This story contains spoilers for Killing Eve.
Roughly two years after wrapping in April 2022, Killing Eve’s complete four-season run debuted on Netflix’s Top Ten in April 2024, and remained there until very recently. It seems that public interest in this timeless tale of the complex psychosexual connection between an aimless M16 agent and a ruthless assassin remains high, and that’s great. This series is a banger.
That said, many of Killing Eve’s biggest fans have yet to fully recover from its notoriously brutal finale. After watching Eve (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle (Jodie Comer) flirt-fight for 32 episodes, it all ends in tragedy in the last 90 seconds of running time as they lose each other for good. To say this choice was unpopular among viewers is to say that water is wet. Still, there’s a lot to love about Killing Eve, even if it does come with some serious heartbreak.
Setting the Scene
Season 3 of Killing Eve wrapped ambiguously, with Eve and Villanelle agreeing to part but looking longingly back at the other as the credits rolled. By the start of Season 4, they are again at odds. Villanelle has hilariously opted to go into extreme religion while Eve has grounded herself with work and kicked off a new romance with Yusuf (Robert Gilbert). This place of relative inertia quickly deteriorates as their mutual inability to find meaning sends them spiraling.
After Villanelle fails to gain Eve’s attention by “becoming a good person,” she commits a few murders and goes on the lam (something that is pretty normal for her). At a loss for what to do next, she kidnaps Eve’s therapist, Martin, disclosing that she feels deeply broken by the suffering she has caused as an assassin. One of the most widely quoted monologues of the show occurs when Martin asks Villanelle what she truly wants from Eve. Villanelle replies, “I want to hear the boring stuff she does everyday that she wouldn't bother telling anyone else because it's really that boring. But to me, I'd find it fascinating. Because…it's Eve.”
This confession is followed by another heartwrenching twist. Eve arrives, convincing Villanelle to release Martin. Exhausted, Eve relays the story of the scorpion and the frog, a parable about the hazards of putting your faith in someone whose nature is to “sting” you. Villanelle replies, “Maybe you’re the scorpion,” as she realizes that Eve has betrayed her to the authorities. Eve watches coolly as a stunned Villanelle is taken away to prison, but regrets it when Villanelle nearly dies from an arrow throught the chest shortly thereafter.
Season 4 also grants us an extended flashback detailing the early days of the series’ distant Machiavellian antagonists, the Twelve. This includes the first meeting between Eve’s “boss from Hell” Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) and Villanelle’s former mentor Konstantin (Kim Bodnia). With added context the flashback brings, the two seem to represent the worst-case scenario of what Eve and Villanelle might have become. They are never able to overcome the betrayals that pushed them apart. Each expresses regret for the life they might have had together, if only they’d been brave enough to try.
The Beginning of the End
Even at the start of Season 4, the main players seem aware that this is not going to end well for them. Eve walks into Konstantin’s new life as a small-town mayor and shoots him in the hand. When he tells her the Twelve will see her dead for this, she spits back, “Thank god.” Later, in a rare moment of emotional honesty, Carolyn calls Konstantin, wondering if, in some alternate world, they might have had a happy life together. Ultimately, she concludes, “People like us weren’t made for happy lives, with happy endings. We never were.”
Yet, the idea of a cold and distant Fate orchestrating the lives of our characters is refuted by newcomer Pam (Anjana Vasan). This timid embalmer’s life takes a turn when the Twelve’s recruiter of young assassins Helene (Camille Cottin) enlists her. Though she starts in a place of relative powerlessness, Pam’s decisions have major repercussions. Initially urged to step into a life as another one of Konstantin’s pupils, Pam kills no less than three people before deciding that it’s not for her. It’s not that she can’t, but that she values herself too much to let the powers that be do to her what they did to Villanelle.
After she mistakenly kills Konstantin at Helene’s behest without knowing that Helene has herself been killed by Villanelle, Pam informs Carolyn of what she’s done. Carolyn offers Pam a new job; killing Villanelle. However, Pam politely declines Carolyn’s offer. As such, Pam is able to do what no one else in the series did; she walks away. Not only does this make her one of the only characters to successfully break free of the cycle of violence, it adds extra pathos to the story of Villanelle. Indeed, Yusuf’s parting words to Eve are, “Whatever you choose next, you can choose. You can.” Pam proves that this is true, making it all the more heartbreaking that Villanelle and Eve continue to be swept along to their eventual doom for the sake of something so empty as revenge.
But This, Too, is a Love Story
Even in light of Villanelle’s untimely death in the final seconds of the show, the rewatch factor of the fourth season is high. The stellar production values, killer soundtrack, top-notch set design, charismatic performances, and occasional detours into extreme violence that initially made this show a hit are all very much intact. Perhaps most importantly, it’s in Season 4 that Eve and Villanelle’s unhealthy fascination with each other becomes an honest-to-god love story.
A minor scene mid-season shows Eve contemplating the story of Eros and Psyche. This myth centers on a love that flourishes through the adversity the couple encounters while finding their way to one another. Even as Eve and Villanelle try to break away from one another, neither is able to. The final episode sees them accepting that their future together might be uncertain, but that it’s worth the risk.
Together, they take on the Twelve, and remarkably, Villanelle succeeds in killing them. Celebrating their victory, she and Eve are fired on by an unseen assassin, and Villanelle is shot several times. Surrounded by a halo of light, she sinks into the bay while Eve screams in horror. Like Carolyn, Eve has her revenge, but it leaves her with nothing else. We mentioned that this is a pretty brutal ending, right?
Still, it’s not without meaning. After a lifetime of hurting people in service to a faceless organization, Villanelle dies ensuring that no one else will suffer as she did at the hands of the Twelve. Along the way, what was once a juvenile obsession transformed into a deep and enduring love. Though this new chapter of their relationship was brief, Eve and Villanelle finally let each other in. After the four seasons of bloodshed it took them to get there, that’s no small thing.
Becoming a better person is an excruciating process for anyone, and Villanelle’s story was bloodier than most. In the end, it was not “killing Eve,” but, rather, loving Eve, that she was willing to die for. Tragically, only in death is Villanelle able to break free of the violence that defined her life. Yet, the final season saw her using that violence for good, be it by taking out an abusive husband or ending the Twelve’s reign of terror. It’s not a happy ending by any stretch, but it allowed Villanelle to walk away from her old identity as a killer and take a step toward something better. For her, maybe that was enough.
