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Killing Eve (BBC America/BBC One)


AncalagonTheBlack

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Spoilers for the last episode

So, did Kenny really just fall or did Konstantin kill him? I have a hard time believing he could have fallen over the wall (which we see when Eve throws the cake over). I also have a hard time believing Konstantin could do it, especially with the hints that Kenny was his son. Idk which is more compelling 

:dunno: 

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I’m not saying it was Game of Thrones level of shit, but definitely a score on the top fifteen worst finales list I’ve ever had the misfortune to see. 
The storyline was so messed up, the scenes so comically bad that even Jodie Comer and Fiona Shaw were broken and couldn’t keep a straight face. Any character development attempted this season went down the toilet two episodes after it started and about 10 minutes of screen time was wasted on putting exposition the audience already knew into characters’ mouths. 
NONE of the plotlines they started were even remotely closed, but they created enough confusion to drag the story on for yet another badly written season or two. The living room scene was downright comical, clearly unintentionally, and the bridge scene resembled one straight out of live action Disney. I feel terribly sorry for Fiona and Jodie. And Gemma Whelan who had absolutely zero purpose in the story aside from serving as a one-time, fourth grade plot device. Her character did nothing, impacted nothing, connected to nothing, changed nothing, meant nothing. I hope she got good money at least. And really the exact same applies for Dasha, except that she got to deliver comedy and was given three sentences of a backstory at least, so she was a bit better off than Geraldine. 
It was as bad as the season itself. 

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This season was a huge disappointment.... I don;t blame Jodie Comer but the way her character was written so awfully and over-the-top was just infuriating... they ruined Villanelle.... whomever was responsible should be immediately demoted....

... btw, was the series finale as well?... or is it coming back for S4?

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1 hour ago, Martini Sigil said:

.. btw, was the series finale as well?... or is it coming back for S4?

It's been renewed already, and a new showrunner confirmed. They're keeping up with the trend of having someone new come in each season, which has to be why each season feels like a different show with almost-the-same characters - there's no common vision for the storyline or where the characters are going. The Twelve "plot" is an absolute mess and where eve and villanelle end up this season feels unearned. 

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9 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

This season was a huge disappointment.... I don;t blame Jodie Comer but the way her character was written so awfully and over-the-top was just infuriating... they ruined Villanelle.... whomever was responsible should be immediately demoted....

... btw, was the series finale as well?... or is it coming back for S4?

They have left enough wiggle room to drag the story on for at least two more seasons. It’s shameful really. I didn’t mind season 2 being such a different approach because it was at least one coherent story in itself. Season 3 can’t say that about itself. 

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On 6/1/2020 at 10:05 PM, RhaenysBee said:

I’m not saying it was Game of Thrones level of shit, but definitely a score on the top fifteen worst finales list I’ve ever had the misfortune to see. 
 

I don't know if it was as bad as all that. I mean.. it wasn't good. It definitely wasn't good.

But it was certainly on par with the rest of the season. It basically had all the elements that made this season what it was...
 

  • Plenty of Jodie Comer gurning her way through scenes and general scenery chewing instead of any emotional depth
  • Scenes placed in almost random order (had to check I was watching correct episode after first 10 minutes)
  • Emotional scenes illustrated by using mediocre female vocalist indie song and a bit of slow mo for effect.
  • A romantic scene that made zero sense and was never really built up or developed
  • Random acts of violence that lack any sort of flair or ingenuity and are just there to spruce things up a bit

I mean this season was a total 'nothing'. It was about nothing. I feel like almost nothing happened really, nothing was building up to anything, nothing really got resolved. I felt a similar feeling last season, but now after 3 seasons the show is just grinding its gears.

The one interesting event came early, with the:

Spoiler

death of kenny

but then that seemed to be the excuse the show needed to get away with doing fake out death after fake out death. When you realised none of the interesting characters in the show can actually die.. or really even grow then what is the point.

I mean, what even was Eve's plot this season? She is a bit traumatised for a while, takes some time off to work in a restaurant.. but then just goes back to square one again. She felt like an extra when she is pretty much the star. 

And Villanelle's character feels completely butchered. Season one she was basically a complex interesting sociopath. Season 2 there was a moment where she admitted to feeling nothing.. and actually that was quite interesting. Now.. now she is pretty much wracked with emotion constantly and it all seems to have been a facade. What a waste. This season she was written basically as a moronic child, for laughs. I feel sorry for Comer really, she elevated the role in the first season but now she just looks hammy.

And then the ending was just a bit fat.. wuh?? A huge 'so what'?. They've totally forgotten what the theme or the plot of the show is. If their goal was to try and flesh out Eve and Villanelles relationship and end on that note then they have failed miserably. After 3 seasons they still haven't worked out what is going on there and none of their scenes together had any chemistry. 

I don't know anything about the books, I heard that maybe they aren't actually very good, but I wonder if there was a similar drop in quality. 

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55 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

I only started binge watching two weeks ago but I'm done with the show now.  Not going to bother with future seasons.

