Goodbye, Killing Eve, plus odds and ends
Apr. 30th, 2022 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessKilling Eve 4.7 Making Dead Things Look Nice
There was finally a sense of things mattering in this episode. Eve was having a reaction to killing Lars and everything. She got a little bit more help from each of the three men she turned to. I couldn’t quite make out what was happening during the karaoke, beyond the fact of Eve freaking out. Yusuf turned out to be a survivor who walked away from her (so she was unemployed again?) The shrink telling her she needed to be with somebody was another reminder of all Eve’s lost. Konstantin probably had the most fellow feeling and gave her Villanelle’s location.
I was trying to work out if the tweedy person was a man or a woman as it-turned-out-to-be-a-he talked to Carolyn. Dunno if he was an assassin, as Carolyn outwitted, outfoxed or was it outclassed her Russian handler. She probably had the least to do (of the four who’ve been around since always) all ep.
His daughter phoning Konstantin, having become everything he didn’t want for her (still hating Villanelle, heh) and not too happy with him changed everything for him. Of course, Pam was never going to really stick by Margate carnie boy’s side, even though it was a nice glimpse of a happy life for her. It fit that Helene’s last order was to her and to kill Konstantin, who was trying to do right by Pam as he’d failed by his daughter, Villanelle and all the rest. That was all nicely ironic and well timed, and it felt right emotionally that he declared his love for Carolyn, particularly after the recent flashbacks.
Meanwhile, I learned that Crazy Assassin Scottish Island Owner was the one who’d injured Villanelle. Villanelle seemed charmed by the rustic life and her hostess, until the morning after, when she clearly no longer felt it. Conveniently, Eve had turned up at the island despite all she and Villanelle had said to each other, because of what Konstantin said. I forgave them that timing because of how the chase for Villanelle turned into this OTT chase of Eve.
Cut to black although it didn’t feel like much of a cliffhanger.
So, as I’ve said, I’d felt bounced into watching this double bill last Saturday night to avoid spoilers and started watching the finale a few minutes before it aired.
4.8 Hello, Losers
(Knee jerk reaction: are you calling your loyal viewers losers?)
Overall, because of the automatic stakes bequeathed on everything in this ep simply because it was the finale, this did feel more like it for me, although I had a few issues with the pacing and the ending maybe isn’t as satisfying as it could have been because of the end of ep 6. So, obviously, I didn’t react with as much strength of feeling as some and nothing should be read into my not posting about it until nearly a week later other than I didn’t have the bandwidth to tidy up my initial reaction. Nearly everything since the first series, bar a few episodes, scenes, interactions, has been made me increasingly detached from the show.
I was abashed by the opening, because of course Eve fought back and didn’t need Villanelle to save her. Moreover, when she ran and seemed to be hugging a tree, she still didn’t need Villanelle to save her because of all the skills she’s learned this season, and I’m sorry I forgot them. Eve was entitled to be narked with Villanelle for watching and not helping, but deserved Villanelle’s derogatory ‘Amateurs’ for the almost mythic not dead, but grossly blinded killer coming after them again.
Thanks, show, I did know what a bothy was, although that one seemed fancier than I’d imagined them. On the pacing front, some of the relationship stuff that Eve and Villanelle had to work through dragged a bit for me, although they haven’t had much of it this series. I found the couple connected by their kidney just the right kind of odd irritant, and I’d say the show played fair with the tarot readings. I enjoyed the non-verbal communication, (broccoli test pass) and Eve and Villanelle got to where they needed emotionally to on their road trip. In which we learned that the 12’s meeting place was MI5’s pub.
Carolyn comprehensively outplayed the posh lad, Pam delivered her message and the dead fox/floating in the water bit was excellent. Pam seemed to be Carolyn’s new sidekick, the contrast between Villanelle’s relationship with Carolyn and Eve’s was marked, and…Carolyn yielded, which I didn’t ponder overmuch a it seemed she was acceding to the narrative force.
Never mind that surely someone at the ceremony would have gone ‘that’s not how weddings work’ or the groomsmen would have wondered about paperwork, Eve got to use her metaphor and Villanelle got to do her stuff in style, and both gazed appreciatively at each other. In the end, the 12’s leaders at the meeting were an anonymous crowd of bodies (as much as the kitchen staff were, but more dead??)
