Okay LISTEN UP murder babies. This is the Killing Eve 407 recap, and it contains *significant spoilers* for Killing Eve season four, episode seven aka “Making Dead Things Look Nice.” This episode has not yet aired on television and will not air on television until this Sunday, April 10th right before the last episode ever (confusingly, I think it’s being packaged as a two-part series finale) HOWEVER, 407 is literally already available on the AMC+ streaming app, and I know a lot of superfans who have been watching on the app have been bummed out that these recaps have been following the TV schedule and therefore have been a week behind (I’m sorry! To be fair, Vulture and other outlets did it this way, too!), so I am doing double-recap duty this week. Ultimately, this also makes the most sense because it means I can focus on the actual series finale next weekend and we can get all of our theories, hopes, dreams, and wishes out ahead of that final episode. So please definitely take to the comments here with those finale hopes, dreams, and wishes! I want to hear them! But if you are waiting to watch the episode on television next weekend and do not wish to be spoiled, just skip this recap and come back later! You can still contribute thoughts n feelings to the comments section for episode 406, and then we can all convene together next week for the real finale. Okay, that’s my spiel! Past recaps here; Villanelle/Eve personality quiz here!
What now?
That’s what Eve wants to know.
She has completed her mission, albeit in the sloppiest way possible, not really cutting off the head of the monster like she wanted but just a head of the monster, one that will surely sprout back.
“Now you have to find a new ordinary,” Yusuf tells her. “The old one’s not gonna fit.” But at the same time, he has just handed her Hélène’s phone, freshly unlocked. Does he really think Eve is going to stop obsessing over The Twelve? Does he not know he’s leaving the door open by handing her this phone? (Let’s be real, even without the phone, Eve probably would have found a way back down the rabbit hole. She has never fully emerged from it.)
Yusuf convinces Eve that what she needs is some fun. Specifically, what she needs is karaoke. I am grateful for Yusuf, because thanks to him, we get to see Sandra Oh sing, which is always a delight!!!!! The two head to a private room karaoke joint to blow off some steam in a very KKU-approved fashion. Eve taps out early during “Got To Be Real,” and Yusuf says that means he gets to pick a solo for her (my kind of people are the kind of people who have a Karaoke Code, so once again, I do like Yusuf).
He puts on “Chandelier” by Sia.
Eve correctly points out it’s a very difficult song to sing! She stumbles a bit through the first verse, but by the first chorus, she has found her groove, and wow just like pour buckets of awards on Sandra Oh’s head? The singing, yes, but also the ACTING that is happening in this karaoke sequence!!! I worship at her altar.
In between “one two three, one two three drinks,” Eve starts seeing things. More accurately, she starts seeing people. There, crowded together in the little karaoke room booth, are people from her past, some of them dead, some of them just gone. Niko, Bill, Keiko, Elena (Kenny isn’t there, which I have to chock up to the actor not being available, because I have bent over backwards trying to figure out a narrative/character-based explanation and can’t come up with one). They sing along with her, happy and drunk and there. But it’s just in her head. It’s just Yusuf there with her, and he doesn’t know past Eve. That’s why she likes him.
I don’t interpret this as Eve feeling guilty for the people she has lost or even as Eve longing for her past, for a simpler time. I interpret it as Eve feeling guilty for not wanting that life anymore. Her old friends, her ex husband, they’re here not to celebrate with her but almost to taunt her, condemn her. This is the fun, free, happy life she could have, and yet she doesn’t want it. After all this time, Eve still struggles to know who she is.
At the beginning of the episode, we see Eve walking with shopping bags draped on her arms. It’s a perception trick. The bags are not her own. She catches up with another woman, who hands her more bags. Eve is working personal security detail. She will certainly never be happy living life like that, following someone else, always a few paces behind.
After she stumbles out of the karaoke bar and into the alleyway, Yusuf follows. He tells her she has to find the parts of her life she can bear and live from there. He speaks from personal experience, saying that of the seven men who made it back from his last tour, only three are still alive.
“What if I can’t move on?” Eve asks.
“You can, you can,” Yusuf says.
“What if I don’t want to?”
There it is. Eve doesn’t know what comes next, because she knows she’s supposed to move on, to do something different, and she doesn’t want to. She wants to stay on the path she has been on, a path of simultaneous self-discovery and self-destruction.
