She is fashion’s favourite killer: the cold-blooded, quick-witted assassin Villanelle is back for a fourth and final season of Killing Eve, the BBC’s high-octane glamour spy thriller, which serves up twists as fast as it does dark laughs and great looks.
That means the cat and mouse, love-hate relationship between Villanelle (Jodie Comer) and MI5 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) will finally come to a conclusion. And what of The Twelve? Will the veil be lifted on the mystery organisation that hire Villanelle for hits, and who are behind a whole host of characters’ grisly demises so far?
If you are struggling to recall how we arrived at the heart-in-mouth finale of the last blood-splattered season, which saw Eve and Villanelle turn their backs and part ways on Tower Bridge (but, inevitably, turn, catch eyes, and smile) here is your cheat sheet for everything important that has happened so far...
Villanelle vs Eve - round one
We first met the merry band of killers, and the UK’s secret service on their tails, back in April 2018. All moody gloom, MI5 agent Eve is at the MI6 office when hilariously dead-pan spy Carolyn Martens (Fiona Shaw) explains there has been an assassination in Poland. Eve is on the periphery thanks to a sexist senior, but rises quickly through the ranks when she suggests this new killer could be a woman. Before you know it, she is steering the investigation, aided by Carolyn’s loveable, tech-savvy son Kenny (Sean Delaney).
We also get to know Villanelle, who is impossibly chic, completely despicable, and gripping from the moment she flips an ice cream onto a little girl in the opening scene. With her comes Konstantin Vasiliev (Kim Bodnia), the assassin’s handler-come-guardian working for The Twelve, who seems to know everyone; not least thanks to having had a past relationship with Carolyn. The tradition of writing Villanelle’s next kill on a postcard, revealing where the unsuspecting victim is living, is fast established - and so commences the killing spree.
Wait, who are The Twelve?
It is murky water when it comes to the shadowy organisation behind the hits. But going into season four, we have some leads. Konstantin works for them as an agent, and we met Dasha (Harriet Walter) in season three who originally worked an assassin, before taking on a higher management role within the group.
The most senior member we have met so far, though, is smooth talking Hélène (Camille Cottin), whose erotically-charged relationship with Villanelle looks to progress in part four. Villanelle herself enters the final series in a powerful position within The Twelve, as “a keeper”. Dasha has already confirmed: “A keeper is big. Higher than Konstantin, higher than me.” And in the final moments of the last episode, MI6 suit Paul Bradwell (Steve Pemberton) was revealed to be a double agent working The Twelve. That ended up getting him killed, though. Will this season reveal who’s at the top of this dirty dozen?
Will they, won’t they?
It doesn’t take long for Eve’s repulsion to turn into a full-blown obsession with Villanelle (and vice versa). The pair meet for the first time in a hospital loo, when Villanelle is dressed in full scrubs (one of her many disguises). Eve leaves shortly after to find a patient’s neck slit open. She confesses later: “I think I’ve met her.” It won’t be the last time: series one wraps up with Eve and Villanelle in a haze of sexual tension in bed together.
Just when we think they might kiss, Eve rams a knife into her stomach. “That’s rude. I really liked you,” Villanelle says, before firing a shot, missing, and then vanishing. The pair’s infatuation with one another has only got more twisted as time has gone on (prompting accusations of queer-baiting from some quarters). They eventually share a kiss in series three, but it remains to be seen whether the pair will exactly end up together when the credits roll for the final time.
Killer style
Villanelle’s cutting-edge style has been a constant throughout: after that killer bubble-gum pink tulle dress courtesy of London designer Molly Goddard in series one, which the Russian assassin wore while stomping through Paris’s Place Vendôme, the show has become synonymous with class A fashion, deploying luxury looks in far flung cities. Costume designer Phoebe de Gaye was in charge for series one, giving us pale blue lace Burberry maxi dresses in Tuscany, green satin bombers by Miu Miu in Bulgaria, and the brocade Dries Van Noten suit Villanelle wore to a nightclub in Berlin (when she, erm, hacked Eve’s friend and MI5 boss Bill Pargrave to death on the dancefloor).
The baton was handed to Charlotte Mitchell for series two, with Sam Perry then joining the show for season three, when Villanelle wore Vampire’s Wife dresses (one is now called ‘The Villanelle Dress’ and you can buy it for £695), a knockout Halpern geometric suit she wanted to look “devastating” in, and a Charles Jeffrey coat for a visit to Scotland. Perry will be back for the new series: that means plenty more Comme des Garçons tail coats, fuzzy green cropped Charlotte Knowles jackets and the odd Alexander McQueen asymmetric blazer are to come.
