Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Killing Eve season 4
Killing Eve’s series finale ends without explaining two major mysteries the show’s past two seasons have been focused on solving. Killing Eve spends a significant amount of time creating intrigue around these questions despite neglecting their resolutions. As a result, the finale has generated considerable controversy among viewers, who remain understandably eager to have their questions answered.
Throughout Killing Eve, the show has made numerous references to a mysterious group known as "The Twelve". The Twelve is a covert assassin’s network so anonymous that even its highest-ranking members such as Hélène aren’t aware of the other members’ identities. Throughout Killing Eve, The Twelve becomes less of an overshadowing force and seen more as a tangible network of individuals who can be taken down once found. In Killing Eve season 4, Carolyn Martens and Eve Polastri personally work to hunt down the identity of The Twelve. The hunt becomes more important in season 3 episode 1 when Carolyn’s son Kenny falls to his death from a rooftop and it quickly becomes apparent the death is not accidental. Kenny was looking into the financial records of The Twelve which casts suspicion on various characters who are known to either be consorting or aligned with the network. Eve hopes she can take down the network itself by manipulating Hélène, meanwhile Carolyn attempts to discover the identity of her son’s killer by interacting with members of The Twelve she knew in her youth.
The question of who killed Kenny Stowton can potentially answer who the elusive Twelve are, but the series never specifies by the end who Kenny is killed by. The series spends integral segments of the plot in season 4 focusing on the development of The Twelve mystery. Eve meets with Hélène several times and kidnaps her daughter as a power move to get closer to the answer of who the key members of The Twelve are. The series finale fails to identify the killer despite Carolyn receiving a note from Konstantin posthumously which could have been an answer to the continually foreshadowed question. The importance of the mystery is discredited in the finale where Villanelle finally finds The Twelve with the help of Eve but is shown to kill them relatively offscreen, leaving viewers with more questions than answers. Following all the built-up mystique of the powerful Twelve’s identities, taking them out in the span of a few minutes feels somewhat anticlimactic. Furthermore, Villanelle is killed by an unseen assassin mere minutes after eliminating The Twelve, implying a failure to carry out her mission. Since the hit is orchestrated by Carolyn, it's implied that she’s been working for The Twelve all along despite no confirmation. This theory overlooks Carolyn’s obvious motivation to avenge her son throughout the past two seasons of Killing Eve and opens several plot holes rather than closing the few remaining ones.
The finale has been criticized for its shock value ending which rejects the core relationship of the show; the romance between Villanelle and Eve. The unexplained mysteries have mostly been overshadowed by the controversial choice to kill off Villanelle following her accomplishments of killing The Twelve and uniting with Eve romantically. However, the reveal of Carolyn being the person to have Villanelle assassinated adds poorly to the unnecessary shock value and neglects the need for a clear answer on whether Carolyn is the only remaining Twelve member, or if she is truly part of The Twelve at all. The audience is led to believe up until this point that Carolyn, Eve, and Villanelle share the same goal. By having Carolyn put out a hit on Villanelle after she achieves this goal, the plot becomes more muddled than it was before, and the questions of who killed Kenny and who runs The Twelve get buried beneath even more immediate Killing Eve mysteries.
Amid the backlash for the series finale, there’s been a division of criticism directed toward the turns the plot takes in the resolution. The two major mysteries that have been defining aspects of the show’s run for the past couple of seasons are left unanswered. The importance structured around these issues is misleading when answers to these Killing Eve questions are unfortunately never revealed.
Killing Eve season 4 and the entire series are streaming on AMC+.