“Killing Eve” ran four seasons and 32 episodes on BBC America, from April 8, 2018 to April 10, 2022, and it built its whole engine on a single idea: two women who should be enemies cannot stop thinking about each other. Sandra Oh plays Eve Polastri, a British intelligence investigator. Jodie Comer plays Villanelle, the psychopathic assassin she is tasked with capturing. The chase becomes a mutual obsession, and the show never lets either one go.
Trailer, via BBC America.
Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer
The casting is the reason this works. Oh was the first actor cast, in June 2017, as the title character. For Villanelle, the production considered more than 100 actresses before Comer landed the part about a month later.
Sally Woodward Gentle told Backstage what they were after, and the quote explains the show’s whole appeal:
“We wanted her to be able to disappear into a crowd.”
Comer’s first audition was the kitchen scene from “I Have a Thing About Bathrooms,” read opposite Oh. The two clicked. You can feel that in the finished series.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge created the show and served as head writer for the first series. It is based on the Villanelle novel series by Luke Jennings, and each season got a different female head writer:
- Series 1: Phoebe Waller-Bridge
- Series 2: Emerald Fennell
- Series 3: Suzanne Heathcote
- Series 4: Laura Neal
That rotating-writer structure is unusual, and it is also the show’s central weakness.
The Four Seasons, Ranked
- Series 1 — Waller-Bridge sets the tone and the rules.
- Series 2 — Fennell pushes the obsession to Rome.
- Series 3 — Heathcote takes Eve out of MI6 and Villanelle out of killing.
- Series 4 — Neal writes the ending, and the ending is the problem.
The first two series drew critical acclaim. The last two got more mixed reviews. The fourth series, and its final episode especially, drew significant backlash from critics and audiences. That is not a small blemish on an otherwise strong record.
Carolyn, Konstantin and The Twelve
The supporting cast carries real weight. Fiona Shaw plays Carolyn Martens. Kim Bodnia plays Konstantin Vasiliev. Camille Cottin plays Hélène, Robert Gilbert plays Yusuf, and Anjana Vasan plays Pam.
The plot machinery is The Twelve, the secret organization Villanelle kills for, and MI6’s undercover division tasked with finding her. Series 3 picks up six months after Rome. Eve, traumatized by a near-death experience at Villanelle’s hands, quits MI6. Villanelle stops killing for The Twelve and starts asking whether killing is what she is made for. Series 4 has Eve desperate for revenge and Villanelle eager to change for Eve.
What Actually Matters
The show broke weekly ratings increase records and won several accolades, including the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series. Oh and Comer both won Golden Globes for their performances. Those awards are deserved.
But the last two seasons are where “Killing Eve” loses its nerve. A show built on mutual obsession needs the obsession to keep escalating, and instead the back half keeps explaining the characters to us. The fourth series’ backlash is the honest verdict on that. This is a great four-season show with a great first half and a compromised second one.
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