Villanelle Lives: 'Killing Eve' Fans Fight to Bury a Deadly Trope

When the critically-acclaimed TV series Killing Eve shocked viewers by ending with the oldest homophobic trope known as Bury Your Gays, it re-opened old wounds for the LGBTQ+ community. But fans are turning their betrayal into action, to ensure the next generation of queer viewers get to see happy endings for the characters they love - and themselves.

Take action:

• Donate: Help the Killing Eve Billboard Project reach their goal
• View: The Killing Eve Open Letter Project
• Email: AMC+ and BBC America - Cancel your subscriptions and tell them why

References:

• The Harmful Trope That's Still Haunting Queer TV - AJ Willingham (CNN)
• Killing Eve Chose Cruelty - Angelica Jade Bastien (Vulture)
• Villanelle's Real Killer? Miserable British Puritanism - Adi Tantimedh (Bleeding Cool)
• The Killing Eve Finale Was Violent in the Worst Way - Jocelyn (Writing Through the Night)
• The Psychological Impact of the Killing Eve Series Finale - Jan E. Estrellado, PhD. (Psychology Today)
• The Trevor Project memorial fund

Thank you:
Viktorija (@anevolutionarynecessity)
@loving-villanelle
@alicia_desousa
@bertimic
@bigswisses
@ke_sufferer
@fkacernes
anon and @horde-princess
@killingeveeditx
@doks-aux

Intro music by Gossip. Outro music by Chvrches.
Logo by Max Badger.