Eve and Villanelle could celebrate…until Villanelle got shot. In the back. (Again. That’s my quibble with this.) In Eve’s arms, and the stuff in the water was magnificent and beautiful and grandiose, and devastated Eve. And I was also persuaded by it being on Carolyn’s orders, or in the moment I was, right by Tower Bridge, which was an A1 call back with the location choice.
I suppose I’m not devastated like or for Eve, because I’ve long come to think the title of the show would mean destroying who Eve thought she was. If they’re arguing that Villanelle wasn’t a sociopathic, then Villanelle’s claim that Eve is doesn’t stack up either, but Eve was definitely a killer, had definitely accepted who she really was, made her choice to be with Villanelle and seemed happy with it and had come a long way. Actually killing Villanelle being the final devastating blow for her is fine by me as a narrative choice, except for how they teased it two episodes ago.
I don’t know that I buy Carolyn being able to walk into MI6 central after everything and announce the 12 were as good as dismantled (I cheekily wondered whether Villanelle should have checked nobody was in the toilets after her killing spree) and she could give them Villanelle’s location – I mean, she’s a wanted assassin, but the state apparatus had managed to ignore that forever, and okay, arguably, that was the 12’s influence, but that’s a lot of offscreen manoeuvring, however persuasive Carolyn is. (And was by revealing posh boy’s girlfriend was a Russian spy.)
And she wasn’t persuasive enough for Pam to accept her job offer. I’m glad she walked away, steeped in blood as she is. Can she just go back to Margate and live out a happy life?
So, the nitpicks stand, but it felt like a more satisfying meaningful close to the story than I’d been hoping for/fearing. Obviously, people who were a bit more invested felt differently, but this is one time when I am not raging about the wrongness of canon.
Otherwise, I rewatched Downton Abbey the movie – aired on ITV3 in advance of Downton Abbey: A New Era, which I won’t be going to see in the cinema. Mainly I thought the same as I’d thought when I first saw it and that the romances with new characters happen waaaay too fast – these people have only met over a couple of days.
I seem to be having difficulties with The West Wing Weekly so you may just get my unadulterated reactions to rewaching the show for now.
[Edited 20/1/2025.]
There was finally a sense of things mattering in this episode. Eve was having a reaction to killing Lars and everything. She got a little bit more help from each of the three men she turned to. I couldn’t quite make out what was happening during the karaoke, beyond the fact of Eve freaking out. Yusuf turned out to be a survivor who walked away from her (so she was unemployed again?) The shrink telling her she needed to be with somebody was another reminder of all Eve’s lost. Konstantin probably had the most fellow feeling and gave her Villanelle’s location.
I was trying to work out if the tweedy person was a man or a woman as it-turned-out-to-be-a-he talked to Carolyn. Dunno if he was an assassin, as Carolyn outwitted, outfoxed or was it outclassed her Russian handler. She probably had the least to do (of the four who’ve been around since always) all ep.
His daughter phoning Konstantin, having become everything he didn’t want for her (still hating Villanelle, heh) and not too happy with him changed everything for him. Of course, Pam was never going to really stick by Margate carnie boy’s side, even though it was a nice glimpse of a happy life for her. It fit that Helene’s last order was to her and to kill Konstantin, who was trying to do right by Pam as he’d failed by his daughter, Villanelle and all the rest. That was all nicely ironic and well timed, and it felt right emotionally that he declared his love for Carolyn, particularly after the recent flashbacks.
Meanwhile, I learned that Crazy Assassin Scottish Island Owner was the one who’d injured Villanelle. Villanelle seemed charmed by the rustic life and her hostess, until the morning after, when she clearly no longer felt it. Conveniently, Eve had turned up at the island despite all she and Villanelle had said to each other, because of what Konstantin said. I forgave them that timing because of how the chase for Villanelle turned into this OTT chase of Eve.
Cut to black although it didn’t feel like much of a cliffhanger.
So, as I’ve said, I’d felt bounced into watching this double bill last Saturday night to avoid spoilers and started watching the finale a few minutes before it aired.
4.8 Hello, Losers
(Knee jerk reaction: are you calling your loyal viewers losers?)
