Killing Eve is a thrilling BBC action drama about the strange, magnetic attraction between a professional assassin and an MI5 agent. Do Eve and Villanelle ever get together during the four seasons of this riveting TV series?
When Killing Eve began in 2018, thriller fans like me lived for every new episode as it emerged. The tension, mystery, and violently kinky mutual obsession between Eve and Villanelle was a joyful fright to watch. For Hitchcock fans, gothic mystery fans, and cinematography fans, KE feels perfect. From the titles to the perfect mysterious music to the clues being revealed at a slow drip to the unexpected murders, this show is a masterful execution of the thriller.
Jodie Comer plays Villanelle with a believable arrogant charm as she assassinates her intended targets (and then some) all over Europe while Sandra Oh plays Eve Polastri, our MI5 agent on the hunt for the invisible killer. Soon enough, Villanelle is, likewise, hunting for the agent who is bent on exposing her international crimes, and the mutual obsession begins.
A violent attraction
From the start, we see that Villanelle is a psychopath who seemingly has zero qualms about killing anyone she has to kill. This is what makes her good at her job as an assassin. She also loves to dress up, play characters as she commits her assassinations, and live a luxurious life where she mostly gets what she wants. She is beautiful, powerful, arrogant, and a killing machine. In a way, she has it all.
Eve, on the other hand, begins her story from a very mundane place. She is bored with her MI5 desk work, eats junk food, is struggling in her marriage, and feels like her routine is getting the best of her. When she begins to learn about the mysterious assassin in Europe and then Villanelle appears in London, they meet in person and the story kicks off. Villanelle sees something in Eve. Eve sees something in Villanelle. We all shout, “NOW KISS!” at the TV, but of course they don’t.
Instead, throughout the subsequent seasons, we get to see our two will-they-won’t-they gals chasing each other through dangerous situations, and even stabbing or shooting each other during intense arguments. They are both women with strong, deep emotions that they are unsure how to sort out, and resorting to acts of violence gives them each satisfaction in a strange way. Perhaps that is what ultimately attracts and disturbs the two of them: that they are so very different, and so very similar in so many ways.
Different writers for different seasons
We will never know what it would have been like if one writer had cohesively continued to write the story in such a way that it made Villanelle and Eve turn toward each other. The show had some excellent writers, from Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag) to Emerald Fennell, who is widely known today for Saltburn. But we did have to deal with a different writer every season, and it showed as the show progressed. In some ways, the style of the show itself was maintained, but the story definitely began to fall apart in season four.
It felt like season four writer Laura Neal was trying to bring Eve and Villanelle together for good. The two of them meet again early on in season four, and their mutual attraction is obviously still there. They each try to go their own way, but ultimately these two proud, magnetic women seem to be unable to live without each other.
Do Eve and Villanelle ever get to be together?
The obsessive attraction between Villanelle and Eve, before they meet and after, their mutual ongoing chase across continents and seasons, is what drives the story. We all desperately want them to get together, and we do get tidbits in the beginning. But do Eve and Villanelle ever actually get to be together?
For disappointed fans across the globe, the answer is no. In the very last episode of season four, we do see Eve and Villanelle get to declare their need for one another and kiss. Up until that moment, for four seasons, the audience had been led to believe that these two would get together. We know they want to, despite their literally scarring conflicts with one another. It would stand to reason, then, that they would remain together after that moment.
Instead, Villanelle is shot from an unknown source, never revealed in the show, and Eve screams. Then, it ends. The end of the show is a betrayal of fans who had been watching for years, and especially for LGBTQIA+ fans who rarely get a happily-ever-after for a gay couple. So sadly, no, Eve and Villanelle do not get to be together, despite their wishes and the wishes of fans all over the world.
(featured image: BBC America)
