouldn’t like it, but I never could have anticipated the reception. People are so, so mean, and there’s a lot of hate and terrible words used to describe the showrunner of this season, Laura Neal. Most of the worse stuff has been taken down, but I do not condone any of this cyberbullying. I think that this season was terrible, but that does not mean that it is at all okay to say these terrible words about Neal. It isn’t all her fault, and fans of Killing Eve should understand that. I love this fandom, and I’m proud to take part in this fandom, but this is not right and not okay.