It sounds like a good time for therapy, so that’s exactly where she goes. Poor Martin, forever at the mercy of emotionally needy killers! He stacks creamer packets while Eve talks, an apparent grounding strategy.
“Do you know I used to be married?” Eve begins. “I used to play bridge. I used to sing karaoke. I just watched a woman bleed to death and killed a man. I wanted to. I wanted to kill him. So I did. I wanted Villanelle gone, and now she’s gone. And unbelievably, I survived. For what?”
What now?
Martin says she has to find small joys in life, a glass of wine, a crossword, anything. His advice echoes Yusuf’s, but here there’s a little more light. Yusuf said she merely had to find the things that would make life bearable. Martin says she has to find small joys. Eve wants a concrete reason for it all, for everything she has gotten herself into, for life itself. “The reason why we’re here is to know ourselves,” Martin says. Eve has never been so good at that.
All episode, Eve is looking for answers to what now?
“Whatever you do next, you can choose,” Yusuf tells Eve.
“Whatever you’re going to do Eve, don’t do it alone,” Konstantin tells Eve.
“The most important thing you can do right now is to go to the people that love you. Who understand you. Who know your soul,” Martin tells Eve.
All signs point to Villanelle.
Far away on a remote island in Scotland, Villanelle wakes up in a haystack in a barn with a goat. This season really has been stepped in religious and spiritual imagery and symbolism, and I find it fascinating. Especially because there’s a mix of mythologies at play. Here, Villanelle’s barnyard slumber evokes the Bible. But we’ve also had touches of Roman mythology, particular through the invocation of Cupid and Psyche a couple episodes back. It’s like we’re getting a super queer, super weird retelling of some of these tales, which in their original versions are just as violent and blood-soaked as the story unfolding here.
Gunn comes home with a kill — not an animal, but a man she has hunted, a man she claims has been trespassing on her property, fishing on her shores. She drags him into the barn and tells Villanelle matter-of-factly that she is going to filet him, and she does just that, spilling out his organs, butchering him in revenge.
Villanelle is delighted by this. It’s so nice to be seen, you know? When Gunn says she’s going on a hunt, Villanelle joins her. They track wild boars. When Gunn lifts her crossbow, Villanelle asks if it’s what she shot her with, and Gunn shhs her. It’s all very playful and funny. I said to my girlfriend: It’s like they’re the butch/femme sides of the same coin. I stand by it.
“The woman cradling you in Margate,” Gunn says while hacking up an animal, cutting out its rot. “Who was she?” Villanelle says nobody, and Gunn repeats nobody in a way that acknowledges she knows Villanelle’s lying and that the woman was absolutely a somebody. “You gotta cut the rot out before it kills you,” she says.
Eve, after all, isn’t the only one wondering what now. Villanelle made a choice. She made a choice to leave Eve. She came here to this island as a literal escape. Simply put: She’s rebounding.
She asks Gunn about her life here and about why she had her kill Hélène instead of just doing it herself. Gunn says her entire village in France was wiped out by a poisoned water source, that she went to Paris and eventually was found by Hélène, who offered her this island in exchange for her working for The Twelve. Gunn got what she wanted, just like Villanelle used to get what she wanted from The Twelve. Gunn got her animals and her trees and her land, and Villanelle got her fancy clothes and money and lavish Parisian lifestyle. But Gunn says she had the same realization Villanelle had a while ago: Hélène was just using her. “Such a bitch,” Villanelle says. “Big bitch,” Gunn adds. They bond over their shared hatred of Hot Hélène and then they bond over the idea of three gallons of sodium cyanide mass poisoning an entire village. Again, it’s so nice to be seen!
When they kiss, it’s rough, like they’re unsure whether they’re attacking each other or making out. It’s not a surprising dynamic. It’s nice to be seen by a fellow psychopath, but they’re almost too energetically similar, vibrating on the same fraught frequency.
Meanwhile, in Salzburg, Carolyn follows up on a lead from the date book she stole off of dead Lars/Johan. An old man in beige offers her an aperitif. “It’s an incredible feeling. Being inches away from the thing you’ve been looking for. Remarkable.” He’s talking about birding, but really he’s talking about this entire goddamn show.
