Fans weren’t the only ones who were let down by the series finale of Killing Eve. Luke Jennings, the author of the Codename Villanelle novellas that inspired the hit BBC series, had major reservations about the show’s final episode, in which Jodie Comer’s assassin, Villanelle, was gunned down in the final minutes of the series, and promised that Villanelle would live on in his books.
In a first person piece for The Guardian, Jennings reveals his complex sentiments regarding the series, including his disgust for the ending. “It’s a guarantee that you won’t like everything the screenwriting team does.
You’re too connected to the characters to be objective. He writes, “You’ve had them in your brain for far too long.” Nonetheless, Jennings noted that he has had more positive than negative feelings regarding the situation.
It was not surprising for Jennings to witness Villanelle’s murder in the last minutes of the show’s final episode, just seconds after finally kissing Oh’s Eve. That development reminded Jennings of the show’s beginnings when executive producer Phoebe Waller-Bridge was still developing Killing Eve.
“Five years ago, when Phoebe Waller-Bridge and I first explored Villanelle’s character, we decided that she was characterized by her ‘glory,'” Jennings wrote. “Her subversion, fierce might, and fixation on beautiful things.” That’s the Villanelle I invented, which Phoebe adapted into a cinematic persona, and which Jodie brilliantly exploited.”
However, that was not the Villanelle he encountered in the series finale, which he described as “nothing more than a waste of time.” “How much more darkly rewarding, and true to the original spirit of Killing Eve, would it be for the pair to stroll out into the sunset together?” Jennings enquired. “Spoiler alert,” says the author, “but that’s how it seemed to me when I was writing the novels.”
Fortunately for Jennings, he has the power to bring Villanelle and Eve’s story to a happy conclusion. “I knew the last episode’s ending ahead of time and assumed, correctly, that viewers would be disappointed,” Jennings remarked. “However, I would say to those fans: Villanelle lives.” And she’ll be back on the paper, if not on the screen.””
However, it was not the Villanelle he encountered in the series finale, which he described as “a bending to the convention” and “a punishment of Villanelle and Eve for the gory, erotically motivated havoc they had wrought.”
“A really rebellious plot would have resisted the stereotype in which same-sex lovers in TV dramas are allowed just the briefest of relationships before one of them is killed off,” Jennings wrote.
‘It surprised me!’ After many complained they were ‘created’ by the ‘underwhelming’ climax, Killing Eve author Luke Jennings confesses he isn’t thrilled with the TV series ending.
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