Killing Eve author rips the series finale: "The final series ending took me aback"

The Guardian

In an essay for The Guardian, Luke Jennings, whose Codename Villanelle book series was adapted for Killing Eve, writes of the shocking final scene: "I learned the outcome of the final episode in advance, and suspected, rightly, that fans would be upset." Jennings adds: "When Phoebe Waller-Bridge and I first discussed Villanelle’s character five years ago, we agreed that she was defined by what Phoebe called her 'glory': her subversiveness, her savage power, her insistence on lovely things. That’s the Villanelle that I wrote, that Phoebe turned into a screen character, and that Jodie ran with so gloriously. But the season four ending was a bowing to convention. A punishing of Villanelle and Eve for the bloody, erotically impelled chaos they have caused. A truly subversive storyline would have defied the trope which sees same-sex lovers in TV dramas permitted only the most fleeting of relationships before one of them is killed off (Lexa’s death in The 100, immediately after sleeping with her female love interest for the first time, is another example). How much more darkly satisfying, and true to Killing Eve’s original spirit, for the couple to walk off into the sunset together? Spoiler alert, but that’s how it seemed to me when writing the books. TV folk sometimes see ultra-fans of TV drama as weird and cranky, but for many young people living difficult and isolated lives, a show such as Killing Eve can be a lifeline." ALSO: Why is the "Bury Your Gays" trope still haunting queer TV?