Then old flame Vlad shows up, ready to drag her back to Russia. “You’ve left a wake of betrayal behind you, Carolyn,” he says. It’s true. Carolyn really has no real allegiances left intact. She has only herself. She muses on what she knows to Vlad: The Twelve operated in cells, and those cells were kept separate from each other to defend against attack. But every once in a while, the leadership meets. A symbol of a barn swallow penned in Lars/Johan’s date book seems to be the key to those big meetings, and it’s what brought her here, to this cafe, whose ornate decor is full of barn swallows. But Carolyn thinks she may have gotten it wrong. Something Vlad says tips her off, and then she convinces him to let her go and to instead bring back to Russia the man in beige who offered her a drink, saying she’s pretty sure he’s an assassin sent to kill her. Vlad agrees. Carolyn’s only got herself, but she still has a way of getting what she wants from others — especially from men, who are so easily charmed by her.
After therapy, Eve attempts to dismantle her conspiracy board. She lingers on a photo of Villanelle. Then Hélène’s phone lights up with a message: a picture of the barn swallow. She goes to Konstantin, who tells her The Twelve has gone digital. The image is a message signaling a meeting. Eve tells him Hélène is very dead, and something clicks for Konstantin. He sees a way out.
Earlier in the episode, Konstantin gets a call from his daughter Irina, who laments to him that he should have cared more about her and less about “shithead,” her affectionate pet name for Villanelle. “Maybe if I work for The Twelve, you’ll finally pay attention to me,” she taunts. I’ve always loved lil murderous rascal Irina. These are, of course, devastating words for a father to hear. She’s right; he did spend more time with Villanelle than with her. But he did so because of the hold The Twelve has on his life, of the way it subsumes people and gives them the illusion of freedom. The Twelve is, honestly, a perfect example of the chokehold of capitalism. It’s the ultimate Evil Employer, manipulating its workers by giving them what they want at a very, very steep price.
Konstantin couldn’t save Villanelle; he couldn’t save Irina; maybe he can save his new daughter-figure, Pam. He takes her out for hot chocolate after the call with Irina, tells her to have some fun, take the day off. He’s doing the things he should have done with Irina long ago. Pam does take the day off and spends it at the carnival with Darren, who has been promoted to pig slicing at the roast pork stand. Pam helps him slice the flesh the right way; she’s good at this stuff.
What Konstantin doesn’t know is that Pam has received a digital postcard of her own. He visits her at the pork stand, hoping to tell her Hélène is dead and that they can alter the course of their lives now, break free of The Twelve. Pam didn’t like killing Fernanda last episode, and Konstantin knows she’ll just have to keep doing horrible things if she stays. They both will. She tells him she’ll see him later, and she seems nervous. When she returns to the hotel room, Konstantin is dancing to electronica and drinking vodka. He’s celebrating. He has packed bags for both of them, so they can get out for good. But that postcard on Pam’s phone. Apparently, it was a kill order from Hélène. And Konstantin’s the target. Pam thanks him for helping her begin a new life and then slices him with a pizza cutter.
Kills always feel so specific, so personal on this show, and the fact that she does it with the pizza cutter evokes the particular dynamic she had with Konstantin — familial and innocent despite the circumstances defining it. Just a dad and a daughter about to have pizza, upended by this twist of the knife, a twist deepened by Konstantin telling her through gaspy breaths while he bleeds out that she didn’t even need to do it, that Hélène is dead and the job doesn’t matter. So often on this show, people have bad timing. A distraught Pam holds him as he tells her his dying wish: that she find Carolyn, give her a note from his coat pocket, and tell her he always loved her. It makes sense that this show is ending with a lot of Big Deaths. And it’s doing so in a way that’s emotionally honest and grounded on a character-level.
Pam makes a dead thing look nice — her specialty! — and does Konstantin up like he’s ready for an open casket funeral. It’s the least she can do, and it’s oddly sweet and tender.
On the island, Gunn is working out. Villanelle wakes up to find her rowboat smashed to bits. “Needed firewood,” Gunn says. A dubious explanation given they’re surrounded by trees. “Where are my things?” Villanelle asks. “In my cabin. You sleep with me now. This is your new home Villanelle.” It seems even mass murderers are not exempt from the dyke phenomenon of U-Hauling!!!!!!!! Assassins, they’re just like us.
