The writers of Killing Eve love to keep viewers guessing.
But as the series kicks off its final season, fans are begging for answers to some of their most pressing questions, like who are the evil masterminds behind the ominous group The Twelve? And perhaps the bigger question: Why are Eve (Sandra Oh) and Villanelle (Jodie Comer) so drawn to each other?
This is what was running through Laura Neal's mind when she was promoted to lead writer for the fourth and final season. When she spoke to E! News about writing the final episodes of Killing Eve, she said she was well aware of the fans' expectations, remembering, "It was really exciting and also a little bit terrifying."
"I knew what excited me about these characters and I knew where I wanted to take them next," she shared. "But having the responsibility of doing that and also it being the final season and having to wrap those characters' arc up and see their journeys through to the very end—that felt like a different level of responsibility."
Nonetheless, it's a responsibility she took very seriously as she mapped out the last episodes, going back to the beginning of the series and prioritizing plot points that she wanted to address. She even consulted Sandra and Jodie about what they wished to see happen, with these conversations shaping her vision for the season.
"It was amazing because they have inhabited those characters for longer than I've been a writer on the show," she explained. "So, there's no one who knows how Villanelle would react in a situation better than Jodie."
And naturally, Jodie asked for Villanelle to return to her assassin roots. "As a viewer, the Villanelle kills are part of that like extreme joy of watching the show," Laura shared. "And I've always enjoyed coming up with the murders. That's one of my favorite things to do. So I was very happy to facilitate that request and pleased to be able to do it."
This request also fed into Laura's desire to remind viewers "how fearsome Villanelle can be," a characteristic that faded into the background in previous seasons as Villanelle sought to explore both her own past and her soft spot for Eve.
Sandra even joined in on the fun, with episode one of season four revealing that Eve is actually quite the murderess. "It was really fun to take Eve in a new direction and to write this character who is emboldened I suppose," Laura shared, adding that even the writers felt emboldened "to be like, actually now, some elements of the show that you really associate with Villanelle are being demonstrated on Eve and vice versa."
Laura anticipates fans will enjoy those deadly scenes but isn't so sure how they'll react to the season as a whole. She noted that some things will be left to interpretation, saying, "To definitively answer some of those questions probably wouldn't feel that satisfying, you know?"
She explained that the "exploration" of viewers' questions is "more important" than revealing an answer one way or another, adding, "Some of the magic of the show is the mystery and the ambiguity of some of those characters and some of the relationships."
And Fiona Shaw, who plays Carolyn Martens, agreed with this assessment. "The craving is part of the hook of it," the actress shared in a separate interview. "And do we all want to solve every character all the time? Because the gorgeous thing about humans—somebody said, if you know somebody, what you don't realize is there's somebody in them that you don't know. That's true of all of us."
Killing Eve airs Sundays on AMC+ and BBC America.