Warning: contains spoilers for the season finale of Killing Eve, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Avengers: Endgame, How I Met Your Mother, The 100 and Supernatural
The finale of Killing Eve was bad. Like Game of Thrones level of bad. It’s not just horrible in the sense that they demolished all the character arcs, but it was offensively bad. It loosely tied up the main plot of the series and perpetrated the infamous “Bury Your Gays” trope. And the main writer of the series, Laura Neal, had the audacity to double down on a universally hated ending. As someone who started watching the show because Phoebe Waller-Bridge had been the head writer for season 1, it felt like a lot of my time had been wasted. Watching your favourite show’s downfall is not fun, and experiencing Killing Eve’s slow fall from grace wasn’t any easier.
So, let’s start from the beginning. Why was Killing Eve so rivetting in the first place? Well to start off, it had Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh as the main actresses of the show. Jodie Comer, who played this violent yet hilarious assassin Villanelle, was a breath of fresh air when the show first aired. She played a character that is borderline sociopathic yet she created an empathetic bond with the audience through pure charisma. Sandra Oh, on the other hand, never missed as Eve Polastri. She’s a hard-headed MI6 agent who happened to stumble upon Villanelle’s case. As a duo, their relationship was so fun to watch unravel. It was a perfect mutual slow-burn obsession between the two. And the last few episodes almost satisfied the audiences as they had finally accepted their love for one another. But no, they had to ruin it. They had to ruin it because apparently, no finale can be a happy ending nowadays. Newsflash tv show writers: an ending can be happy and interesting at the same time! Killing characters that had deeply rooted trauma right after finding they found happiness is not a new or exciting take. It happened to Tony Stark, Tracy McConnell from How I Met Your Mother, Castiel from Supernatural and Lexa from The 100. You are not original.
Speaking of Lexa from The 100, let’s talk about the Bury Your Gays trope. It is 2022. I should not have to explain how incredibly damning the Bury Your Gays trope is. It’s even more baffling to think that we are still in an era in which it still happens. If you didn’t know, the Bury Your Gay trope, or even the Dead Lesbian Syndrome, in this case, is how writers often kill off queer characters in predominantly CisHet shows. Often times it’s for shock, which in my opinion, had worn off about a few decades ago. I’d be in more shock if a queer character had lived until the end of a show. But there’s a recurring theme in which queer people are often killed off right after confessing their love and/or finally getting romantically involved with their partner. I am not saying that queer characters shouldn’t be killed off in fiction. Look at The Haunting of Bly Manor for instance. Dani, a traumatized lesbian woman, had unfortunately sacrificed herself by the end of the series. But there had been no outcry because it was expected, they gave time for her and her girlfriend to flourish, and it had been beautifully written. Most of the time, queer characters are killed abruptly and in a stupid manner. And that is exactly what happened with Villanelle. Just as she finally saw a happy ending with the girl she had loved, she was fatally shot and unfortunately drowned. This was all within the last two minutes of the finale.
Apart from all the crazy antics and moments from Killing Eve, the main theme that ties it all together is Eve’s journey in rejecting the labels predisposed to her by finding herself through Villanelle. The ultimate downfall of Killing Eve isn’t only the inconsistent writing or confusing character arcs. It’s the fact that they strayed away so far from their original thesis. Eve is eventually punished by watching the love of her life drown in the unforgiving Thames River after finally giving in to her queerness. So, tell me, Laura Neal, what lesson am I supposed to take away from Killing Eve?