A final season motivates most shows to elevate or accelerate their storytelling, holding nothing back as the timer runs out. Killing Eve on the other hand appears content to go out with a whimper instead of a bang. While the season premiere managed to pique our interest in characters we had not seen in a long while, the second episode “Don’t Get Eaten,” quickly becomes mired in mostly uninspired and repetitive storylines.
When
Killing Eve premiered, the show fired on all cylinders, spinning a web of interesting, unpredictable characters and stories. Thus far, the final season gives viewers little to care about. The latest outing repeats scenarios viewers have often seen multiple times a season, but the awkward dinners between adversaries are just time fillers now. There doesn’t seem to be any raised stakes or looming menace. The Twelve were always the least interesting aspect of the show. Somehow, though, Eve (Sandra Oh) is still out of her depth on her quest to take them down, meaning she’s wasted on a subplot no one cares about. Villanelle (Jodie Comer) continues to rock her wardrobe, drop snark, and kill people that no one cares about either.
The only arc or character of any interest at the start of this season is Carolyn. Fiona Shaw’s very nuanced masterful performance may suggest more going on than the story itself does, but it’s an early highlight. The cracks are beginning to show in Carolyn’s stoic façade. Just how far she will go to get revenge for her son’s murder is the show’s sole source of suspense at the moment. Extremely far, it would appear, as the once respected leader of MI-6 has now defected to the Russians in exchange for information on the Twelve.
Meanwhile, in her quest to locate the Twelve Eve orchestrates a Villanelle-style dinner with Helene (Camille Cottin) which leads to a possible alliance. Villanelle’s so-called path to redemption on a church camping trip comes to an abrupt but not unexpected end when she snaps and kills the Vicar and his daughter when they don’t accept her as she expects them to.
Seasons 1 and 2 of
Killing Eve told a nearly complete story. The later seasons indicate there wasn’t a sufficient story plan or enough character potential to run the show multiple seasons. Still, it would be nice to see more life and energy injected into its remaining episodes rather than merely treading water until the end.
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