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Transcript

SJ: 0:00

Gay Pride is over, bebes. Buckle up for Gay Wrath Month![upbeat punk/rock music kicks in] This is the Popculty Podcast where we are somehow still fighting for the radical idea that queer characters deserve happy endings too. I'm your host, SJ. [music fades out] It's been dubbed "the worst ending of any TV show in the last 12 years," and "the new Game of Thrones." (Ouch.) It's the physical manifestation of that meme where the back half of a horse has been drawn professionally, and its front half has been completed by a two year-old. Vanity Fair proclaimed it "atrocious." Yahoo Entertainment called it "tired and unforgivable." "Insulting to the audience," said Vulture. Variety declared it "a total betrayal of what once made it great," and Bleeding Cool marveled that, "it didn't so much end as just...stop -- As if the writers just threw up their hands and wanted it over and done with." A conclusion so nonsensical and abrupt, it spawned conspiracy theories of a secret ninth episode - which never materialized. A petition to have head writer Laura Neal arrested for hate crimes has gotten nearly 5000 signatures. And another petition to have original showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge rewrite the episode accumulated 10,000 signatures in two weeks. I'm talking about the Killing Eve finale that aired on April 10, 2022, which saw the main characters, Eve and Villanelle, embrace after accomplishing their series-long goal of defeating the evil organization known as The Twelve, only for Villanelle to be shot multiple times by an unseen shooter and bleed out in Eve's arms as the words 'The End' appeared across our screens, abruptly cutting to black. Four years of'will-they-won't-they', four years of the relationship evolving from toxic to pure, and it was all for...THAT?? In its final two minutes, Killing Eve went from being one of the queerest shows on TV to a brutal morality lesson, killing off every single queer character, except for Eve, in one of the oldest and most damaging homophobic tropes, known as Bury Your Gays. I mentioned Bury Your Gays tangentially in our Jessica Jones conversation on queerbaiting and queer representation, but we never really got into the history or the context behind it. Bury Your Gays has been an insidious staple of American film and television for both mediums near-entire existence. As AJ Willingham writes for CNN in an article called 'The Harmful Trope That's Still Haunting Queer TV,' queer or queer-coded characters being "punished" by death was once the legal norm in entertainment. Back in the 1930s, efforts by the Supreme Court, local governments and conservative censorship groups led film industry leaders to establish the Motion Picture Production Code. The Hays Code, as it became known, effectively forbade depictions of homosexuality, which was considered a form of sexual deviancy. The code mandated that, "the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin." So characters could be subtextually coded as gay, but only if they were portrayed negatively, and received some sort of punishment. Bound by these rules for decades, gay characters on screen were evil, conniving, and ultimately doomed. The Hays Code was eventually replaced by the MPAA rating system in 1968, but its effect on pop culture is still deeply ingrained. And you have to remember that up until 1973, homosexuality was considered a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association, and homosexual acts were federally criminalized in the US until 2003. Even as the number of LGBTQ characters on our screens has steadily increased over the past few decades, the majority of those have been side characters, not leads, and most have met untimely ends, often for the story progression of those straight leads. Now, we're not saying that no queer characters can ever die in media from now on. Of course they can. We want them to be treated as human beings, same as any other character. The problem is that they're not treated the same, in two distinct ways. For one, they're killed off at a disproportionate rate compared to their straight counterparts. And two, the way they're often killed is markedly more brutal than their straight counterparts' deaths. For example, you will almost never see a queer character pass away peacefully in their sleep, or die of old age with their loved ones. Much more often, you will see them suffer an agonizing death from AIDS, in the case of gay male characters, or be brutally murdered, in the case of lesbians. For the latter, this often takes the form of the lesbian or bisexual female character being shot out of nowhere-- usually, notably, by an angry white man. Think Tara in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, think Lexa in The 100, think Root in Person of Interest. And now, think Villanelle. According to a list compiled by Autostraddle, to date, over 200 just lesbian and bisexual characters have been killed on screen. Considering the fact that there have only *ever* been a few hundred lesbian and bi characters in all of TV history, that's a mortality rate of like 80%. The mortality rate for straight characters, meanwhile-- of which there are arguably far too many-- is closer to 20%. So you combine the scarcity of queer representation with a high grisly mortality rate, and you've got a repeatedly traumatized demographic who keep getting attached to the one or two characters they can identify with, only for that character to be murdered, often moments after finding happiness for the first time. Queer characters can die without it falling into Bury Your Gays. Hannibal, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror are all really good examples of how to kill a gay character in a respectful, satisfying, and inevitable way. To be honest, I would have actually preferred that the Killing Eve writers had buried*both* gays respectfully, than one gay carelessly, like they did. I, along with many other viewers, kind of expected-- and would have been satisfied with-- a Thelma and Louise-type ending. Instead, we got a finale that re-traumatized an entire community that was finally starting to believe it deserved better. When the entire world is already so hostile to queer folks, often our only refuge is in fictional worlds. When those fictional worlds reveal themselves to be just as cruel, dangerous, and bleak as the real world, where is our safe haven? For queer women, the lack of representation, combined with lack of opportunity to tell their own stories, puts them in a double bind. As one viewer put it, "Being gay and having next to no queer writers telling our stories is like, do I want my queer female characters to be sexualized by straight men, or killed by straight women?" Straight women like season four head writer and showrunner Laura Neal. Ninety years after the Hays Code's explicit categorization of queerness as sin, that notion is implicitly reinforced by Killing Eve-- which utilizes a conversion subplot and religious iconography in Villanelle's death-- and explicitly confirmed by Neal, who insists it was necessary for the "rebirth" (her word) of Eve - the previously straight main character. Even if you can set aside the big-ass BYG elephant in the room, the final episode of Killing Eve was a microcosm of the final season itself, in that-- it was a damn mess! Nothing made any sense. Things established in previous seasons were confoundingly ignored or reversed. Every creative decision was like a slap in the face to the series' very premise. From day one, the show had been about Eve learning to embrace her darkness, only for the writers to insist on her"rebirth" and "cleansing" at the literal last minute. Why this emphasis on a happy ending that looks "normal", when the whole point of the show has been that both characters-- and all of us-- contain light *and* dark, and they deserve to be loved for both. From a narrative standpoint, the choices made were mind-boggling. We talk in screenwriting about constantly delivering what we call"inevitable surprises" to the audience. A good writer doesn't telegraph their plot twists, but when those plot twists happen, the audience should feel like,"Ahh, of course!" It should feel right and satisfying. This wasn't that. It wasn't original; It didn't deliver on its own foreshadowing (Scorpion and The Frog metaphor, where'd you go?); It didn't even make logistical sense-- You know, Eve has Villanelle's blood on her shirt, but the bullet didn't hit her...? Where was the shooter? They are literally on the water! And it certainly wasn't what fans wanted. Despite a writers room largely comprised of comedy writers, and despite OG showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge setting a decidedly cheeky tone for the show in season one, season four is downright cynical. For all its claims of being about freedom, choice, and rebirth for women, it actually seems to be telling its largely female audience repeatedly that any attempt to break free of a cycle you've been trapped in is futile and will only end in death or loss. Which is not a revolutionary or helpful idea. But it is, ironically, a perfect metaphor for show that ended up continuing the cycle of re-traumatizing already marginalized viewers, when it had the opportunity to break that cycle. In her excellent piece for Vulture entitled 'Killing Eve Chose Cruelty,' Angelica Jade Bastien further points out the strain of racism embedded in the show throughout its run, from its all-white writers room, to its lack of interest in the title character's interiority compared to her white counterparts. Eve herself was an Asian woman who defied the passive Asian woman stereotype, only for the show to punish her for that subversion. On top of letting its characters and audience down, the final season is also a direct betrayal of the original creators' vision for it. Author Luke Jennings has voiced his disapproval of the ending, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who first adapted his book series for television, infamously stated back in season one, "Every moment in the show exists so that these two women can end up alone in a room together. Really, it would have been a betrayal of the audience if they didn't come together in the end." She said it best. Look, I could go on about the show's devolution of fashion, color palette, and cinematography. I could talk about how by the end, the production value was so bad, you couldn't tell Cuba from Margate. But enough from me. I'm actually going to let the internet speak for itself, in a segment I'm calling "Queers Read Mean Tweets About the Killing Eve Finale." It's like that bit from Jimmy Kimmel, except, you know, gay. Take it away, Twitter!