Indeed, Gunn has pivoted sharply from being ready to fight Villanelle to being ready to wife her. Gunn is a woman who very much so knows what she wants. She wants consistency and simplicity. She has carved out a nice life for herself in the woods. Villanelle sits at Gunn’s kitchen table and looks up at a taxidermied buck head. She does not belong here. Villanelle is always good at chameleoning into new environments, quite literally donning the right costume to fit her surroundings. She looks like she belongs in this island domestic life with Gunn, but it’s so far from what she really wants. When Gunn smells her head and then again, planting a kiss on Villanelle’s scalp while handing her coffee, Villanelle’s discomfort is palpable and hilarious. Gunn doesn’t see her at all, it turns out. This is so far from anything she would ever want.
Villanelle, ever-impulsive and resolute, says she’s leaving. She says she’s done with The Twelve and that they have Gunn in a cage. “You just can’t see it,” she says. But it might not even be that Gunn can’t see it but that she doesn’t care. She’s willing to pay the price for the life she wants. “If you threaten my way of life, Villanelle, I will rip you apart slowly,” she says. And based on everything we’ve seen about Gunn so far, she extremely means it. She pivots sharply again, from wanting to wife Villanelle to wanting to kill her dead.
There’s an interesting contrast here between Gunn and Eve. Eve is searching for the meaning of life, for a reason behind all the things she has done. Gunn, on the other hand, is certain of the life she wants to live and is willing to do anything to preserve it. Gunn may be in a cage like Villanelle says, but she’s content. She feels she has purpose. Eve is never satisfied. She’s never sure. Gunn’s worldview is simple, and when something doesn’t fit, she literally kills it. Eve and Villanelle, on the other hand, both have built lives on ever-changing rules. It’s what makes their Whole Thing so hard to write or talk about. They’re both complicated, so their relationship is, too.
But Eve does make a choice in this episode. She technically follows the advice of Yusuf, of Martin, and of Konstantin. She chooses to move forward and not alone. She arrives on the island just as Villanelle has run away from Gunn, who is hunting her down with a machete in hand. When Gunn sees Eve, she likely recognizes her as the woman cradling Villanelle in Margate. It again feels like the hotel scene between Villanell/Eve/Hélène, Gunn running after Eve and attacking her out of a combination of jealousy, anger, and frustration. Villanelle won’t be what Gunn wants her to be. Eve won’t be what Villanelle wants her to be.
That’s where all these characters keep getting things wrong: They all think they can genuinely control the behaviors and emotions of others and of themselves. And when they realize they can’t, it makes them spiral. Eve wants other people to tell her what to do now, but she is the only person who can answer that. At the same time, she wants to believe her life exists in a vacuum and isn’t impacted by the other people in it. After all, she keeps believing all she has to do to fix her life is excise Villanelle from it. But it never works. Even when Villanelle isn’t physically with her, Eve can’t excise the impact she has had on her. She can’t excise her feelings. She finds Villanelle, because they have a job to finish, together. But it has never just been about the job.
It’s nice to be seen, and Villanelle and Eve spent so long watching each other that now they really do see each other. I know a lot of viewers have been frustrated by how much time Villanelle and Eve have spent apart this season, but I think they had to take that time apart to realize how much they want each other. I think we as viewers needed to feel the lack they feel. As much as I’d love for them to have spent this season taking down The Twelve buddy-comedy-style, it wouldn’t be true to their arc. This isn’t a simple love story. It’s an epic. One that’s full of absurdity, erotics, humor, tension, drama, all of it. This season has been this show at its most over-the-top. And I think that’s a very fucking fun way to go out.
Villanelle and Eve are not good for each other. Obviously. But Killing Eve is about them choosing each other anyway.
It’s dangerous to hinge your purpose, to hinge the meaning in your life on another person. But it’s tempting, too. Notice that Martin’s examples of small joys in life were not rooted in other people but in objects, in solitary experiences. He knows that codependency is Villanelle and Eve’s undoing. They’re as obsessed with needing each other as they are with being needed.
And neither one could answer what now on their own, so now they’ll try to answer it together.
SORRY BABY x
- Pam saying Konstantin looks like an angry Santa Claus…LOVE IT.
- So we’re being primed for a Pam spinoff, no? That’s what’s happening here? Does anyone have intel on this? I honestly would be pretty into it! I think the Killing Eve universe in general is fertile ground for a spinoff or two. And as hard as it would be to be in this world without Villanelle or Eve, the fact that this show is so queer in its DNA makes up for that! I have no doubt that any spinoff would be queer as fuck. And I welcome any and all Anjana Vasan-led projects.
