'Killing Eve' Recap: 'God, I'm Tired'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

There are certain expectations that we have in our mind when we settle in to watch our favorite stories, and of the many, many items that are on that mental checklist, one that always stands out above the rest, is that we want this particular tale to take us on a complete and satisfying journey. Because when a story does that, it provides us with the perfect escape if you will, since real life rarely answers all of our questions, nor does it do a good job of tying up loose ends. Which means it was perfectly reasonable to expect the season one finale of Killing Eve, ‘God, I’m Tired’, to deliver onto us a perfect ending, one that wrapped everything up in magnificent fashion.
 
However, there’s just one problem when it comes to that. Killing Eve doesn’t subscribe to any notion of traditional storytelling, and wouldn’t you know it? This is a finale that decided to instead mirror everyday life by in essence, taking us back to the point where we started in this particular tale, with more questions in front of us than answers and filled with wonder as to how this story was going to end. And as an added treat, this finale toyed with us before bringing us to that point, by making it seem as though we were going to get that complete ending after all, as this finale quickly brought one plot thread after another to their end.
 
Because in this tale, we finally saw Anna and Oksana reunite after all these years. But not for the sake of taking a stroll down memory lane, or to rekindle an old flame. Oksana needed her money and her passport, which were both in Eve’s hands and surprisingly, once she discovered Anna had nothing for her, the two of them expressed their disdain for one another’s actions, to the point where they pointed guns at each other and well, this little standoff ended in a way I never expected it to, with Anna taking her own life, and while that decision was jarring to say the least, it was clearly a final choice by Anna to spite her former lover by not giving Oksana the satisfaction of pulling the trigger instead. 

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​But the show wasn’t quite done yet with saying farewell to important characters since this episode also saw the end of Konstantin shortly after he and Eve met Villanelle and his daughter at a restaurant where a good old-fashioned standoff ensued, and it ended with Konstantin taking a pair of bullets to the gut and while one would think that this act of revenge on Villanelle’s part would allow for her to finally turn to the light side and help Eve out, that simply was not the case. She ran off and that’s where things got messy. Because with Konstantin dead, and Villanelle gone, any leads to The Twelve faded away and to make matters worse, Eve found herself fired once again, meaning she was headed back to London with her marriage in tatters and nothing to show for her efforts.
 
Which meant she had one last opportunity to set things right, and using the information she gathered from Anna, she ventured to Paris and made it to Villanelle’s apartment wherein she exacted her own brand of revenge by destroying all the pretty things in the assassin’s apartment mere moments before the two finally came face to face in private allowing for Eve to express her own obsession with Villanelle, which was of course reciprocated. And just when it seemed as though these two had finally reached common ground and could potentially move forward in just about every way imaginable…Eve surprised Villanelle by plunging a knife into her, leading to another escape from the wily assassin and leaving everything up in the air.
 
Because we learned nothing about the Twelve in this episode, and their star assassin is on the run again, and we still have no idea where Carolyn’s loyalties lie and to top it all off, Eve’s life is a freaking mess, and, in all honesty, this is simply a brilliant way to end this season. Because in doing this, nothing was rushed in the finale, and all of the incredible twists and turns that the past few episodes introduced, will get properly resolved next year. Either way, this was just a magnificent season through and through, one that defied convention and I loved that this season ended with minimal resolution since it demonstrates how committed this series is to doing things differently, which means we are going to be in for some incredible storytelling treats when season two arrives. Until next year. 

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