Queer Reader #1: 11:40

Killing Eve really said "it was just a phase." [Twitter chirp]

Queer Reader #2: 11:44

Season four of Killing Eve felt like a homophobic corporation doing a pride event. [Twitter chirp]

Queer Reader #3: 11:49

Killing Eve having Villanelle and Eve deliver the most passionate kiss in all of television history after five years of sexual tension, and then saying their relationship can be interpreted as platonic? Just say you hate gay people and go. [Twitter chirp]

Queer Reader #4: 12:03

Whenever I think I'm overreacting to Killing Eve, I remember that Villanelle was brutally murdered at a gay wedding so the straight side character could get her job back. Eve left screaming in suicidal despair. Bonus Christian imagery. Conventionality and homophobia prevail. [Twitter chirp]

Queer Reader #5: 12:22

Killing Eve season four did more for Christianity than the Crusades, and you really hate to see it.[Twitter chirp]

Queer Reader #6: 12:27

The way they made Eve an allegory for biblical Eve and Vill the snake tempting her from the Garden of Heteronormativity with the fruit of queerness...? I expected subversion of the Evil Gay trope in the end, not an adaptation of the 1966 novel Satan Was A Lesbian. [Twitter chirp]

Queer Reader #7: 12:46

I'd love to hold my girlfriend's hand in public, but I'm afraid the Killing Eve writers room will have me shot. [Twitter chirp]

Queer Reader #8: 12:53

Wait, wait.[record scratch] I don't go here, but you're telling me Killing Eve is based on a series of novels that ended with the main characters in lesbians ever after, and the show specifically chose to ignore that helpfully provided conclusion to deliberately bury the gays?? Oh my God, ya'll. I'm so, so sorry. I only knew your fucked-up little gals from gif-sets, but I was really rooting for them.[Twitter chirp]

