Killing Eve ending: Who was the ultimate victor in season 4?
The show nearly ended very differently...
**Spoiler-warning for Killing Eve season 4 episode 8**
TV’s most famous cat and mouse game is finally over.
After four exciting seasons and five BAFTAs, Killing Eve has aired its last ever episode, bringing Eve (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle's (Jodie Comer) journey to a tragic end.
It’s been a wild ride for Eve and Villanelle, who’ve gone from deadly enemies to star-crossed lovers over the course of the show’s four seasons.
And while we've spent four years waiting to see who would emerge victorious from their long-running feud/romance, it turned out to be Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw) who was the real winner of the show.
Those who've watched the final season will know that Carolyn had been trying to return to her old role at MI6 and as she explained to young assassin – and Konstantin killer – Pam, she couldn't go back to the secret service with nothing. Unfortunately, it was one of the show's main protagonists who had to pay the price.
But the divisive Killing Eve finale almost ended very differently, Sandra Oh has revealed. Read on to find out what happened at the end of Killing Eve – and what the alternate ending looked like.
Killing Eve ending explained
Did Killing Eve have an alternate ending planned?
If you wish Killing Eve had ended differently, you aren’t the only one. According to Sandra Oh, it almost did.
In an interview with Deadline, Oh revealed that the Killing Eve finale was originally going to kill off Eve – and not Villanelle
“Honestly, it was going to be the other way around,” she revealed.
Oh recalled a conversation she had with season 4 lead writer Laura Neal, saying: “I was like, ‘You should kill my character.’ I thought that would be the strongest and the most interesting [ending].
“I felt, emotionally, it was the right place of where I was at.”
But after production stopped and restarted due to the pandemic, “they came to me, and they said, ‘We can’t do it. We need to change it... Eve needs to live.
“'Eve is the way into this world. She’s our everywoman. So it’s kind of really super depressing if she dies,' [so] we switched it around."
Oh added that Comer, who played Villanelle, “was very much onboard for that".
What happened in Killing Eve season 4 episode 8?
Overall, the finale did a decent job of weaving together old plotlines and loose threads, even crowbarring in some references to half-forgotten characters like Bill, Eve’s old mentor who Villanelle stabbed to death in a Berlin nightclub in season 1.
We started the episode with Eve and Villanelle reuniting and escaping the possessive Gunn’s Scottish island (the series borrowed from the famous eye-gouging scene in Game of Thrones, with poor Gunn taking the place of Oberyn and Eve as The Mountain).
A smug couple in hiking boots picked them up, giving Eve and Villanelle something to bond over (namely their shared nausea watching “Bub” and “Bubba” rub noses like Lady and the Tramp).
At their rented cottage, the couple read Villanelle’s tarot cards, revealing that her future was blessed by 'The Sun', an omen of bliss. But when Eve took a turn, the card showed her future to be marked by 'Death'.
The ill-fated pair repaid the couple’s kindness by stealing their campervan and listening to The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me.
On the road, they finally shared a long kiss, before heading to London. There, they bumped into Carolyn. Eve thanked her for first hiring her, but their relationship remained frosty - unlike Carolyn’s new friendship with Villanelle following their adventures in Cuba earlier this season.
“I owe you a dare,” Carolyn said, as Villanelle played a few bars of air guitar.
Eve and Villanelle then headed to the secret meeting place of The Twelve: below decks on a riverboat, where a wedding was taking place.
As Villanelle slaughtered the (unseen) members of The Twelve, Eve officiated the ceremony, drawing on her own feelings for Villanelle: “Relationships are a lot of work… The beauty in your relationship will be found in the ways you reunite.”
Afterwards, the pair embraced on the boat deck, the mission complete - only for an unseen sniper to put a bullet in the couple, passing through Villanelle’s shoulder.
Bullets flying, they jumped into the Thames, only for Villanelle to succumb to her wounds, the two plumes of blood floating out behind her and looking almost like angel wings (perhaps a nod to her former spirituality).
Eve emerged, alive, and screamed, while somewhere on the banks of the river, Carolyn spoke into a walkie-talkie. “Jolly good,” she said.
That it was Carolyn who tore apart Eve and Villanelle makes perfect sense, according to showrunner Laura Neal.
“I think it’s about ending the story that Carolyn began, and Carolyn wanting to have that power,” she told TV Line. “She was the one who brought Eve and Villanelle together, and now she’s going to be the one to tear them apart for good.”
In the end, Carolyn played the long con on everyone around her - including the viewer. As for Villanelle and Eve, the show’s ending seems to suggest that we should pity survivor Eve more than stylish psychopath Villanelle.
As the tarot cards predicted, Villanelle went out in a blaze of glory and triumph after killing The Twelve and finally getting together with Eve - while it’s our titular heroine who is left behind, with a new (questionable) skill-set and confidence, but without her lover by her side.
Who died in Killing Eve season 4?
The following main cast members of Killing Eve were dead by the end of the series.
- Jodie Comer as Villanelle/Oksana Astankova
- Kim Bodnia as Konstantin Vasiliev
- Camille Cottin as Hélène
- Steve Oram as Phil
Of course, it will be the death of Villanelle that will certainly hit fans the hardest.
How did Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh react to the Killing Eve ending?
Both lead actresses Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer have shared their thoughts on the finale and, specifically, the decision to kill-off Villanelle.
On Villanelle's death, Comer told Elle: "It was inevitable. She’s like a cat with nine lives. What I loved about the moment was that was a really selfless act that she did that caused it. It felt right that in that moment she protected Eve. There was something about that shielding, I think, that signified how much she had changed. She was trying so desperately to change at the beginning and I don’t think she ever realized how much she had, which is so sad. That moment really shows how Eve changed her life."
Meanwhile, Oh noted: "Villanelle had to die to bring the show to an end point. Honestly at the beginning of 2020 when discussing the finale it was the other way around, but through the pandemic we changed tracks. Villanelle goes onto more ethereal realms. And Eve is left to survive."
Killing Eve is on BBC iPlayer. Check out what else is on with our TV Guide, or visit our Drama Hub for all the latest news.
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