Killing Eve's series finale was jarring, like a slap in the face

Variety

The once-acclaimed BBC America spy drama spent much of its four seasons "subverting spy stories and making genuinely shocking choices that left viewers reeling," says Caroline Framke. But the final scene was "so abrupt, so hackneyed, so amazingly unoriginal that for one hopeful minute, I was sure it had to be a trick," says Framke, adding that "it’s so jarring that it feels like a slap in the face. If I were to give the show the benefit of the doubt, I’d say that it made such a cliché choice on purpose...maybe Season 4 showrunner Laura Neal (who wrote the series finale) wanted to surprise people by not surprising people. Pulling off such a move, however, requires some serious finesse that this blunt force trauma of an ending just doesn’t have. Anyone who’s seen a single spy thriller could have called this 'twist' from a mile away." Framke says the "tedious ending" -- giving vibrant characters a dull sendoff -- wasn't worthy of such a "smart, sexy, and truly shocking" show. 

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• Killing Eve's performances kept the show afloat in a way that the writing often didn’t: "The whole thing feels dramatically incoherent," says Lisa Weidenfeld, "a misuse of some supremely talented actors on a show that used to have a lot more of a central thesis about what it meant for a middle-aged, bored paper pusher with phenomenal hair to gradually become more and more immersed in a life of violence and danger."
• Frustrated Killing Eve fans got a cruel slap in the face: "With each new season and showrunner, Killing Eve has grasped for plausible reasons to keep its central cat and mouse apart," says Laura Bradley. "The longer Eve and Villanelle have needlessly circled one another, the dizzier the series has become. Another version of this series, one that allowed Eve and Villanelle to hook up a season or two ago, would have had time to get Sandra Oh’s quietly dangerous mouse to that place."
• The series finale captured the meandering, aimless gist of the last three seasons: "It was a perfect one-season series," says Dustin Rowles. "The last three seasons were mostly unsuccessful attempts to recapture that opening season magic. We only saw flickers of it here and there, and in the finale, it flickered ever-so-briefly again before checking off the final boxes."
• The finale tarnished Killing Eve's legacy, highlighting the creative timidity of the past two seasons
• Killing Eve's series finale was not only controversial and lazy, but it was also dull
• Killing Eve betrayed its fans, taking the simple (and overdone) route by deploying a tired trope
• Read some of the negative reaction to Killing Eve's finale