Killing Eve (What I'd Have Done Differently (Spoilers))

What we were promised was an operatic ending. So I figured, since it’s about love, lust and death, I’d give a really quick breakdown of Carmen, then a more detailed breakdown of Killing Eve and look at whether it lived up to the claim, could it perhaps have been better if it had followed the operatic model more closely.

So, Carmen…

In essence, Carmen, who is a mad flirt, sets her sights on Jose, a soldier, who gets in trouble at work for her and ends up having to desert and join the smugglers with her. She gets bored of him, fancies the shiny new toreador (see massive flirt, above), and is about to go to him, when Jose catches her and stabs her. Jose is arrested and confesses to her murder. (It takes four acts and a lot of singing and fighting along the way.) It is all very tragic - as a deserter and a murderer, Jose is destined to be executed as well.

On to Killing Eve…

Rather than an episodic breakdown, I’m going to look at Villanelle's and Eve's emotional journeys, breakpoint to breakpoint, and occasionally other characters.

From the start, somewhat jarringly for me, Eve and Villanelle are split up. (While this was a shock at first, over time I came to accept it, we saw another side of our leads and their crazy relationship, so I’ll give it a pass.) However, what about the emotional arcs?

Villanelle is doing everything she can to win Eve back, prove she can change and she isn’t just a monster. She’s not over it.

Eve, on the other hand, is over it. She’s having no-strings sex with her new co-worker, then seducing Hélène. I think the “over it” is nuanced, and shifts from “fake it til you make it” to the real thing but your mileage may vary. (Although he’s not relevant to the emotional story, I grew to oddly like Yusuf, who was somewhat broken, recovering, and importantly never in charge.)

Breakpoint one is when Villanelle goes to Martin for help, Eve has Villanelle arrested. Eve is calm, Villanelle is betrayed (understandably). (Martin, another male character with almost no agency that I liked in this show… Konstantin too, can you see a theme yet?)

Between breakpoints one and two they stay apart, other quite important (and amazing to watch) things happen for the story arcs but not their emotional development. Breakpoint two occurs when Hélène locks Eve in the back of her car so they can watch together as Villanelle is “assassinated” - arrow to the back. However, it’s only a flesh wound. Eve isn’t really over Villanelle, strangles Hélène to force her to unlock the car and rushes over to cradle Villanelle's body in her arms. Eve loves Villanelle in some fashion still/again, Villanelle is over Eve though. She hasn’t forgiven Eve’s betrayal yet. This is a clear reversal of the first half of the season if you sit back, but it’s played out rather differently, and is really well written, deep into how the two characters behave.

Fast-forward to the next shift and Villanelle has hooked up with Gunn, another assassin for The Twelve and the woman who fired the arrow at her. She’s living a version of the dream she shared with Eve in the ruins in Rome, but being Gunn's wife isn’t quite the same thing. Living with someone working for The Twelve isn’t part of her plans. Meanwhile, Konstantin has advised Eve to seek help from those she loves, those around her. That’s only Villanelle now. (There is a lovely scene where Eve tells Yusuf to fuck off that highlights just how many people has lost in her pursuit of Villanelle.) Eve and Gunn have a confrontation, Villanelle falls back in love with this new, combat-ready, Eve.

They have a road-trip, do young love. Their fates are really sealed, it’s a lesbian road-trip after all. Who comes out of those alive?

Honestly, I’d have felt happy if they’d said “fuck it, change of plans, let’s run away together.” That might have been the best ending.

Instead, Villanelle kills The Twelve, Carolyn has Villanelle killed to buy her way back into MI6. We have a final shot that recreates “The Creation of Adam” but it’s the destruction of Villanelle.

The writer has said she believes the ending is meant to show Eve washed clean of her obsession and ready to begin anew. I’m sure she meant that but it didn’t land that way for me. Also, I don’t know about you, but I remember all of exes, my unhealthy celebrity obsessions, my crushes that were never resolved for whatever reason and so on. I’ve recovered from the various traumas involved, albeit none of them were quite this traumatic (I have friends trauma that gets close, but not shot while hugging me close). But their memories, the memories of the relationships, and the yearning, thirsts and so on, themselves are as important as what I learnt in classes, jobs and the like in making me who I am. How is Eve going to be washed clean of Villanelle FFS?

We were promised operatic. The writers can do operatic. Although I haven’t really talked about him, because I don’t want this to take forever, Konstantin's death was operatic. Unnecessary betrayal when he thought he was free. A long death scene when he righted a lot of wrongs and managed to do right by both Carolyn and his mentee assassin. He was finally ended, but then cleaned up and laid to rest looking good.

