Barry and Killing Eve both looked like they should've ended with Season 1 -- but only Barry excelled in Season 2

Variety

"I was dead certain that Killing Eve and Barry — two of my favorite television debuts of 2018 — should have ended after a single season," says Caroline Framke. "Both coincidentally starring unstable assassins, the shows were smart, propulsive, and extremely weird straight out of the gate. Their first seasons were unsparing and gutsy, telling wildly twisting stories of deceit and murder, temptation and morality with such enthusiasm that it seemed impossible that either could keep it up for too long. As the second seasons of Barry and Killing Eve unfolded — on the same nights, even! — they became revealing inverses of each other. And now that both have aired their finales, I can confidently say that I was right to question a return — and also, that I was wrong." Framke adds: "Killing Eve’s failure to justify continuing into a second season makes what Barry did with its extended time even more impressive. While Killing Eve skated on the surface, Barry drilled deeper into what makes its characters tick, experimented with its own form, and found surprising things to say about its themes without becoming too repetitive....Going forward, I have far more confidence in Barry’s ability to rationalize its riskier choices and make sense of its characters’ fraying new realities. Killing Eve, however, will have to take a good hard look at the story it’s telling and figure out what, exactly, it wants to say beyond 'these women are drawn to each other.' We’ve known that since day one. Now it’s time for the show to find something else to say, or else risk losing everything that made it special in the first place."