Overall, because of the automatic stakes bequeathed on everything in this ep simply because it was the finale, this did feel more like it for me, although I had a few issues with the pacing and the ending maybe isn’t as satisfying as it could have been because of the end of ep 6. So, obviously, I didn’t react with as much strength of feeling as some and nothing should be read into my not posting about it until nearly a week later other than I didn’t have the bandwidth to tidy up my initial reaction. Nearly everything since the first series, bar a few episodes, scenes, interactions, has been made me increasingly detached from the show.
I was abashed by the opening, because of course Eve fought back and didn’t need Villanelle to save her. Moreover, when she ran and seemed to be hugging a tree, she still didn’t need Villanelle to save her because of all the skills she’s learned this season, and I’m sorry I forgot them. Eve was entitled to be narked with Villanelle for watching and not helping, but deserved Villanelle’s derogatory ‘Amateurs’ for the almost mythic not dead, but grossly blinded killer coming after them again.
Thanks, show, I did know what a bothy was, although that one seemed fancier than I’d imagined them. On the pacing front, some of the relationship stuff that Eve and Villanelle had to work through dragged a bit for me, although they haven’t had much of it this series. I found the couple connected by their kidney just the right kind of odd irritant, and I’d say the show played fair with the tarot readings. I enjoyed the non-verbal communication, (broccoli test pass) and Eve and Villanelle got to where they needed emotionally to on their road trip. In which we learned that the 12’s meeting place was MI5’s pub.
Carolyn comprehensively outplayed the posh lad, Pam delivered her message and the dead fox/floating in the water bit was excellent. Pam seemed to be Carolyn’s new sidekick, the contrast between Villanelle’s relationship with Carolyn and Eve’s was marked, and…Carolyn yielded, which I didn’t ponder overmuch a it seemed she was acceding to the narrative force.
Never mind that surely someone at the ceremony would have gone ‘that’s not how weddings work’ or the groomsmen would have wondered about paperwork, Eve got to use her metaphor and Villanelle got to do her stuff in style, and both gazed appreciatively at each other. In the end, the 12’s leaders at the meeting were an anonymous crowd of bodies (as much as the kitchen staff were, but more dead??)
Eve and Villanelle could celebrate…until Villanelle got shot. In the back. (Again. That’s my quibble with this.) In Eve’s arms, and the stuff in the water was magnificent and beautiful and grandiose, and devastated Eve. And I was also persuaded by it being on Carolyn’s orders, or in the moment I was, right by Tower Bridge, which was an A1 call back with the location choice.
I suppose I’m not devastated like or for Eve, because I’ve long come to think the title of the show would mean destroying who Eve thought she was. If they’re arguing that Villanelle wasn’t a sociopathic, then Villanelle’s claim that Eve is doesn’t stack up either, but Eve was definitely a killer, had definitely accepted who she really was, made her choice to be with Villanelle and seemed happy with it and had come a long way. Actually killing Villanelle being the final devastating blow for her is fine by me as a narrative choice, except for how they teased it two episodes ago.
I don’t know that I buy Carolyn being able to walk into MI6 central after everything and announce the 12 were as good as dismantled (I cheekily wondered whether Villanelle should have checked nobody was in the toilets after her killing spree) and she could give them Villanelle’s location – I mean, she’s a wanted assassin, but the state apparatus had managed to ignore that forever, and okay, arguably, that was the 12’s influence, but that’s a lot of offscreen manoeuvring, however persuasive Carolyn is. (And was by revealing posh boy’s girlfriend was a Russian spy.)
And she wasn’t persuasive enough for Pam to accept her job offer. I’m glad she walked away, steeped in blood as she is. Can she just go back to Margate and live out a happy life?
So, the nitpicks stand, but it felt like a more satisfying meaningful close to the story than I’d been hoping for/fearing. Obviously, people who were a bit more invested felt differently, but this is one time when I am not raging about the wrongness of canon.
Otherwise, I rewatched Downton Abbey the movie – aired on ITV3 in advance of Downton Abbey: A New Era, which I won’t be going to see in the cinema. Mainly I thought the same as I’d thought when I first saw it and that the romances with new characters happen waaaay too fast – these people have only met over a couple of days.
I seem to be having difficulties with The West Wing Weekly so you may just get my unadulterated reactions to rewaching the show for now.
[Edited 20/1/2025.]
