Written by Andreas Babiolakis

Binge, Fringe, or Singe? is our television series that will cover the latest seasons, miniseries, and more. Binge is our recommendation to marathon the reviewed season. Fringe means it won’t be everyone’s favourite show, but is worth a try (maybe there are issues with it). Singe means to avoid the reviewed series at all costs.

Remember when Killing Eve was one of the wittiest, most compelling dramas on television? The pursuits between a British intelligence agent and an assassin resulted in the mutual understandings of warped minds. Eve Polastri and Villanelle felt like the best duo to psychoanalyze since Dr. Lecter and Will Graham in Hannibal, and you couldn’t dissuade most viewers of otherwise. Unfortunately, the show has gotten staler and staler in recent memory. It kicked off with an electrifying first season spearheaded by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and no one has come close to capturing the same spirit (outside of Emerald Fennell). Then there is this fourth and final season, which has somehow done too little over the course of its eight episodes, and too much in its finale; it’s the kind of imbalance that would make the final season of Game of Thrones feel perfectly laid out in comparison. The calculation as it was once was is gone. I can’t place full blame on Laura Neal, despite her being the primary writer for the season, as it can’t be easy to follow in the footsteps of some big names and strong seasons, but I can’t also help but acknowledge the issues in writing: stilted dialogue, the major deviations from Luke Jennings’ Villanelle books, and the awkward imbalances between varying sequences.

Well, I don’t want to use this opportunity to talk about the season as much as I want to go into that sadly abysmal finale titled “Hello, Losers”: a gutsy middle finger to viewers, I’m sure (it’s really a message from Villanelle to The Twelve, but why is this phrase used as the title?). The entire series has boiled up to this final episode, whether it’s the brewing sexual tension between Eve and Villanelle or the pursuit of the shadowy figures of The Twelve (besides the goings-on of MI6’s Carolyn Martens, who, by now, is trying to find a way back into a position of power). Much of “Hello, Losers” is between Eve and Villanelle bonding whilst carrying out the last of their mission, as well as a few glances of Carolyn in between (a bit of a nudge and a wink that she is behind every corner here). The Twelve are to meet on a boat traversing the River Thames, and this revelation feels a little half baked (but, hey, many finales kind of pull from everywhere perhaps in ways us the audience have overlooked, so I’ll let it slide for now). It’s not long afterwards that I realize this plot pivot is actually fairly organized compared to the flabbergasting choices made next.

While Eve distracts a wedding on the upper level (how convenient), Villanelle slaughters The Twelve. Who are The Twelve? You’d barely know by this sequence, full of awful blood effects, extreme closeups, half-assed closeups, and so many other techniques that shroud any semblance of human beings being murdered. This is a sequence you would use to zip past a minor montage of murders in an action film before you get onto the next order of business, not the literal climax of an entire series’ build up. I’m actually shocked by this sequence. This is not from the same Killing Eve that I once knew back in season one, where everything was carefully laid out. This felt like a high school crosscutting exercise (and even that would be graded a merciful C+, but to find this on a beloved television series is completely unforgivable). Villanelle rushes upstairs to claim her successful slaughtering, and she and Eve embrace (oh, by the way, did I comment that the series finally allowed them to be fully lovers briefly before this sequence? That originally felt like a bit of a last-minute decision, but, again, finales are full of these, and I usually take them with a grain of salt). That’s when Villanelle is sniped; Eve tosses Villanelle and herself into the river to avoid being hit again. Villanelle bleeds out a spillage of crimson wings as a symbol of the angel — or ghost — that will forever haunt Eve. Eve cries out bloody murder in the middle of the River Thames, and Carolyn — who Eve and Villanelle conveniently bumped into before the boat sequence (super) — signs off on the hit with a confirmed “Jolly good”. “The End” pops up on the screen, and I’m used to seeing text during Killing Eve, but after that nonsense I just saw, it felt like a “That’s All Folks!” Looney Tunes style.

That entire paragraph I just laid out happens within the span of about five minutes or so. At this point, it didn’t even feel like the season was rushed in being made, but like they were literally shooting and editing minutes before the episode was about to air. I actually can’t believe what I have just watched. They did it. They killed Killing Eve. The show is beyond dead. This is the kind of finale that destroys an entire series, and there’s nothing that can be done to resurrect it. What I can’t wrap my head around is how this even happened. Here is an Emmy darling of a series, with Sandra Oh’s finest performance (which say a lot, given her illustrious career). Here is a Peabody winner that showed promise as one of the finest series to wrap up the 2010s. It’s all gone now. This isn’t a show that got worse. It’s a show that flat out became awful, all with one simple episode.

It’s as if someone took the prized company vehicle which was passed down from generation to generation, and instantly drove it off the highway and into a manure field, with the methane emitted from the local cattle to ignite the car’s small sparks of flames into full on explosions. The vehicle is no more. It has zero resemblance to how it once looked. It reeks, and I can’t get that stench out of my nostrils. Killing Eve may very well have a finale that makes How I Met Your Mother’s look properly calculated and even Dexter’s lumberjack hurrah seem nice in comparison. Could this very well be one of the worst finales of all time? When you look at the oeuvre of Killing Eve, what it had going for it, and its gross atrocity of its conclusion, I honestly can’t see how it isn’t one of the worst finales. I’ve seen series fall off, but Killing Eve was stabbed in its own back before it was kicked off of the ledge; it had no chance of maybe making it. To see a series crumble this badly is a damn shame.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from X University (formerly known as Ryerson), as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

Killing Eve Season 4: Binge, Fringe, or Singe?

Written by Andreas Babiolakis