The writer
It is over to head writer Laura Neal, who has previously worked on Sex Education and Secret Diary of a Call Girl, to decide how the series comes to an end. Each season has boasted its own scripter, kicking off with a vengeance with Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge, followed by Emerald Fennell and Suzanne Heathcote respectively.
What happens next?
No prizes for guessing that Villanelle did not die after Eve stabbed her. After a splash of vodka to the stab wound and a trip to A&E, Villanelle gets back to her ways with a new handler, Raymond Algaron (Adrian Scarborough), from The Twelve. It is not a match, and she makes the (ever tempting, ever daunting) decision to go freelance with Konstantin.
A new “ghost” killer is on the run, and momentarily steals Eve’s attention. Which is cause for the queen of performative killing to step up her act. Specifically, with a creative kill in Amsterdam’s red-light district, which sees Villanelle doll up in an anime pig mask and baby pink traditional Bavarian dirndl. She recreates “The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers” painting, that hangs in the nearby Rijksmuseum, which is to say: dangles a man by his feet and slits him down the middle. Ouch.
There’s also the sub-plot with psychopath Aaron Peel (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), who orders a hit on his father, and is set on harvesting the world’s personal data. Nothing new here. Until Villanelle goes double agent, working for MI6, and infiltrates Peel’s circle with an American persona. That disintegrates when Eve rushes to save Villanelle, who in turn slices open Peel’s neck, upends the mission, and gets Eve sacked from the secret services. Teamwork!
All that’s left is to tie up some loose ends. Namely new handler Raymond, who Eve (in a lapse of judgement) hacks to death with an axe. In a final, spellbinding scene amongst ancient Roman ruins, Villanelle hopes it is the start of a love affair. “I love you,” she confesses. “Sorry to disappoint,” Eve retorts, before turning her back and walking away. Then, bang. She is shot in the back (this one didn’t miss) and left for dead.
Round three
The last series, which aired on cue in April 2020, started with a splat. Which was very upsetting. Kenny falls to his death from the investigative journalism building he is working in, set on unmasking The Twelve. The mystery of his demise haunts the following eight episodes. Surely it was not suicide?
Carolyn does not think so, and becomes obsessed with solving it, simultaneously burning bridges with her over-emotional daughter, Geraldine (Gemma Whelan) and getting agent Mo Jafari (Rajendra Bajaj) drowned for nosing around for leads. She re-joins forces with Eve, who is pot-washing in a restaurant having been fired from MI5, in their mutual suspicion The Twelve had something to do with Kenny’s death.
And Villanelle? She has re-connected with aforementioned senior Twelve member Dasha Duzran, her grizzly, Soviet former mentor who had been tasked with getting Villanelle back in service for the unknown organisation. She agrees, if she secures a promotion.
The season was slammed as a dip in quality compared to the first two, because it lacked as many clever twists and hammed up the macabre. Villanelle ends up in Russia, reuniting with her family, which predictably ended in her blowing the house up. On her return, her passion as an assassin (sorry) begins to falter, despite the efforts of The Twelve’s smooth-talking, good-looking power player Hélène.
A visit to Scotland ends in Villanelle thwacking Dasha with a golf club in the head; she dies after Eve crushes her ribs shortly after. All comes to a scintillating close when Carolyn holds her MI6 boss Paul Bradwell (Steve Pemberton) and Konstantin at gun point – as Eve and Villanelle watch on from the sofa.
CCTV footage hints that Konstantin was behind Kenny’s death, but it is the revelation Paul is in with The Twelve that earns his bullet in the head. The lovers run off, and end the series with another traditional standoff. But there is no violence this time, rather they open up: “I think my monster encourages your monster,” Villanelle says. “I think I wanted it to,” Eve admits. Then comes the dramatic walk, turn, and smile.
What is coming next?
So far, we only have series four’s trailer to go off. But in it we see Villanelle’s second guessing continue, as she struggles in therapy. “I killed two people last night, after I tried really hard not to,” she says. “Ok, well that’s not ideal,” says the therapist.
Hélène returns, Eve and her favourite killer are back to fighting with one another, and the former has a new mystery man (played by Robert Gilbert). But the main lead plot-wise comes from Carolyn. “Someone has been killing members of The Twelve,” she tells Eve. “I need you to continue the investigation.” We’ll have to wait until February 28 to find out exactly what’s going on - though we do know that Anjana Vasan (who recently starred in We Are Lady Parts on Channel 4) will be joining the cast as an assassin in training.
