I get how Villanelle dying and thereby saving Eve is the right kind of ending from a writers perspective.
BUT... the way the last quarter of the episode progresses, seems somehow sloppy and anticlimactic to me.
3 factors in particular felt so out of place, that they completely broke my immersion.
1) The whole thing about killing the Twelve just all of the sudden is a piece of cake, when 4 seasons long we were told the opposite. All along the story had built up the expectation, that the encounter with and the liquidation of the Twelve, would not only require immense preparation, strategy and cunning but also at least SOME sense of jeopardy and effort. It didn't feel credible enough, even for a show that likes to stretch the boundaries of the realistic every now and then.
2) The bullets that eventually end Villanelles life are being shot several meters through the water of the Thames... Well... two things about that simply make no sense.
One being, that when a bullet is shot through water, it looses its speed so rapidly, that such an impact might have left a bruise or at best maybe even a broken rib if the laws of physics were to be generous for dramatic effect.
Certainly though, it wouldn't keep on traveling in a straight line puncturing the intended target, instead of sloping downwards while visibly slowing down and eventually bouncing off the target (if said target somehow still were on the bullets altered course, that is).
Also, I fail to see how Caroline manages to aim at AND hit her underwater target. It's the Thames, guys!
A river so dirty that nothing under the surface can be seen even in broad daylight, not to mention AT NIGHT and from the other side of the 250-ish meter (820 ft) wide river bed.
3) We are left with the desperate screams of Eve.
If Villanelles death was supposed to mean anything, its meaning is lost because the viewer is not allowed to see how this sacrifice is meant to benefit Eve to triumph in the end. Instead the viewer is witness to that outcry of helplessness, anguish and despair. The sound of a brutal rupture, a separation so cruel and a loss that cuts so deep, because after their entire gruesome ordeal, they have only just arrived at the beginning of their inevitable connection.
One bloodcurdling scream, there in the water - THE END - no resolution whatsoever. No rising from the ashes, no ace up Eves sleeve, no revenge, no hope, not one more step.
I don't mind when the storytelling intentionally leaves the recipient unsatisfied with an ending. But the decisions that were made for these scenes seemed entirely uncharacteristic and lacked the usual cleverness and sophistication of this otherwise brilliant show.
BUT... the way the last quarter of the episode progresses, seems somehow sloppy and anticlimactic to me.
3 factors in particular felt so out of place, that they completely broke my immersion.
1) The whole thing about killing the Twelve just all of the sudden is a piece of cake, when 4 seasons long we were told the opposite. All along the story had built up the expectation, that the encounter with and the liquidation of the Twelve, would not only require immense preparation, strategy and cunning but also at least SOME sense of jeopardy and effort. It didn't feel credible enough, even for a show that likes to stretch the boundaries of the realistic every now and then.
2) The bullets that eventually end Villanelles life are being shot several meters through the water of the Thames... Well... two things about that simply make no sense.
One being, that when a bullet is shot through water, it looses its speed so rapidly, that such an impact might have left a bruise or at best maybe even a broken rib if the laws of physics were to be generous for dramatic effect.
Certainly though, it wouldn't keep on traveling in a straight line puncturing the intended target, instead of sloping downwards while visibly slowing down and eventually bouncing off the target (if said target somehow still were on the bullets altered course, that is).
Also, I fail to see how Caroline manages to aim at AND hit her underwater target. It's the Thames, guys!
A river so dirty that nothing under the surface can be seen even in broad daylight, not to mention AT NIGHT and from the other side of the 250-ish meter (820 ft) wide river bed.
3) We are left with the desperate screams of Eve.
If Villanelles death was supposed to mean anything, its meaning is lost because the viewer is not allowed to see how this sacrifice is meant to benefit Eve to triumph in the end. Instead the viewer is witness to that outcry of helplessness, anguish and despair. The sound of a brutal rupture, a separation so cruel and a loss that cuts so deep, because after their entire gruesome ordeal, they have only just arrived at the beginning of their inevitable connection.
One bloodcurdling scream, there in the water - THE END - no resolution whatsoever. No rising from the ashes, no ace up Eves sleeve, no revenge, no hope, not one more step.
I don't mind when the storytelling intentionally leaves the recipient unsatisfied with an ending. But the decisions that were made for these scenes seemed entirely uncharacteristic and lacked the usual cleverness and sophistication of this otherwise brilliant show.