Killing Eve – Season 4 Episode 7 “Making Dead Things Look Nice” Recap & Review

Making Dead Things Look Nice

Episode 7 of Killing Eve Season 4 begins with Villanelle on her latest mission. She’s been given another location from Konstantin of the assassin who shot her in the back with an arrow.

On a little island off the coast of Scotland, Villanelle meets this deadly assassin, who nonchalantly drags the body of a fisherman into the barn and guts him in front of her. Villanelle is unmoved and decides to go out hunting with her.

The pair actually have a fair amount in common too. It turns out Gunn’s parents died and her whole village was wiped out thanks to someone poisoning the water. Despite moving to Paris, Gunn found herself longing for the country again. Helene gave her this island as a reward for being part of The Twelve. Only, she realized that Helene was just using her – as does Villanelle – so the pair connect and start kissing.

Meanwhile, Eve reels over what to do next after Helene’s death. According to Yusuf, her mission has been completed so she’s going to have to try and find something ordinary to do.

Yusuf decides the first step is to take her out to do some karaoke. The trouble is, Eve can’t concentrate as she winds up seeing ghosts from the past sitting there watching her sing. Eve is struggling to move on and she confirms as much to Yusuf, admitting she’s still hung up over what’s happened.

Yusuf realizes she needs to figure this out herself and leaves, kissing her on the forehead before he does.

Eve’s journey of self-discovery sees her pore through Helene’s phone for clues. Within this, she notices several pictures of a postcard. One of which has a picture of a swallow. She visits Konstantin to figure out what it means but Konstantin simply refers Eve to Villanelle.

In her absence, Konstantin brings Pam to see him and tells her she needs to leave. Given the earlier phone call from Irina and learning Helene has been killed, he wants to keep Pam safe and get away from The Twelve.

The thing is, Pam has actually been given an alternate assignment from Helene to kill Konstantin. That night she slashes him several times but as Konstantin bleeds out, he reveals that Helene is actually dead. Pam panics and struggles to stop the bleeding, realizing she’s made a massive mistake.

In Konstantin’s dying breath, he tells Pam to send a letter in his bag to Carolyn whom he’s always loved.

In Salzburg, Carolyn remains on the hunt for The Twelve. She’s following clues from Lars’ notebook and ends up in a hotel which happens to be a bird hotspot. She’s also vigilant over a potential assassin coming after her and she has the man taken away.

Vlad arrives to see Carolyn but their chat about betrayals and assassins gets the latter thinking. She scribbles down “Barn Swallow MI6 Pub”, believing she’s in the wrong place, and hurries back to London to “face what must be faced.”

Eve also faces her past too, heading off to the Scottish island where Gunn and Villanelle happen to be. Helene’s death changes nothing for Gunn, who points out that she works for The Twelve not Helene.

Villanelle decides she wants to leave, but as she hurries away Gunn sighs and grabs a machete, deciding to chase her down. Unfortunately she finds Eve instead, whom we saw earlier head up to the island on a boat of her own. Gunn changes her target and tackles Eve to the ground, pinning her down. She raises the machete… as everything fades to black.

The Episode Review

What has happened to Killing Eve this year? I mean, the warning signs were there during season 3 but this year everything has just fallen apart. The plot revolving around The Twelve could have been interesting but the execution has been completely bungled.

Not only is the show struggling to make use of Villanelle and Eve, it’s actually made both their characters play second fiddle to supporting characters like Pam, who ends up being the one to kill Konstantin for… reasons?

I understand that some people need to die to raise the stakes but this season has had such a bizarre way of building up characters only to tear them down and start again.

Helene was built to be a big, antagonistic force for most of the season and then she just dies. Likewise, Konstantin looked to be doing something interesting with his elections and then he’s slumming it in Margate. Oh and then he’s just killed in the most underwhelming way possible.

Then we’ve got Villanelle starting her holier than thou shindig; that’s course corrected to her being a killer; and then she’s being hunted without fighting back. It’s like the writers couldn’t decide what to do with Villanelle and it’s showing a lot.

Eve’s character has been butchered this year too. Whilst the interesting juxtaposition of having her a cold, relentless woman early on was interesting, running parallel to Villanelle trying to be good, we then get an extended period of time here where she’s mopey over her over/enemy, going to karaoke and then running in a straight line through the woods, only to be pinned down by Gunn. A character I may add, we’ve had less than an episode to get to know.

Personally, I think the season would have benefited from Villanelle and Eve working together, taking out members of The Twelve rather than what we’ve got. Instead, we’re served up a weak cliffhanger (Come on now, Villanelle is going to save Eve at the last second) and what looks to be a weak ending to a weak season. What a disappointment.