What will become of Villanelle and Eve Polastri? That’s the question on everyone’s lips as we tune into the final season of the darkly comedic thriller Killing Eve.
This season reunites Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer as Eve and Villanelle respectively.
The first episode aired on BBC on Sunday, February 27. While premieres of earlier seasons have picked up where the preceding finale left off, this one took a handbrake turn.
Read more: Jodie Comer says Killing Eve needs to end after its fourth series
We catch up with all the characters taking on surprising new ventures: Eve is working for a security firm, while Konstantin is hiding out as the mayor of an obscure town where Eve tracks him down.
Carolyn is working a new low-key job as a cultural attaché in Spain, but just like Eve that hasn't stopped her from investigating The Twelve.
It’s Villanelle that has taken the most bizarre path. She’s infiltrated a church in the hopes of reaching salvation for her murderous past through some kind of spiritual rebirth.
The reviews are in, and the overall consensus is not great, but it’s not bad either. It’s just… fine.
To give you a better idea of what to expect, we summarised a few of the critics' reviews.
Inverse
Writing for Inverse, Alex Welch compares the final season to the Star Wars sequel, The Rise of Skywalker, and not favourably.
Welch described it as “a follow-up that feels intent on either ignoring or retroactively erasing the events of its predecessor.” They attribute the whiplashing handbrake turn to the appointment of a new writer for each season.
Head writer Suzanne Heathcote ended season 3 with a tender moment between Eve and Villanelle. Standing on London Bridge, they admitted to their mutual obsession with more vulnerability than we had seen all season.
They decided to part ways, and never look back. But of course they did, sharing one final look of longing.
This felt quite tender and hopeful. Which is why, Welch explains, it felt so jarring for the opening episode of season 4 to start with Eve ripping up invitations to Villanelle's baptism and slapping her around the face the first time they meet again.
Sex Education's Laura Neal took the reins for this one. It feels as if this season doesn’t know how it relates to the last which, argues Welch, is the fault of a changing creative vision.
Independent
The Independent gave Killing Eve 3 out of 5 stars: an average rating for a show that writer Nicole Vassell describes as “no more than fine”.
Vassell feels that the show never really recovered after the cat and mouse chase reached a climax at the end of season 1.
“Killing Eve has never managed to recapture the excitement that surrounded its first season,” she wrote. “With Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer as lead characters Eve and Villanelle, the cat-and-mouse chase that was once irresistible got surprisingly stale, surprisingly quickly.
“Despite two consistently strong performances, the show’s pizzazz never quite returned after their erotically charged showdown at the end of season one.”
Again, this could partially be explained by the departure of original writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
This shouldn't deter viewers from dedicating time to the show, Vassell says. “It’s hard not to expect and want something more from a project with this calibre of performers; it shouldn’t just be 'fine'.''
Telegraph
Telegraph writer Ed Power was a little harsher than Vassell, giving the show just two out of five.
He also mourns the absence of original writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but congratulates Jodie Comer who “gamely persists in a show long past its best.”
“The tone really is all over the place,” he says. “Is Killing Eve an absurdist dark comedy with an escalating body count? Or a thriller with a few zany laughs squeezed in? With Waller-Bridge writing the zinging dialogue, that confusion was not a problem.
“Fourth time around, the sense is of having spent too long on a carnival ride. Nausea is kicking in.”
Rotten Tomatoes
“Villanelle’s found religion in Killing Eve’s climatic season,” reads Rotten Tomatoes' review, “but this series has spun its wheels for so long that the thrill is gone.”
Rotten Tomatoes is a gold standard reviewer for TV and film. It pulls together critic and audience ratings to provide an overall score on its 'tomatometer'. This arguably offers a fairer review, as sometimes the opinions of critics and viewers are split.
If a viewer enjoys it, does it really matter if it’s stylistically not as good?
Well, at the moment, Killing Eve Season 4 is faring better among viewers, with an average score of 74% and rating of 47, with critics offering a harsher rating of 19 and score of 58%.
Radio Times
The final season is “fun and stylish, but lacking in depth,” writes Flora Carr of Radio Times.
“Any progress the show has made in terms of defining Eve (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle's relationship, or to answering exactly who or what "The Twelve" is (who really cares now?), seems to come undone.
How they decide to conclude the relationship between Eve and Villanelle is crucial. Flora worries that it will “either be left open-ended, or else end in a similar fashion to season two (when Villanelle left Eve for dead) – only this time, the show's title will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, but without the original shock factor.”
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