- Not a big Carolyn episode, but Fiona Shaw stays incredible!!!!!!!
- I maintain that a Killing Eve musical episode always seemed to be in the realm of possibility! Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh both had a chance to sing this season, so I will simply mourn the musical episode we never got and cherish the memories we do have.
- I did enjoy this clapperboard illustration from last week’s absolutely-perfect-no-notes hotel scene.
I thought the karaoke scene was meant to signify/harken back to the last time Eve was “normal”. The very first episode was the day after she, Bill, and Elena (and Niko) went out for drinks and karaoke for Bill’s birthday.
This was my interpretation, too.
The scene in which we first meet Eve in the series has her waking up screaming and Niko commenting last night’s karaoke where Bill and Eve sang Disney’s “A Whole New World” (hahaha the cheek of this show). It’s a great callback, because it’s literally the last thing Eve did before the show started and her “regular life” began transforming.
Forgot to add… and at that point, Kenny wasn’t part of the group. He came after Eve lost her on-the-books job at MI6.
Yes, a legendary callback that I shed a tear watching!! Bill 😭😭😭 I took the karaoke scene to also show Eve has some grieving to do before she can move on — I agree she doesn’t want that life, but I do think she needs to take a goddamn MOMENT to grieve everything she’s lost to become who she is now. It’s like confronting yourself and accepting the path you’ve chosen, your agency in it, and allowing yourself to transform.
The Karaoke scene was a flashback to the time she was “normal”, before she got involved in the 12 mission (the night before season 1 episode 1), so she didn’t know Kenny then, that’s why he wasn’t there
The whole bit with Vilanelle in nature was comedy gold.
Vilanelle may be versed in… acting, but that setup did not work for her at all. Gunn gave her leaves to chew, which she spat out and later grimaced at the taste. She calls wild boars “hairy pigs”, gets corrected for it and then shushed because her chatting is likely scaring off the wildlife they were hunting. She didn’t want the worms, she didn’t like the moonshine and walking into the cabin the next morning to listen to the weather forecast for the next 24 hours, while shots of a quiet, reclusive life were shown – animal figurines carved out of wood, an open notebook, the whole interior in beige, brown tones… I don’t think it was just Gunn’s allegiance to the Twelve that put her off hahaha.
Thanks for the recaps! Quite excited for next week’s.
“ This isn’t a simple love story. It’s an epic.”
THIS. Right here. Sums it up. Loved the last part of the recap, you framed the relationship between them so perfectly.
I don’t know what to expect from the finale and it’s thrilling. I hope they surprise me (in a good way)!
Few days and it will be over, I’m so not ready, I don’t want it to end 🥺
Does anyone else think Martin’s presence this season is the writer’s way of giving us therapy? I feel like he’s also telling me to move on and enjoy the small things in life. I feel very positive about the last episode, because I also think I will be okay with how it ends. There are so many ways this could end, but that’s what will give it life after episode 8 aired. Killing Eve has been one hell of a show to consume! I genuinely believe at its core is a love story, and a queer one. With Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh’s micro-acting to assist!
I am very much not ready for this to end. What a journey it has been to root for these two dorks. I think my feelings about the earlier episodes are from wanting the queerness to unfold physically, but you’re right, Kayla. It’s not true to their arc. It has never been about the job. Eve and Vilanelle can’t pretend it is anymore. It’s never been about the 12, but the 12 is what brings them together over and over again. Konstantine and Carolyn have been their parallel.
For some reason, a Killing Eve musical sounds very… Killing Eve!
During pre-production for season 4, there were a few sources stating that Sid Gentle Films (the producer) will be exploring spin-off ideas. I think Pam’s arc has been too carefully carved to NOT be a spin-off possibility. After this episode, it might be with Irina in it? If someone from Sid Gentle Films is reading this, please know that we want it to be Pam. Or at least Kayla and I do. Young Carolyn & Konstantine also seem like a possibility.
Yes re: Martin’s role!! I have been noticing that a lot of artists making stuff in the past year or so seem to share this desire to make something uplifting in direct response to How It’s Been living through this pandemic. I am not complaining (I’m looking at you, Mitski! ty for the bops!!)! Like the choice for Eve to be speaking DIRECTLY into the fucking camera while talking with Martin??? Very much so THIS IS FOR YOU, VIEWER!!! Eerie!
