The fourth – and apparently final – series of the BBC’s award-winning spy drama Killing Eve has aired, and opinions are divided among both fans and critics.
Killing who?
Based on the Villanelle series of novels by dance critic-turned-author Luke Jennings and adapted by Fleabag writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Killing Eve follows MI5 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and her obsession with tracking down and understanding (and, increasingly, morphing into) kooky, couture-loving assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer). Villanelle’s real name is Oksana Astankova, a Russian orphan with serious psychopathic tendencies who has been recruited by a shadowy crime organisation known as The Twelve to wreak bloody havoc in whichever city or resort they identify an enemy who needs eliminating. Kim Bodnia, star of Scandi Noir classic The Bridge, plays Villanelle’s handler Konstantin Vasiliev, and Fiona Shaw is Carolyn Martens, straight-talking head of MI6’s Russian section.
And season four?
Villanelle seems to have found religion and is living in a church, while Eve and Carolyn are both still in pursuit of The Twelve, though using very different methods. Konstantin is mayor of a Russian town, though any hopes he has of a quiet retirement are likely to be shattered pretty soon.
Why did we love it?
Because of the clothes, the will-they-won’t-they (meet, kiss, kill each other etc.) relationship between the two protagonists, Eve and Villanelle – and, of course, because of Waller-Bridge’s zinger-rich script (see “You should never tell a psychopath they’re a psychopath. It upsets them”).
Accolades?
Many, likewise the superlatives. The series debuted when Waller-Bridge’s star was in the ascendant, and she and her cast members were nominated for a slew of awards, among them BAFTAs, Golden Globes and Emmys. Waller-Bridge departed after series one but the awards kept coming. Meanwhile the critics found in Killing Eve nothing less than a show which had turned every rule of television on its head and come up smiling – and heavily armed. At one point Villanelle’s over-the-top pink chiffon dress was every hipster’s Hallowe’en costume of choice.
And now?
Less so. There are new writer and, as is the case with so many TV series which start brilliantly, the law of diminishing returns applies, at least as far as the critics are concerned. “[B]y this point we’re peering at a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy,” was the opinion of one reviewer after season four debuted on Sunday night. Another, noting that gravity is now re-asserting itself after the bravura high-wire act of the first series, writes that “Fourth time around, the sense is of having spent too long on a carnival ride. Nausea is kicking in … [Comer] is up against a plot that that has all the urgency of treacle flowing uphill.” There were hints of optimism from The Herald’s Alison Rowat, but only hints. “The last series felt tired and aimless at first but picked up towards the end,” she wrote. “One can only hope the same can be said of this new one.”
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