Killing good television: Killing Eve’s final season  

If you mention the fourth season of Killing Eve to a fan, expect to be met with a passionate outpouring of disappointment at the shocking washout that the final instalment of this once award-winning series proved to be. (This article is the first of a two-part series, exploring the final season of BBC America’s Killing Eve)

The darkly comedic spy thriller Killing Eve centres around MI6 investigator Eve (Sandra Oh), who is tasked with capturing the psychopathic (but frankly magnetic) assassin, Villanelle (Jodie Comer). As their cat-and-mouse chase progresses, the two develop a dangerous obsession with each other. 

Winning a BAFTA for Best Drama Series for its first season in 2019, its fourth and final season’s abrupt crash and burn makes for distressing watching.  After a somewhat jaded third season, critics hoped newly instated showrunner-cum-head writer Laura Neal (Sex Education) would revive the previous seasons’ fun and eccentric presence for its sprint to the finish, but instead were left with an aimless limp to its tone-deaf close. Lazy writing, over-reliance on obvious symbolism, bland costumes, and perhaps the worst-case scenario finale, let down any expectations with a resoundingly – in all senses of the term – dull thud.

The brilliantly sharp writing and production choices from the all-female cast of showrunner-head writers that came before, comprising of Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag), Emerald Fennel (Saltburn), and Suzanne Heathcote (The Thursday Murder Club), meant season four fell noticeably flat from the outset under the responsibility of Neal.  

The earlier seasons’ appeal was, for the most part, down to its refusal to be restricted within a single genre, allowing it to create its own space within television and explore fresh angles. Comparatively, season four clings desperately to redundant formulas which have already been run into the ground, and stubbornly rehashed plot devices which were no longer relevant to its characters. While the cat-and-mouse dynamic worked particularly well early on, after season three’s finale saw Eve and Villanelle admit their attraction to each other and commit to walking away from the chase, you would think the writers might move onto a new narrative trope. But season four reinvents the characters to the point where their progression between where we left them before and where they are now finds them no longer logical. For reasons untold, Eve returns to avoiding Villanelle, who is trying to become a better person (however bizarrely) through Christianity, while Villanelle doubles down on her efforts to win Eve’s affection, despite it already being previously established in the previous finale. The wedge between the two protagonists is so unfounded that it renders their plotline artificial and groundless, frustrating viewers who had waited so long to see their relationship explored onscreen.

Season four’s treatment of the mystery of its true antagonist, the shadowy criminal organisation “The Twelve”, is equally exasperating. The anonymous puppeteer masterminding the assassinations of countless characters, whose identity and attempted downfall have always been the driving force of the series. This is evident more than ever in this season, as we watch Eve’s last-ditch, vengeful efforts in toppling the group who cost her marriage, friends, and job. The final season was the ultimate opportunity for the writers to reveal at long last the clever revelation they’d set up all along… right? Ha. Instead, we’re given a disorienting montage that cuts rapidly between Eve doing the cha-cha slide while Villanelle, weapon-less, singlehandedly kills the entire organisation. Still, no faces are ever put to the name, leaving The Twelve as nonsensical as ever.

It’s also evident the show’s writing approach itself had changed. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s season one was undeniably character-driven, prioritising understanding of the characters’ personalities before they were ever written into scenes. This time, the plot is the central aspect of the show, driving characters’ behaviours and actions, and therefore leaving a clunky, superficial aftertaste. Its logistical demands also meant introducing any number of underdeveloped secondary characters, such as Yusuf and Pam, whose story arcs never amount to much. So much time being wasted on these redundant storylines meant other character arcs were hastily and insincerely tied up, like Konstantin’s, or simply forgotten, like the identity of Kenny’s killer.

The writers also make over-zealous attempts to connect season four with earlier seasons of the show by featuring more left-field, absurd elements, which had previously worked so well. But this season, having Jodie Comer play both Villanelle and Villanelle’s subconsciousness in the form of a drag-style “Jesus” figure, whom she later kills, just doesn’t land. There are a few instances where obvious symbolism was tasked with doing too much of the heavy lifting, which The Guardian’s Jack Seale regards as something ‘the show in its pomp wouldn’t have resorted to’.

While all this this might’ve been passable if it were a middle season, its execution certainly doesn’t measure up to the demands of an eagerly awaited final season. And that’s before we even come to the infamous finale episode… but that’s for next time.