Well, I didn’t like this one. OK: I hated it. It felt like a waste of time. I can’t help it.
It felt like a waste of time with Eve. Her acts of violence were always big moments of disruption and reveal: stabbing Villanelle, killing Raymond, killing Dasha. Every time, it’s different. And now, it’s like the show is turning its eyes away from Eve’s craving for violence. The episode is not interested in her perversion at all. It does what Eve does: it covers it with The Twelve. The memory from the karaoke hurt, though. (I agree it was a memory). It was a good flashback. The remembrance that she actually made a lot of choices. It’s weird, but Eve is, in a way, the character with the most agency in the show. She chose this. Over and over again. It’s all about her free will and her desire.
It’s a waste of time for Villanelle, too. Another person wants to imprison her. But we’ve already seen this. With men. With women. It’s not like the episode confronts Villanelle with anything, either. She has been fantasizing about domesticity, but a different kind. She loves restaurants and movies. She wants a bathtub and, probably, some Criterion DVDs.
And it’s a waste of time for Carolyn, too. Maybe the most. I loved the fifth episode. There are no boundaries between personal and professional in Carolyn’s life and never been. She was brought up by her spy father to be an agent. And then she killed her father by breaking rules and inviting home the boy with a strange laugh. But what really kills the man is not his daughter’s recklessness or even the boy who blackmails him. It’s the fact that MI6 didn’t decriminalize homosexuality for the next 12 years. The same MI6 Carolyn will serve for another 40 years. The season starts with Carolyn’s ugly treason, but then nothing happens. Everything centers on the Twelve. Kayla’s right about the Twelve as the ultimate Evil Employer, but that’s also why the institutions of the state were always so important to the plot.
In the Fennell season, Carolyn saves the world. In the Heathcote season, her service turns out to be not recognized. She’s unappreciated, pushed back, and humiliated. The third season is very distinct in its look. I don’t know what inspired the DP Julian Court that year, maybe he had the flu just before they started to work on season three and he spent two weeks binge-watching old French thrillers, and then too much Antonioni. Anyway, the camera in the Heathcote season is obsessed with the landscape, architecture, and interior design. There are a lot of wide shots of people and the buildings, people in their depressing flats and offices, a lot of dirty windows, wet pavements. Carolyn and the National Theatre, Carolyn and the Royal Albert Hall, Carolyn in the MI6 offices and corridors, and in her ridiculous, modernist house. And she’s so alienated from these institutions, the wealth, the greatness of the United Kingdom. It’s so ironic and humiliating. It’s also mirroring Villanelle’s experience, which is so opposite that it becomes similar. Villanelle is working-class, brought up in the hellish institutions for poor kids, and she’s haunted by her mother. Carolyn is upper-class, brought up in the institutions of power, and she’s haunted by her daddy. She really should spend more time with angry, queer millennials from Eastern Europe!
And that’s why Carolyn’s plot in this episode made me angry. I realized how many possibilities were thrown away through the window. It’s like watching a running joke, the same sketch all over again: Carolyn and her digressions about food, Carolyn being witty. Carolyn the gif. We learn nothing new.
I don’t really have anything to add about Konstantin except I don’t feel like Pam was ready. Obviously, Bodnia and Vasan sell it beautifully for a minute because they’re so good. Also, Bodnia dances with a glass of vodka like Vincent Lindon in Titane and it made me smile. I’m wondering if it was intentional, as Julia Ducournau has been very loud in her Killing Eve fangirling.
I kindly disagree about Villanelle and Carolyn.
Villanelle in S1 believed herself to be completely in control and had absolute understanding of who she is, what she wanted, who she wanted and when she wanted it. As her connection with Eve grew so did her disconnection to the fallacy that was the control she thought she had. Growth and new understanding of self is never linear so it’s nonsensical to think there won’t be backsliding. She initially accepts Gunn because the 2 of them vibrate the same energy and that’s appealing for anyone but as soon as she realizes she’s not going to get what she wants/needs she bounces. And that is growth on her part. She clung to Anna, Konstantin and Eve for so long before she finally let them go. Also, Villanelle doesn’t crave domesticity though that’s how she frames it. I believe she wants to belong to something or someone (that’s what all of S3 was about), to have someone care for her as she is and to be enough.
