Killing Eve: Sandra Oh says character deaths were ‘switched around’ in controversial finale

Many viewers complained about ending to BBC drama series

Sandra Oh has revealed that a different character was originally going to die in the controversial Killing Eve finale.

*Major spoilers for Killing Eve season four finale below*

The last ever episode of the BBC series aired last month, in which Jodie Comer’s Villanelle slaughtered every single member of The Twelve – the global assassin group she used to be a member of.

However, within seconds of Villanelle and Eve (Oh) celebrating and preparing to embark on a new life together, Villanelle was shot multiple times by an unknown attacker and dies.

When the final episode aired, many viewers accused the show of queerbaiting and of being “aggressively dissatisfying” while saying they felt “cheated” by the ending.

But speaking to Deadline, Oh has now revealed that it was originally “going to be the other way around”, with Eve dying instead of Villanelle.

“I was like, ‘You should kill my character,’” she recalled telling writer Laura Neal.

Villanelle and Eve finally found happiness in show’s finale – before Villanelle was shot (BBC America/David Emery)

“I thought that would be the strongest and the most interesting [ending] and I felt, emotionally, it was the right place of where I was at.”

Oh said that she felt Eve’s death made sense as a continuation of the “nihilistic place” the character was in at the end of season three, but that Neal changed her mind while working on the script during the pandemic.

“They came to me, and they said, ‘We can’t do it. We need to change it… Eve needs to live.’ Eve is the way into this world. She’s our everywoman. So it’s kind of really super depressing if she dies.”

In the end, the deaths were “switched around”.

Among the critics of the Killing Eve finale was author Luke Jennings, who wrote the books Killing Eve is based on and said the show was “bowing to convention” with its finale.

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“It’s an extraordinary privilege to see your characters brought to life so compellingly. But the final series ending took me aback,” he wrote.