SJ: 13:13

Now, I've never been a lesbian, but as a queer, non-binary trans person who hosts *this* podcast, their fight is very much my fight. And the most frustrating thing for me personally is that I've already fought this fight - six years ago, to be exact. And frankly, I thought we had won it. After The 100 fiasco-- or as I call it, Lexapocalypse-- I along with thousands of other hurt and outraged fans turned our grief into action. We mobilized to raise awareness of Bury Your Gays through every available avenue, emailing, sending letters, and tweeting, educating the TV industry of their complicity and perpetuation of the trope. We raised $160,000 for the Trevor Project, and established the nonprofit LGBT Fans Deserve Better, with the mission of responsible queer storytelling. Together, we created The Lexa Pledge, which acknowledges the damage of BYG, promises to include queer characters in larger roles, and to consult with sources within the LGBTQ community when writing queer characters, among other things. The pledge was signed and adopted by 15 current shows. That was a huge win. And for the past few years, thanks in large part to those efforts, queer rep on TV has steadily gotten better. Which is why what Killing Eve did is so shocking. Gaining all that ground just a few years ago, and suddenly it feels like we're back at square one. All those calluses I'd built up to protect myself from getting too attached to any character that remotely felt like me were finally starting to fall off from disuse. And now I've just been tricked into watching yet another queer character I had grown to love be shot to death in her sobbing girlfriend's arms - reminding me of Lexa, and Tara, and Root. It's like the same fictional bullet just circles the Earth constantly, seeking out every lesbian character, putting them in their place as soon as they get too happy, or too comfortable, too close to a normal life. A giant cosmic reminder that, "if you relate to this character, THERE IS NO FUTURE FOR YOU." As if we ever had a reason to imagine otherwise. We all thought Killing Eve was different. From the beginning, it gave us its word it *was* different, introducing us to not one but two complex queer women caught on opposite sides of an international thriller. The way it let them be unapologetically dark and messy, and unapologetically attracted to each other, despite their differences and circumstances, was something new. This show baited us, promising to subvert tired tropes, and then played right into them. And as I watched those final minutes, I felt like an idiot. Psychology Today just published an article on the lasting effects of the finale on the queer community, three months later. The author, a licensed clinical psychologist, PhD, and queer and trans person of color themselves, normalized fans feelings of stress, anger, exhaustion, grief, and betrayal. They liken the experience to being dumped out of nowhere and then ghosted, or having a friend you considered a woke ally suddenly say or do something super racist. They write that,"Both situations require a person to question everything about the relationship. Should I not have trusted the writers in the first place? How could I have missed the likely reality that they never understood queer lives and stories to begin with?" I was once again made to feel stupid for having faith that the writers of one of my favorite shows would do the right thing. And THAT pissed me off. So I did something about it, because clearly, the fight isn't over after all. Once again, the community rallied. Once again, we spent the next weeks in action mode, sending emails and letters to the network and production company, tweeting and messaging those responsible, again educating them, since they apparently missed the previous memo. No response. We demanded acknowledgement of the harm they caused. Crickets. Article after damning article came out, but they had nothing to say for themselves. With The 100, the showrunner eventually apologized, and they even brought Lexa back for an episode as a peace offering. This time, amidst continued calls for an apology or redaction, there was no sign of humanity, whatsoever. I sent follow-up emails, canceled my subscription to AMC+. I talked to many other fans who were doing the same. None of us was getting anything back, beyond an auto-reply. The network knew they were in the middle of a shitstorm, and they made the executive decision to pretend they weren't and just hope it would blow over. When it didn't, after a month and counting, then-- all of a sudden-- some of us did start getting replies - dismissive, patronizing and curt. Along the lines of, "We're sorry you weren't satisfied. That sounds like a you problem." The showrunner doubled down on her stance in subsequent interviews, and the writers meanwhile reveled in the backlash as some sort of badge of honor, mocking fans online. AMC and BBC America continued to promote the final season as if it were being well-received, except instead of live Q&As with cast and writers, everything was pre-recorded, to preempt any audience criticism or questions, and the comments were disabled. It was a one-two punch of silencing outcry, followed by gaslighting. A Trumpian playbook of 'deny, deny, deny.' It truly felt as if we were screaming into the void. Things have changed in six years, and not for the better. This time, we realized there would be no apology, no renewed pledge, no amends to the community. There would be nothing... *Except* for what we make ourselves. When our repeated appeals to GLAAD-- the organization whose literal mission statement is to improve the depiction of queer characters on screen-- went unanswered, we realized we could not count on seemingly benign institutions to have our backs, when their very existence is built upon conflicts of interest- close associations with the same industry we are often fighting. We were in this alone, and we would just have to make ourselves heard. But in recognizing their limitations, we realized our extent. GLAAD's betrayal was the final straw for me. That's when I decided what I could do-- this episode-- to ensure that those who are hurting would be heard, to provide a space for anyone who had been stonewalled by the TV powers that be could say their piece, and to highlight the efforts being done to ensure this never happens again. When I asked folks online to share what this show and these characters meant to them, one of the people I heard from is Viktorija. She has written extensive critical analyses of Killing Eve over the course of its run, including an eye-opening piece on how the show has been queerbaiting us from the beginning, and she was often one of the most thoughtful voices I encountered in the post-finale discourse.

Viktorija: 20:24

My name is Viktorija. I'm 27 years old. I was born in Serbia, and grew up in Canada. What Villanelle means to me is defying convention. Villanelle is such an important character, particularly for Slavic cultures, because so many are still entrenched in homophobia. And so many of us, like me, are still closeted, unfortunately, where we don't feel safe to come out to our closest circles, or, you know, social pressure doesn't allow us to come out. Despite this, Villanelle symbolizes hope. I think she gives us a sense of freedom and independence. And, you know, whether you identify with her charm, or her rude humor, her style, her flamboyant kills, just the panache that she carries wherever she goes, and her deep capacity for love, you can recognize the power of finding strength within yourself to overcome anything. And so, in situations where I find myself sad or angry, or just feeling trapped, I think about Villanelle and I think about how she overcame so much so that she could love Eve. Villanelle symbolizes defying convention, and confidence, and overcoming no matter what, so that you can live your life, on your own terms, and live freely. That's why she's important to so many people around the world - Across cultures, across time, and across homophobia. Villanelle transcends her fate. And she will continue to inspire generations of women to be who they really are.