That’s what she craves and that’s what she hoped to get from Eve but we all know Eve is in a cement bunker of denial. Speaking of Eve, Villanelle went from seeing Eve as a possession to seeing her as someone who has a right to choose to understanding that Eve may never choose her and she has to let go.
Carolyn too has lost her power and control over her life but for a different reason. Her world used to be big and she stood tall within it but the minute she lost Kenny her world got small and she started her own journey of understanding that her life and her career which she put before everything and everyone and what she thought gave her her power was a fallacy. Kenny was how she knew she belonged (she loved her dad but Kenny was her person), her tether if you will and her power though she never showed him or anyone. Him being gone plus the grief that she refuses to embrace plus the regret for all the things she did and didn’t do while Kenny was alive have equaled her going scorched earth even on her own life it means nothing and she’s exposed as being no different from the rest of us and she hates it. She’ll crack a joke or be tangential because it’s her only way of not being exposed more and an attempt at throwing people off in hopes of gaining some power back.
I’ve talked to my friends a lot about this show and I often wonder how they expected a show full of unconventional people to have arcs and storylines that take conventional paths. Good storytelling, storytelling that is truer to the nonlinear nature of life and relationships in all it iterations doesn’t do that. I know many who have been HIGHLY upset because they believe it should go this way or that but why should it? I know many will be HIGHLY upset if this isn’t wrapped up in a neat little bow but I won’t because why should it? Life is messy. People are messy. Most of us don’t figure it out or get it right or find the right moment. Most of us fall back into old patterns and screw up time and again. We deny ourselves. We lie to ourselves. We climb to the top and we fall down. And you know what? That’s ok because this ride if you think of it as such has been extra fun.
I don’t think it excludes what I wrote about their relationships with the institutions though! (Obviously, Carolyn was in a position of power and privilege, no matter what happened to her father and how paiful it was.)
And in the subject of nonlinear nature of life and storytelling: I agree! If I lack something this season is the big shift – I feel like both Fennell and Heathcote had much stronger ideas for doing something completely new. Every year, I was feeling like a lead writer thinks differently about the characters and the structure and the violence – and that conversation between the seasons was exciting. I always had some ideas how the story should go and they always suprised me, week after week, with something I couldn’t predict. This year, I think that a lot of great ideas could go further. But also I think that with every great TV series, there is a risk of heartbreak. And I’m ok with that. It’s a part of the game and the beauty of episodic storytelling.
Gente estou muito ansiosa esperando que Eve e Villanelle terminam juntas da primeira temporada até a terceira já assisti umas seis vezes meu marido está muito enciumado kkkkkk mais tá valendo a pena tô acompanhando a quarta temporada também espero não me decepcionar amoooo dimais essa dupla favorita 😍😍😍
All signs DO point to Villanelle, I’m crying, I just want to see my girls happy together!! Even if they go down together!!! May it be glorious!!!
I think after it’s all said and done, I’ll be able to enjoy S4 much more — I spent (too) much of this season hoping we’d see a Villaneve buddy comedy (even while thoroughly enjoying and appreciating how much these arcs make sense for each character — i am just a simple they/them who yearns!!) so I’m looking forward to my rewatch already lol. I agree wholeheartedly that we needed to feel their sense of lack to really get whatever payoff they’re building up to in the finale.
At the end of the day, I’m hoping for Eve to have a come-to-Jesus moment (heh) of crystal clarity and honesty with Villanelle. Like. That’s all I want. For Eve to acknowledge what they are to each other. I appreciate what you said last recap about her rightly having her guard up with V, so I’m hoping that now she’s exhausted all her own avenues, she’s forced to reckon with V/what V means to her head-on. Which… lol Eve. Same.
I’m not holding out for this but I do hope for some acknowledgement of like what happened between them after the bridge between S3 + S4? Bc I still don’t understand the /intensity/ of Eve’s repulsion towards Villanelle when S4 opened!! How’d they go from what I thought was acknowledging their mutual understanding of each other to ,,, EXES???
I appreciate what you said last recap about the gals always being slightly out of step. I hadn’t considered it that way before and think that’s why fleeting moments like the tea dance and that bridge scene from S3 felt so good — a moment of release from the tension of *just* missing each other.