His death felt fitting, a fond farewell to a fan favourite. Villanelle's still feels rushed and botched.

Alternate Endings

I’ve already suggested what I think is my personal favourite. The road trip leads them to reassess their goals. They decide not to go and kill The Twelve, but to drive off into the sunset together. But that leaves at least Carolyn and Pam hanging… So let’s stick a bit closer to the scripted ending.

What happens if they go big? The shots still ring out, but Eve dies as well. The lovers both die and cold, hard pragmatism wins out. Very bleak, very dark, very operatic, if done right - everyone dying is a common ending in opera, but it needs to build to that, to be seen as the inevitable tragedy that it is. We have this growing swell of hope and then it’s cut off in its prime. We know they’re toxic together, they had their moment of happiness and it didn’t drag on into bitterness and recrimination. Who doesn’t love a big kick of angst? Ideally they need to reorganise the season a little so we get more of a sense of the inevitable build to this moment, the last episode being really focused on the happy couple but a sense of those counter-movements from the sniper team too, rather than shots from nowhere. But we’ve seen with Konstantin that they can do this, and do it well. They just didn’t when it really, really mattered.

What happens if they go mushy? As the first shot rings out, Villanelle dips Eve, the bullet grazes her, they dive into the Thames and swim away. Amor Omnia Vincit. Either we just end with them in the Thames, perhaps a “one year later” and them in bed together, Zooming Pam maybe? I don’t hate this. Although Villanelle might have said her actions were about redemption, it didn’t feel like a redemption arc. At the same time, she has changed, and while she’s got the skill set of an assassin, she’s no longer got the mind set for it. Does she deserve a HEA in the Hollywood code? No. But this show has transgressed all over, so it could have been nice to see it do it here. I wouldn’t have felt sold out by this one, and I would have vastly preferred it to what we got. Not really operatic, but still way better.

The *Bury Your Gays* noise.

Yes, Villanelle is another queer female character that is killed. We should make note of that. We should every time it happens until it falls back to not be above the rates for all characters.

However, like Xena, she’s a lead character who died in the final episode of the series. She’s not killed to advance a straight character's story arc, she’s not fridged - killed and not brought back in a show that routinely brings back other characters - and she’s not killed because she’s gay. She’s killed because she’s a dangerous assassin who has just killed a dozen people below decks. (She’s also killed, I suspect, even more because Hollywood still demands that wicked characters don’t have an HEA, and as an assassin, Villanelle is way beyond wicked.)

This really doesn’t fit into Bury Your Gays and the keyboard warriors that don’t understand what the trope means need to shut up.

The *tarot queer* outrage

I was disappointed when I saw the tarot cards come out, it’s such a lazy tool. But I think the outrage from some is misplaced.

Villanelle got Tower, Lovers (reversed) and Sun. Her past is full of destruction, shock. Her present is partnerships and communication obscured or blocked, her future is success, achieving her goals. Two, maybe three scenes before, her clearly stated goal is “kill The Twelve”. Not “get back with Eve”. So her tarot is right. Absolutely bang on.

Eve only wants to know her future, it’s Death. We’re shown it but, unlike Villanelle's which are explained, it’s just left. Death is more about change and transformation than literal death. The 10 of swords is the “you’re going to die” card. Eve undergoes, or at least begins, two transformations in the time remaining. She and Villanelle start some sort of young love kissy-kissy relationship and then she starts life after Villanelle. Ok, only seconds of that, so grief and so on first, but certainly lots of transformation.

Closing Thoughts

Honestly, to my surprise, I’m leaning in favour of the dark ending. I don’t like killing off queer characters, I don’t suggest it casually. But Killing Eve is a show where it fits both the theme and the feel. If we have to go and kill The Twelve, which I guess we do, then Carolyn ordering Villanelle shot and the sniper killing them both is a better ending than the soft tripe we got. At least it is if it’s set up properly and we can see, as Villanelle kills, the snipers moving into position so there’s that sense of tragedy. Other versions of a tragic outcome are also acceptable.

I still prefer the never-ending road trip though.

Although I enjoyed almost everything but the last few minutes, I would have liked a differently paced season to make this new darker ending work better. Two-three episodes of them together so we see them happy but see the cracks so we remember they’re a fantasy, they’re actually toxic together. Then a big boom finale. But even if they just changed that final scene to them both being shot by Carolyn's snipers I’d have been ok with that.

I would be OK with a HEA ending too. It’s less in keeping, but it’s ok.

But this ending, it’s just flat after so much I really liked. That’s what’s so frustrating.

There’s roughly 255 minutes of TV to love and 3 to ignore here… such a shame it’s the last three.