WARNING: Do not read this unless you’ve already seen the finale of Killing Eve. There are spoilers.
Here’s my version of the Killing Eve writers room as they sat down to craft season 4.
“Okay. Villanelle has to die at the end. How shall we get her there?”
“Oh, I know. Let’s use the oldest trope in the world: #KillTheLesbian. Let’s have her struggle all season to gain Eve’s acceptance and approval. Then when she finally has a moment of happiness, let’s kill her.”
“That’s a great idea. We could have Eve finally be open about her feelings for Villanelle. They could be together and happy. Then we do it.”
“How should we kill her?”
“Have her in Eve’s arms in a loving embrace and then shoot her! Then we could put her in a filthy goddam river and shoot her some more so she sinks like a stone.”
“What a plan! Let’s do it.”
No, No, No
Why didn’t anybody say, “No, no, no. We aren’t killing any more lesbians the minute they find happiness after a long struggle. That is so over.”
But apparently no one did.
Not only did they resort to the oldest trope in the book, but they had Carolyn announce, “Jolly good,” when it was done.
Just no
Jodie Comer has talent. She probably would have found her way to the top in something, but that something happened to be Killing Eve. She helped take the show to award-winning heights. She was rewarded with an ending that didn’t need to be. There could have been many other endings. Her fate in the novels was not to die.
I do not approve of this ending. Killing Eve took 4 seasons of brilliance and tossed it in a river.
In the words of MJ Watson, “Expect disappointment and you’ll never be disappointed”
But even with my already low expectations, I did not conceive they would fall so far. After all the hard work we did to fight back against the Dead Lesbian trope, after years of building this strong emotional bond and these amazing well-rounded characters, they fell back on that most agregious of narrative sins: Kill the Gays.
I’m more than disappointed, I’m furious.
All that anxiety about the finale was for good reason! Where is Emily Andras when you need her?
This is another production that should have been one season and done. But money talks and of course, Canadians are obliged to worship Sandra Oh. Good riddance.
It was actually one of my all time faves right up to the last 2 minutes.
Didn’t like ending but i knew it wasn’t going to be a happy ending like the writer did in Wynonna Earp
It didn’t have to be happy like lollipops and roses, but it shouldn’t have been horrible.
Why Villanelle needs to die like Jack Dawson of titanic? They should have just let them both die!
I don’t envy anyone who had to come up with an ending for the show. I doubt there’s anyway that it could have ended that would have been completely satisfying. But I also can’t think of any reasonable way that would have been more infuriating than the one they chose.
They really blew it.
Xena Warrior Princess and Killing Eve…two worse endings ever!
The ending is not far off from my worse expectations; the only doubt I had was whether both Villanelle and Eve would be killed. I think that would have been an acceptable ending; for example one killed by The 12 and the other killed while trying to save or avenge the other, something to that effect. Anything that made mental and emotional sense.
To be honest, I doubt that I would have found an ending that gave us a couple of psychopaths riding off into the sunset deeply satisfying; but the writers did successfully manipulate us, I think, into a willingness to accept the possibility of that, or at least an ending with the two of them together, reconciled to and with each other and themselves. Then they ventured off track to make a tragic ending, to shock us for emotional effect. They got the ending terribly wrong. Dead lesbians as plot device are never shocking. What is shocking is that the writers didn’t know this; or knew it and ignored the offensiveness of the trope. Egregious!
Almost anything would have been better than what we got. I wanted them to kill Carolyn and then run off and live out their lives in the mountains of Peru.
Mountains of Peru? Yes, I would have accepted that ending, or something similar. Honestly, I am still scratching my head over the entire season 4. I binge-watched the whole thing yesterday without having re-watched or read a recap of season 3. Just jumped right in never really expecting anything new or fresh. I got a bit bored – so much of what was happening seemed pointless – but I cared enough about the characters to keep watching. And then that dreadful ending!
The finale was even worse than the mess Sally Wainwright made with LTiH when she killed off Kate. And honestly, I didn’t think it was possible to get worse than that! (I still haven’t quite forgiven Sally for that fiasco ;).
Anyway … thanks for the “work” you do with this site. It is my go-to place for entertainment from the female point of view (about the only thing I’ll watch these days)!
Thanks for reading! At least Sally Wainwright admitted her mistake and apologized. Don’t think it will happen here. I was put off by characters who seemed unnecessary like Pam. What a waste of time to bring her into the story.
True. Had the same reaction to the entire Pam subplot – totally pointless and uninteresting; that actress’ performance was as lifeless as the bodies she was embalming. I know the character she was playing was emotionally damaged and numb, but that doesn’t require the acting to be dry and dull.
For me, Villanelle murdering the father and daughter was also pointless plotting. We know Villanelle is a psychopath and psychopaths are incurable, but in my opinion those murders were gratuitous – the writers pandering to the segment of the audience that tunes in to watch Villanelle kill. Why was she even permitted to stay after having killed the cat and lied about it and attempting to drown the daughter. I could argue they deserved killing for being so clueless (but I won’t).
Didn’t know Sally Wainwright had apologized for making the worst decision in the history of writing (before Killing Eve S4, that is). I did know she’d offered up an explanation for the decision – which only made it worse. Oh well … life does go on.
(In case it’s not clear, my tongue was firmly in cheek writing this comment.)
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