That’s why I’m now feeling very open to however the writers choose to leave them. I feel good that they’ve done a lot of legwork this season re: layering in symbolism/parallels/themes that’ll culminate in a coherent finale, which … is all I really ask for from my shows at this point lol. It’s been a fun ride and I just want the ending to feel honest and logical! I do feel like they’ve really spent the time to think about these characters and made an effort to give ’em authentic conclusions, so I’m definitely feeling optimistic. And if not, well… AO3 is truly an illustrious place!! We’ll live on forever lol!!!
Thank you Kayla for your truly amazing and insightful recaps, here’s to one more!! sob sob sob and woohoo!!!
Agree! I have wishes and dreams for acknowledgements about:
– What happened between S3 finale to S4 opening? Did V told Eve about her mom? Did they actually got together and broke up? Wtf???
– Eve needs to fucking be honest and vulnerable about why she sees Vilanelle’s face over and over again in her future!
I want them to say out loud how they feel about each other to each other, even if they already know it. But I’m not holding out for anything and ultimately, I just want them happy, no matter how that plays out. Even if it is a final moment of “rest”. Even if it is another fleeting moment.
OKAY @tallulah_shark I have been thinking about what might’ve happened between S3 and S4 for TWO (!!) days — the hardest part was trying to understand the intensity of Eve’s anger but I think I found a plausible explanation for myself.
I’m picking up from the bridge scene — even though Eve wants “it” to stop, aka her darkness to stop taking a hold of her, Eve’s anger/grief and/or penchant for throwing herself into danger ultimately gets the best of her. She decides she wants to take down The Twelve, even if she has to do it alone. She wasn’t able to leave Villanelle on that bridge, so she leans into it and tries to recruit V to her cause of revenge. V is against it, very determined to find her own way. V wants to prove her own ability to change, or at least figure out what she wants apart from her life working for The Twelve. Eve doesn’t believe she is capable of this — probably even says something mean like “oh you aren’t serious, are you?” Bc Eve can be cruel :( And lbr, she lowkey loves Villanelle’s ‘monster’ and probably doesn’t want her to change (I mean HELLO?? We all saw her face in S4E6 after V murders Hélène lmao). So when she sees V is sticking to her guns, she gets frustrated and leaves her behind, aka They Breakup.
I’m open to alternatives; maybe Eve believed in V for a moment but got hurt? Which could be why her lack of faith in V’s ability to change feels so personal? Either way, Eve doesn’t have faith in V — you can see it in her face in S4E3 when V drops Martin’s head on that table, a look that says “you hurt everyone around you, you can’t help it, you can’t change.” There’s flickers of doubt, of course, like when she looks at V right before getting her locked up and softens, or in S4E2 when she asks Martin if he thinks V can really change/become a Christian.
S4 opens with V wanting to win [back?] Eve’s faith, bc she believes this is something you can “win” (see: Drag Jesus telling V she can win the congregation over). She still cares what Eve thinks of her, still wants her approval. But she eventually realizes via Eve’s repeated actions (refusing to attend her baptism, refusing to help her after she murders Phil + May, sending her to fucking prison) that Eve is dead set on shutting her out.
Eve thinks keeping Villanelle out is what’s best for her, and that’s why she gets so damn angry every time V comes back. Eve is trying to maintain her boundaries (she’s very strict about them with Yusuf, too) and V is not respecting them, so she escalates (read: calls the cops; booo Eve!) bc she feels that’s the only thing that’ll get V to stop.
She of course later learns via nearly /losing/ V that she /does/ want her in her life. She won’t fess up to it immediately though, even though she’s been given MULTIPLE opportunities to do so — it’s far too vulnerable, she’s been hurt by V before. Plus they’re still in danger / Eve’s still caught up in her revenge mission, so that takes priority. Villanelle, however, can’t wait any longer. She’s frustrated and takes space, declaring “i’m done with you.” And then we get Episode 7! WHEW!
I definitely believe that E7 has set them up for a reunion of sorts. They’re literally on the same island together lol. Whether or not they finally fall into sync is the last question — will Eve finally be honest with V about her feelings? Does Villanelle have any faith left in Eve? I’m excited to see where they take it and am hoping for the best! Let’s go VILLANEVE!!!!
Thank you, Megan. Thank you thank you! I may have to stick with that too. We’ll find out soon. I can’t believe we’re here. Go VillanEve!