In the third episode of the new season of “Killing Eve,” Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle (Jodie Comer) attend an impromptu “therapy” session. Eve asks if Villanelle has ever heard the fable about the scorpion and the frog, and explains that “they both die because the scorpion can’t change its nature.” The fable has become an eye-roll-inducing pop culture cliché at this point, but Villanelle’s replies make the scene work. She asks if the scorpion and the frog hook up, and then gently suggests that Eve may be the scorpion in their situation.
The moment aptly captures the fourth and final season of “Killing Eve,” which sets up and subverts. The spy vs. assassin thriller is obsessed with change: can humans do it, how much, who for? When we left Eve and Villanelle back in 2020, the two shared a slow dance before having a heart-to-heart on Tower Bridge, trying to walk away from each other but both ultimately turning around. It’s worth noting that Eve, with a Lot’s Wife-esque inability to look away from destruction, was the first to look back. Season 4 picks up an indeterminate amount of time later (definitely months, maybe a year or two) and follows the two women on their respective journeys.
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Villanelle is working in a church and living alongside a vicar and his impressionable daughter. She’s on a mission to try to “be good,” looking for salvation and rebirth in the holiest place she can think of. She’s most concerned with Eve perceiving her as “good” or “changed.” Eve, on the other hand, is freer (“purposeful, less untethered,” as one character points out). She is the gun-wielding, motorcycle-riding spy of her own dreams. She goes on runs and has sex with who she pleases, as she pleases. On a smaller note, she almost exclusively keeps her hair down (Villanelle’s preference) and has stopped wearing her wedding ring (a talisman of her past life worn long after the expiration of her marriage).
Villanelle’s suggestion that Eve may be the scorpion is an interesting thought and one that fortunately seems to drive the season, based on the first three episodes released to critics (in a heavy-handed moment in Episode 2, Eve is seen with a scorpion-tail-like braid down her back). While Villanelle is trying to figure out if she can – or even wants to – change her murderous ways, Eve is becoming increasingly liberated and more Villanelle-like.
Eve is hell-bent on tracking down the head of The Twelve, the mysterious global crime organization that once bankrolled Villanelle’s assassinations. She wants “revenge,” although it’s not completely clear what for, since she was the main player in blowing up her own life. Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw), Eve’s old MI-6 boss, is similarly driven to find out more about The Twelve and finally get to the bottom of who ordered the hit on her late son. The elusive Hélène (Camille Cottin) and Konstantin Vasiliev (Kim Bodnia) continue with their Twelve complicity, with the former offering an exciting and salacious new dynamic opposite Oh. The series is becoming a bit of a showcase for murderous women, poking holes in the blanket “psychopath” term and instead asking: what if some women simply find pleasure and release in killing people?
“Killing Eve” has fully embraced the doomed romance aspect of Eve and Villanelle – the show’s greatest asset and a far more interesting thread than The Twelve. The final season is Shakespearean in nature, but it’s unclear whether it’s a comedy or tragedy. When the pair meet again in a hotel lobby bar in the premiere episode, they watch each other through a fish tank. The shot is straight out of the “love at first sight” scene in “Romeo and Juliet” (1996) and reminiscent of Villanelle and Eve’s first-ever meeting, back in the pilot episode, which featured the two observing each other through a bathroom mirror. Everything about the duo is bittersweet, not just because they constantly pivot between wanting to kiss and slap each other, but also because of the very nature of stories like theirs – it will not end well. It can’t. The two run hot and cold around each other, both burning at times, but there is a damning inevitability to their interactions.
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The main fault of Season 4 is the same as Seasons 2 and 3 – the ever-shifting showrunner. The show changes hands each season, from Phoebe Waller-Bridge to Emerald Fennell to Suzanne Heathcote to Laura Neal. No one has been quite able to replicate the pitch-perfect fever dream that was Waller-Bridge’s first season. But beyond that, there’s a lack of congruence in each subsequent season. By the time each new lead writer seems to get a handle on the show, their eight episodes are up and it’s onto someone new, restarting the whole process and leading to inevitable floundering in the first few episodes. It’s a sort of two steps forward, one step back on a show that already doesn’t have time to spare (when it wraps in April, it will have aired a total of 32 episodes over five years). Early Season 4 ignores some of the emotional progress made in its predecessor and there’s no indication in the first few episodes as to why Eve and Villanelle are once again at odds with each other, or what happened to the tenderness displayed on the bridge.
But this is a minor complaint in Season 4, which has a firmer grasp on its storyline from the get-go. A definitive endpoint seems to be forcing the show into actual development, past the stagnant and cyclical nature of the most recent two seasons. Eve and Villanelle come face-to-face within the premiere, rather than the usual 3 to 5 episodes that it takes to get them in the same room. The show’s formula, too, seems to have shifted – or been thrown out the window altogether. In an emotional shanking of sorts near the end of the third episode, it’s clear that Season 4 means business. The twist makes for a snappier, more substantial season reminiscent of the series’ earliest days. Like Eve to Villanelle, and vice versa, “Killing Eve” (even in its bumpiest moments) remains impossible to look away from. It’s one thing that doesn’t change. [B+]
“Killing Eve” Season 4 premieres on BBC America on February 27, with the first two episodes streaming on AMC+.