I'd go further and say I'm rooting for it to be canceled so Comer can do something else. Season two wasn't great either and in retrospect I wish it'd been a mini-series that ended with her killing eve. 

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On 6/3/2020 at 12:10 AM, Heartofice said:

I don't know if it was as bad as all that. I mean.. it wasn't good. It definitely wasn't good.

But it was certainly on par with the rest of the season. It basically had all the elements that made this season what it was...
 

  • Plenty of Jodie Comer gurning her way through scenes and general scenery chewing instead of any emotional depth
  • Scenes placed in almost random order (had to check I was watching correct episode after first 10 minutes)
  • Emotional scenes illustrated by using mediocre female vocalist indie song and a bit of slow mo for effect.
  • A romantic scene that made zero sense and was never really built up or developed
  • Random acts of violence that lack any sort of flair or ingenuity and are just there to spruce things up a bit

I mean this season was a total 'nothing'. It was about nothing. I feel like almost nothing happened really, nothing was building up to anything, nothing really got resolved. I felt a similar feeling last season, but now after 3 seasons the show is just grinding its gears.

The one interesting event came early, with the:

  Reveal hidden contents

death of kenny

but then that seemed to be the excuse the show needed to get away with doing fake out death after fake out death. When you realised none of the interesting characters in the show can actually die.. or really even grow then what is the point.

I mean, what even was Eve's plot this season? She is a bit traumatised for a while, takes some time off to work in a restaurant.. but then just goes back to square one again. She felt like an extra when she is pretty much the star. 

And Villanelle's character feels completely butchered. Season one she was basically a complex interesting sociopath. Season 2 there was a moment where she admitted to feeling nothing.. and actually that was quite interesting. Now.. now she is pretty much wracked with emotion constantly and it all seems to have been a facade. What a waste. This season she was written basically as a moronic child, for laughs. I feel sorry for Comer really, she elevated the role in the first season but now she just looks hammy.

And then the ending was just a bit fat.. wuh?? A huge 'so what'?. They've totally forgotten what the theme or the plot of the show is. If their goal was to try and flesh out Eve and Villanelles relationship and end on that note then they have failed miserably. After 3 seasons they still haven't worked out what is going on there and none of their scenes together had any chemistry. 

I don't know anything about the books, I heard that maybe they aren't actually very good, but I wonder if there was a similar drop in quality. 

Well that’s my point too. How much worse could it have been? I did give up hope that the wonky mess the first five episodes were could be molded into something resembling of a story in the final episodes a few weeks ago, but it still came as a shock how much worse the last episode made things. And yes that’s completely in sync with how bad the entire season was. 

Poor Jodie Comer, who is an excellent actress and has attention commanding presence in any scene in any role I have ever witnessed her pay, just didnt have anything to grasp. No consistency for her character, no development, no background, no plot, no clear goals, no clear motive. It was noticeable in a number of scenes that she was struggling to deliver the direction because the scene made so very little sense. It’s truly a shame. 
 

SPOILERS FROM HERE 

The story itself essentially went nowhere. We left off season two with Villanelle and Konstantin working with Carolyn and Eve as freelance. And then suddenly Villanelle is re-recruited by the Twelve for no reason and wants a promotion for no reason and in all this business Dasha is there to play little to no role. This new person, Paul is dropped on Carolyn but there isn’t an actual case they are working on, like there used to be, so Paul is just there for Fiona Shaw to have stare-downs with. The same goes for Geraldine who is no more than the shadow of a plot device and a stuntwoman for Fiona Shaw to be on camera with. Eve has ptsd for a while then she suddenly doesn’t and is back at her early season 2 self, torn between her obsession with Villanelle and her relationship to Niko (which had been killed, cremated, buried and killed again just in case for several times, yet Niko, for some inexplicable reason is still alive). Villanelle goes from wanting a promotion to wanting a family and wanting out to wanting nothing, all of which is driven by emotion which she is not supposed to have. Her back story is poked at then forgotten without leaving impact on her, her romance with Eve is nonsensical, flat and repetitive, even her assassin prowess is faltering and hardly creative. 

Spoiler

In fact the only event that’s trying to tie together these contrived storylines is Kenny’s death which seems to be the only event that moves Eve’s, Carolyn’s, that weird reporter crowd’s and Geraldine’s stories. Which combines with Konstantin’s efforts to get out (which I had assumed he had done in season 2) by taking money from the Twelve. Villanelle is linked to all this by her search for family and belonging (which is completely out of the blue, never elaborated or explored or integrated into her character) which she means to find with Konstantin, her real family and/or Eve (this has proved unsuccessful multiple times yet the show keeps having at it without a new angle or further development). 
 

