Killing good television: Killing Eve’s disastrous finale

Last time, we looked at the fiasco of Killing Eve’s fourth season, but since critical consensus widely recognises the final episode to be the epitome of its failings, it requires its own platform to understand the extent of its shortcomings. (This article is the second of a two-part series, exploring the final episode of BBCA’s Killing Eve. The following content includes spoilers.)

Episodes dropped weekly, and while reviews were initially tame, but anxious, the backlash soon ramped up to reach fever pitch. In the wake of the finale airing, critics were calling it dreadful. Final seasons, let alone finales, are notoriously difficult for writers, but nothing could’ve prepared viewers for the degree of inauthenticity and impulsivity that the show reached at its close with ‘Hello, Losers’. 

As with the wider season, the pacing and plotlines were poorly handled. It’s a clear red flag that the finale feels void of dramatic tension, apparently having forgotten that this was meant to be the culmination of years of dangerous obsession. Instead, the characters are preoccupied with decoding far-fetched symbolism in their hunt for The Twelve, playing darts in a pub and eating service station chips. The writers give us a subdued and meandering finale which resigns itself to its underwhelming finish from the outset.

Unsurprisingly, the show ends in the most disappointing way possible. With under a third of the finale left, Eve and Villanelle share a long-awaited kiss, followed by a series of domestic scenes that provides a rare window into what their lives would look like had their relationship continued. While this ideally would be the conclusion to their complicated past, it’s simply too good to be true. We can but wait for the other shoe to drop, and the episode taunts us with this. A sinking sensation emerges as the episode progresses, with the obvious foreshadowing of the tarot scene, Eve’s Death card, and Villanelle’s Sun only adding to our dread.  

Justified dread, too, as it turns out. On a wedding boat in the Thames, Villanelle infiltrates and kills The Twelve in their meeting. While she continues her (somewhat backwards) effort of self-improvement by eradicating the greater evil, Eve… officiates a gay wedding (obviously). Finally, relieved, they triumphantly embrace on the boat’s deck, for now they can begin their life together.

But no. Bullets snatch Villanelle’s life as the two women desperately jump into the murky water, while Carolyn contently watches from Tower Bridge. As Eve surfaces alone, she emits a guttural, animal scream and THE END immediately flashes before the credits roll.

Most of the complaints about this episode stem from the disconnect between how the writers’ visions manifest onscreen. Showrunner and head writer Laura Neal’s interview reveals the extent of this distance between the finale’s intention and reception. She explains how Eve’s scream symbolises her “rebirth”, “washing off everything that had happened and… [beginning] again”. But for viewers, this interpretation is understandably inconceivable – the concept that Eve’s complex character arc could be resolved by watching her dead lover’s corpse float away, after everything they’ve endured, is ludicrous. 

The seeming inevitability of Villanelle’s death comes with season four’s noticeably changed moral stance, serving as the final flourish in what had become a morality tale. Season four’s introduction of a strict moral ledger is epitomised by the forced lesson that bad actions require tragic endings, whether you change or not. Villanelle is the archetype of this: she begins the season converted to Christianity, believing she can change, yet ultimately ends up killed for her past. Killing Eve was never meant to be a battle of good versus bad, but “about knowing and accepting all parts of yourself”, something these writers seem to have overlooked.

Her death is also the conclusion of a disturbing pattern, as nearly every queer character depicted meets a tragic end, causing many to accuse this show of leaning on the harmful ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope. By treating queer characters as more dispensable than their straight counterparts, this cliché has historically punished queerness. Therefore, by killing Villanelle just as she finds happiness in a queer relationship, the finale falls uncomfortably into this convention, launching a campaign following the finale to raise awareness of the dangers of such representation.

Furthermore, the ambiguity of the writing rendered Villanelle’s death frustratingly two-dimensional, rather than the “transcendent” event the writers wanted. Villanelle is treated like disposable collateral, the final obstacle stopping Eve returning to her previous life. But what is disregarded is that Villanelle was what Eve’s life had become, and that Eve was an equally active participant in destroying her past, until what she was left with was the woman who reflected back the darkest parts of herself.

We could accept Villanelle’s death in theory but can now only wish it had been executed with more nuance. Phoebe Waller-Bridge herself said how “every moment in this show exists so that these two women can end up alone in a room together. Really, it would [be] a betrayal to the audience if they didn’t come together in the end.” Instead, we’re left with an empty shell of this once great show, feeling foolish for hoping for an ending appropriate for these complex and magnetic characters. Anything would’ve been better than this.