Eve and Villanelle’s cat-and-mouse game is back on. Killing Eve is now streaming on Netflix in the US, which means you can watch (or rewatch) all four seasons of the daring British spy thriller — that’s 32 episodes total — from the very beginning.
Created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag), the series ran from 2018–2022 and is based on a series of novellas by British author Luke Jennings. It stars Sandra Oh as Eve, an intelligent, outside-the-box field operative tasked with bringing down the sociopathic assassin Villanelle, played by Jodie Comer. Over the course of the critically-acclaimed series, their mutual infatuation — ahem, obsession — takes deadly twists and shocking turns.
Waller-Bridge oversaw Season 1, with each subsequent season helmed by a different head writer/showrunner: Emerald Fennell for Season 2, Suzanne Heathcote for Season 3, and Laura Neal for the final season. Killing Eve also picked up a number of awards during its four-season run — including a Peabody, a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series for Oh, and a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Comer.
Whether you’re discovering Killing Eve for the first time or revisiting Villanelle’s psychotic kills, here’s everything you need to know about the subversive series.
Stream all four seasons right here.
Eve and Villanelle encounter a wide web of characters throughout the series, but here’s a look at the key players:
Killing Eve is based on four e-novellas by Luke Jennings that were published from 2014 through 2016. The novellas were later compiled into a single novel, Codename Villanelle, published in the US in 2018. It was the basis for the Killing Eve series and followed Russian orphan Villanelle who murders her gangster father’s killers and is later trained to become a skilled assassin by a shady organization called The Twelve.
Jennings followed up Codename Villanelle with two sequels, Killing Eve: No Tomorrow and Killing Eve: Die for Me. (Both books were written in consultation with the series producers.) The plot of the show’s later seasons “went in a very different direction” than his novels, Jennings noted in a 2023 essay in The Guardian — which, fair warning, contains spoilers about how the show ends — and he’s since continued Eve and Villanelle’s story in a series of installments published on Substack, titled Killing Eve: Resurrection.
If you don’t have time to watch all four seasons of Killing Eve or just want to relive the most crucial hours, below are six key episodes to check out:
It’s always a good idea to start from the beginning, and Killing Eve’s pilot episode sets the tone for the chaos that ensues. It successfully establishes Eve and Villanelle’s push-and-pull relationship and features one of Villanelle’s most memorable kills — via a poisonous hairpin.
Two face-offs take place between Eve and Villanelle, who at this point are circling each other like vultures. The more memorable one happens after Villanelle breaks into Eve’s home unannounced in an attempt to gain intel and the two engage in a sexually charged showdown — but not until after Villanelle takes comfort in some shepherd’s pie.
Eve and Villanelle’s obsession with each other comes to a head in the Season 1 finale. After a confluence of violent events lead the nemeses to lay in bed together (where they make surprising confessions,) Eve betrays Villanelle by stabbing her with a knife. She immediately regrets it, but Villanelle’s response is classic Villanelle, and the cliffhanger ending tees up another high-stakes pursuit.
Eve, who is teetering on the edge of madness, concocts an elaborate (and dangerous) plan to stage a hit on herself in order to reunite with Villanelle. Things get a little messy (it was a terrible idea in the first place), but it leads to a near-kiss between Eve and Villanelle and a pseudo-alliance between the two.
By the Season 3 finale, Eve and Villanelle’s dynamic has reached unhealthy levels. Shockingly, they both recognize this and decide to part ways, vowing not to look back at each other as they walk off in opposite directions. Then, almost immediately, they end up breaking their rule.
Every mission must eventually come to an end, and this much-discussed series finale brings Eve and Vilanelle’s whirlwind journey to a close. Be sure to carve out some time to debrief afterward.
