Killing Eve

BBC America made the first three episodes of the final season of Killing Eve available to critics, and it's as exciting and witty as previous seasons, ...

Villanelle is trying to figure that out as she actively pines for Eve and pretends that whatever fractured their relationship between seasons is behind them. Oftentimes, in my experience, you find yourself caring for the addict, unable to turn off that affection, but knowing that you need to keep a distance, to protect yourself from their destructiveness and not enable them. The indecisive and nervous desk jockey who liked to croon Disney songs at karaoke and sleep in after drinking too much has been replaced with a focused killer — a killer who jogs. In one scene she’s speaking with an acquaintance who asks her, out of the blue, how Villanelle is, and instead of tensing Sandra Oh softens. Something perverse about her intellectual attraction to Villanelle. But as the show went on and Eve descended further and further into Villanelle’s orbit, she started to disappear. Killing Eve, a show about a stylish assassin hunted by a frumpy MI6 agent, made it easy to fall a little in love with a serial killer.

Killing Eve is once again at its off-kilter best in the final season premiere as Villanelle makes a play for salvation and Eve is a woman on a mission. ... This Killing EVE article contains spoilers for season 4 episode 1.

If nothing else, it says something about Killing Eve as a show that there’s no obvious answer, and that this could turn out to be part of a genuine religious awakening in Villanelle or a sign that she is actually losing it for real. Eve’s crisscrossing Europe and even pops over to Russia to shoot Konstantin in the hand real quick to grab some intel, shoot him in the hand and tell him to “get over it,” which feels right. Elsewhere, someone is flaying, torturing, and killing members of The Twelve, so Carolyn, who has been given a “face-saving” demotion to Mallorca wants Eve to find them. Hearing “Nelle” referred to as “Miss Perfect” is so jarring, and Villanelle is so perfectly aware of the beatific imagery she (and in turn, the show) are creating, that it comes back around again to delightful and hilarious. The very notion of salvation for Villanelle seems beside the point, at least until she decides she wants someone to live and then tries talking to God. It’s so atypical of Villanelle it’s worth sitting up and taking notice. It would be easy for all the religious imagery to feel indulgent and on the nose, especially after all the promotional materials and the way Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag already trod such similar ground so exquisitely in its final season, even if PWB is no longer involved with Killing Eve anymore.

Read EW's recap of the premiere episode of Killing Eve's fourth and final season.

only to shock everyone, herself most of all, when she rescusitates her victim and saves the life she almost took. This is the heart of it, and something we'll likely be revisiting a lot this season: whether these people have changed, whether they're even capable of it, who they are, who they're meant to be. The red robe she sings in, the "What Would Jesus Do?" tie-dyed t-shirt she wears to cook a dinner of loaves and fishes, the white dress she wants to be baptized in: as always, the trappings on the outside belie the emptiness within. Villanelle is now living and working as a church employee and semi-permanent houseguest of the parish priest (who finds her suspicious) and his daughter (who finds her irresistible). Even as she insists that she's turning over a new leaf, it's hard not to notice that she wears this new identity as a costume, same as all the others. But I digress.) The first is Carolyn ( Fiona Shaw), whose new job as a cultural attaché in Spain has not deterred her from investigating a series of murders connected to The Twelve. Carolyn isn't supposed to be doing this, of course — she's supposed to be judging sand-sculpting competitions and telling schoolchildren about British culture — but everyone knows she was never going to leave this alone. Eve, having successfully tracked one of The Twelve's newest recruits, finally catches a glimpse of her quarry: Helene. Time enough to build a nice little shrine to her obsession with photos of The Twelve's assassins, a map of the world, and post-its. Hugo (Edward Bluemel), who has been promoted to Carolyn's former spot on the Russia desk, and whose hair has reached levels of luxuriousness matched only by his ego, visits Mallorca and tries to threaten her into backing off. Eve isn't just here to kick ass and ride motorcycles (although it must be said that she walks like a woman who's been riding a motorcycle a lot, over rough roads, for many hours on end). She wants information, because she's on a mission to find Helene (Camille Cottin) and destroy the mysterious organization known as The Twelve. It's unclear how long she's been at this — a few months, maybe? (Just don't think too hard about the little synchronicities between the way she brings her new beau a protein shake and that season 1 fantasy in which she told Niko (Owen McDonnell) she would kill him and dispose of his body by pouring him down the toilet one blenderful at a time… But this isn't the old Eve. It's Bad Motorcycle Eve With a Gun. So she just shoots him. And then there's the mysterious motorcyclist who pulls up in front of his headquarters, dispatches his security guards, and strides in with gun leveled.