Killing Eve and the things we try to bury
Full disclosure, I am a Killing Eve fan, as well as someone who loves the infinite potential of storytelling, the infinite potential of characters - and the endless possibilities of characters’ connections to each other.
I’m going to talk about rage, specifically the kind that lives inside women, and the particular grief I’ve been feeling this week because somebody that represents me on screen was treated with disdain by those writing the character.
A quick recap of what happened recently, after Killing Eve ended its four-season run last week (spoilers ahead.)
Series creator and first season showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge put two characters on screen who, on the face of things, are a psychopath assassin (Jodie Comer as Villanelle) and the British intelligence agent (Sandra Oh as Eve) trying to catch her.
But wait, there’s more.
Over four seasons the cat and mouse game between the two became more yin and yang, with Eve exploring her shadow side and Villanelle reaching for lightness, all the while teetering on a knife edge of tension between them (sexual and otherwise, but the sexual tension was definitely the hook):
“Every moment in this show exists so that these two women can end up alone in a room together.”
- Phoebe Waller- Bridge
Fans, particularly queer fans like me, took this to heart and over four seasons have been waiting patiently and not-so-patiently through every such moment for these two beings to make their way toward each other, finally standing in front of each other as opposites holding pieces of each other… metaphorically.
It’s not plausible to think the writer’s room wasn’t aware of this and never banked on that fandom creating buzz, delivering awards and recognition and more seasons - and so it doesn’t make a great deal of sense what happened next.
In the final episode of the series, after a classic Bury Your Gays move of giving a few moments of queer happiness with a recognition of the love between them, Villanelle drowned in the Thames river in London, with Eve desperately trying and failing to reach her underwater, and surfacing with a scream of despair.
End scene. End of four seasons of trying to craft every moment in order to explore the endless possibility of what happens when these two women connect. End of the growth and development of both characters, but most particularly Eve, who embraced a shadow self rarely depicted on screen, as well as a queer self, and was punished for it by losing her beloved.
The episode has earned a (very bad) 25% Rotten Tomatoes score and an online backlash that made the showrunner for season four a trending topic on Twitter for days, and which is still going strong a week later from both critics and fans.
Many writers worldwide have commented on this needless cruelty but this is one that stands out for me:
“Oh is an actor of remarkable lucidity; gorgeous, with a clarity of emotion that pierces the soul. But no actor, no matter how skilled, can remake or make legible what the writers don’t put on the page or allow room to develop.”
- Angelica Jade Bastién
The decision by the writer’s room to kill off Villanelle was the catalyst for a collective disbelief so profound it sent fans spinning into the bargaining stage of grief, finding clues in episodes that led to a conclusion that there was a secret “real finale” in the works which would explain everything, restore the balance, make the senseless make sense, and most importantly, find Villanelle alive and reunited with Eve.
This sucked in me in too; IMDB had what looked like an official listing for an episode called ‘Requiem’, the fictional 9th episode would have aired on Easter (a beautiful resurrection theme all round, clearly), and I absolutely believe that Phoebe Waller-Bridge as creator of The Hot Priest speech is that level of mad genius.
It is also (all due credit to the fans who pounced on this) a brilliant theory - playing into the Bury Your Gays trope, writing the banal, harmful, lazy ending that queer audiences have come to expect, and then deliberately (somehow) turning the whole thing on its head would have been a ploy worthy of the first season of Killing Eve.
But, the IMDB listing was removed, and an Australian named Sam confirmed there were only eight episodes, dashing the hopes of the thousands of people who bought the theory, and doubling the determination of those petitioning Waller-Bridge to please for the love of Jesusnelle, fix it. (The petition is not far off 10,000 signatures as of the time of writing.)
There are shrines in Liverpool and in London to this fictional character who meant so much to a queer community who don’t see themselves on screen all that often, and for reasons outlined above hesitate to engage fully when we do.
We don’t generally see women on screen who are angry in a way that is dark and infinitely recognisable.
We rarely see women who make choices that are complicated, against the grain, perverse, dangerous, eagerly lustful, willingly violent. Who dress luxuriously because they damn well can, who act without restraint, without conforming, without conceding ground or power. Who are the drivers of their own destiny and anyone who gets in the way will absolutely get run over. Who show us their complex ugliness and their stunning vulnerability in almost the same breath.
We don’t see women who are both tender with each other and who spur each other to become more fully themselves. We don’t see fear and lust and love in the space of ten seconds the way that both Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh have the talent to do, given the right material.
We don’t see queer moments that are almost out of character because they are simply not written in television - banter at the fireplace of a remote cottage, contemplative staring out the window after (presumably very good) sex, playful physicality, seduction at knifepoint, banter over curly fries.
We so rarely see ourselves on screen wearing more than one or two shades of possibility.
For that novelty and that recognition alone Killing Eve should have leaned in and kept Villanelle alive.
For the fact of renewed anti-LGBT+ sentiment across the globe, Killing Eve should have leaned in. For the fact that queer characters are allowed to die but wouldn’t it be nice if they didn’t die so damn much, Killing Eve should have leaned in.
For the legacy, for the fans who are starved for those moments, for two characters who were clearly soulmates, for the fact of this airing during a time in our history when as humans and as viewers we are searching for connection, hope, and a way forward, Killing Eve should have leaned in.
The permission to be enraged in a way that Eve and Villanelle both were at different points is incredibly valuable. The permission to explore our shadows and embrace who we are at the very core of us is a legacy and a lesson I hope stays on, that I hope is replicated on stage and on screen.
What we try to bury out of discomfort or flawed reasoning, the rigid expectation of others or a perception of how we need to be in the world is a tale worth telling a thousand times over.
The people we connect with on that journey, those that force us and tempt us and cheer us to grow, those that see and search out every facet of us are worth protecting, fiercely.
I hope that other writers’ rooms take these lessons to heart but also think long and hard about how to create and deliver something that is much harder and more creative than cruelty - hope.
If they succeed with those characters who are still to come, I think the Killing Eve fandom will be in a unique position to connect with them.