Funnily enough, Konstantin never gets out (one way or the other) but has THREE fake-out deaths in one season. Eve doesn’t solve Kenny’s case or Kenny’s death and doesn’t make any progress settling her private life with Niko or Villanelle or her internal conflicts. Carolyn, the stone cold spy who specifically told Konstantin in a previous season that she isn’t attached to her child sees her life disintegrating over Kenny’s death, her sole motive becomes solving his suicide/murder/accident, yet we never find out what really happened to Kenny and Carolyn never really resolves what either work or family means to her, as she remains deeply impacted by Kenny’s death while firmly and unyieldingly distanced from Geraldine - the reason for this is barely explained and isn’t at all explored. Villanelle finds her family without a motive and kills them without much of a motive as well. She does a few jobs and maybe wants a promotion or maybe wants out and she’s still maybe perhaps in some way for some reason attached to Eve. She does nothing and progresses nowhere. Her relationships are repetitive, her inner struggles are inconsistent and all over the place and have no connection whatsoever to who we know her to be as a person. I don’t even Know why the reporter crowd exists. I suppose they wanted to keep the appearances of creating some of job environment because that used to be a thing in previous seasons.
And I suppose the conclusion implied in the joke of a closing scene is that the Twelve is so Intertwined with MI6 (and potentially other intelligent agencies) that it’s impossible to kill. This is however never explored because we spent time on no-scenes of no-characters for no reason. and I also suppose that Villanelle and Eve are now supposed to have a tragic star struck love affair instead of a pathologic, yet realistic and interesting cat-mouse chase they used to have. Suddenly Eve’s relationship to her is supposed to be romantic, rather than (self) destructive, psychotic and unhealthy. And suddenly Villanelle is a lost and funny doe Instead of an unpredictable and interesting sociopath. 

And I bet Kenny is not dead at all. Ugh, just ugh. 

 

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Excellent post @RhaenysBee  completely agree with all you've said there.

I think I could forgive many of the issues the show had if the writing had been sparkier and there was something about the show that remained vibrant. That first season which I loved, was carried along by a naughty vibe, a script that was witty and funny and a sense that the show was doing something new and had a voice.

That first season wasn't held up by its plot. In fact I can barely remember it. Many people who didn't much like the show back then complained that the plot didn't have a ton of substance and it made little sense and had a bunch of holes. All true. The writing and perfomances and direction elevated the show above what was a rather mundane and bog standard plot. Remove PWB and you lose what was mostly interesting about the show. I guessed that would happen. It was sad to see Comer reduced to desperately attempting to make scenes interesting by pulling funny faces. 

I'd be really interested in the opinions of anyone who had read the books the show is based on. Did they have all the same flaws?

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7 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Excellent post @RhaenysBee  completely agree with all you've said there.

I think I could forgive many of the issues the show had if the writing had been sparkier and there was something about the show that remained vibrant. That first season which I loved, was carried along by a naughty vibe, a script that was witty and funny and a sense that the show was doing something new and had a voice.

That first season wasn't held up by its plot. In fact I can barely remember it. Many people who didn't much like the show back then complained that the plot didn't have a ton of substance and it made little sense and had a bunch of holes. All true. The writing and perfomances and direction elevated the show above what was a rather mundane and bog standard plot. Remove PWB and you lose what was mostly interesting about the show. I guessed that would happen. It was sad to see Comer reduced to desperately attempting to make scenes interesting by pulling funny faces. 

I think the effort to copy that is obvious in season 3, but also an obvious failure. They just never managed to grasp the quirkily dark and provocatively funny tone it had set. I don’t blame anybody for that, I doubt that it’s possible to copy any talented creator’s work and pass it off as the original. The audience is bound to feel the difference. Besides, more often the not, the new team consciously or subconsciously molds the material to their own taste and style. Now I couldn’t say which can end up worse, but it’s certainly a very tricky and fine balance to find between old and new style. 

I mean, you need to have at least one of those things. Without a “what” and a “how” it’s rather difficult to deliver anything. 

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Just caught up with this thread after finishing season 3. I had hopes it was going somewhere, but the golfing episode and then that appalling final episode killed it stone dead. That final scene standing on the join of Tower Bridge (how obvious can you get?) was the final straw.

Spot on @RhaenysBee.

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  • 11 months later...
On 5/14/2019 at 8:35 PM, the hound of sansa said:

Something that perhaps I missed: why don't they arrest Villanelle? She IS a known assassin.

Came here to see if the series improves after this point, and it seems it doesn’t. I just watched Season 2 Episode 6, and this coupled with episode 5 have me completely baffled. The entire premise is that Villanelle is incredibly dangerous, and catching her is the top priority. Hey, let’s hire her! To uh, torture someone for information! Cos she’s the only person we can think of that can do that. Oh don’t worry, we know how to contact the person who gives her the assignments. Well now that she’s finished, we’ll just ... let her walk off? And now here she is in Oxford talking to Mr Mustache. 

It seems the good will for the series lasted longer than this episode in this thread, but to me it feels like the writing completely fell off a cliff here. Next episode she’s basically employed by MI6 - whoops, she murdered someone in broad daylight! Well, anyway, back to the job at hand... I can’t take it seriously now, it’s completely gutted it for me.

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16 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

It seems the good will for the series lasted longer than this episode in this thread, but to me it feels like the writing completely fell off a cliff here.

What can I say? :dunno: We all had a lot of time on our hands last spring.

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