SJ: 22:21

That global resonance Viktorija talks about, that Villanelle had with viewers, was everywhere I looked in the weeks following the finale. Reactions poured in from every corner of the world. A group of fans started collecting these responses, and on May 23, the Killing Eve Open Letter Project was published online. The result is a nearly 100-page PDF compilation of 306 responses gathered from South Africa, Ireland, the Philippines, Argentina... Viewers of every gender, from dozens of different countries are represented in this document, along with the impact the show and its finale had on them, in their own words, I reached out to the Killing Eve Open Letter Project, to see if they would like to say something for this episode. They asked to remain anonymous, which I totally respect, but they did want to contribute and sent the following statement, which they asked me to read on their behalf."We started the Killing Eve Open Letter Project as a way for viewers to grieve. It serves as a physical manifestation of fans who are not only processing what they saw in the finale, but also discussing how Killing Eve helped shape their lives. As the introduction to the letter mentions, fans of Killing Eve thought the show recognized the weight and responsibility of having a queer audience. We thought we had finally found a show where its queer leads weren't destined for suffering. Which is what makes the ending such a punch in the gut. None of us expected such a critically-acclaimed show to have a Bury Your Gays ending. It's safe to say that Killing Eve impacted hundreds, if not thousands, of lives worldwide. While collecting responses, it was amazing to see so many people talk about how the show has helped them over the years, especially through the pandemic. Yet those same responses were also some of the hardest to read. Countless people detailed how the finale not only hurt them, but betrayed them. Over the years, Killing Eve became a refuge for those of us who yearn for representation. Those who searched endlessly for a show where they could see themselves reflected back on screen-- sometimes even parts of us that we hadn't even begun to discover yet. And in the end, not only did the show let us down, it truly betrayed the trust we placed in it." The Open Letter Project perfectly demonstrates how the industry's silence forced us to get creative. If those responsible won't respond to us in private, we'll call them out in public. Billboards were a huge part of the public awareness campaign during our first fight, and one group of fans saw the need for them again now.

AV: 24:53

Hi, this is AV. I'm from Canada. I use any pronouns, and I'm Two-Spirit. I came up with the idea to put up billboards about the Killing Eve ending, because the Killing Eve ending was *an atrocity*. It was absolutely horrendous. I know I myself felt very hurt after watching the ending, especially with the religious undertones. It was so harmful, so terrible. And after it ended, I went online, like everyone else. And I saw just how hurt people were. And it ranged from wherever you could imagine - Different places in the country, all age ranges... I just couldn't believe that people from like 18 to 50, and from the United States to Uganda, people were hurting about the Killing Eve ending. And so I felt like something had to be done. So I suggested the idea to make Killing Eve billboards, and a lot of people helped me with that - Mainly Ines and Kate, who helped make the GoFundMe account, because we didn't want to deal with overseas finances, as I am a Canadian and the billboard was put up in the Thames. We put up the billboard because this trope cannot continue - Not in the year 2022. Straight people don't have to go through this every day. Heterosexual people get so many diverse, creative stories. And the one time we finally get one, it becomes tainted with this Bury Your Gays ending. And that is just not acceptable anymore.

SJ: 26:40

The first billboard went up at 53 Aldgate High Street in London, on June 7. I'll be posting pictures of it on social media - It's amazing. 400 meters from where Villanelle was killed, it says in large letters, in the Killing Eve font, "LET THE TROPE SINK TO THE BOTTOM OF THE THAMES. End 'Bury Your Gays' in media." The Killing Eve Open Letter and Billboard Projects are just two examples of fan resilience, ingenuity, and collaboration that I've witnessed in the months following the finale. In working on this episode, I encountered so many other fans discovering how they can use their skills to help heal the community. Laura Neal may have killed Villanelle, but they brought her back to life - with comics, fan fiction, gif-sets and fan videos that gave Eve and Villanelle the happy ending they deserved, effectively retconning that bullshit finale out of our collective memory. I've seen incredible street art - murals of the kiss painted across rooftops. I've seen#VillanelleLives appearing on signs and T-shirts at Pride parades, and memorials to her sprouting up across London - flowers piled up at Tower Bridge, where she was killed, with handwritten letters telling her, "You were never evil." A memorial fund was started for the Trevor Project, the world's largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth. On their homepage, they write, "We hope for a future where queer characters are not treated as disposable, and our tragic stories are told with the same reverence and respect as non-queer characters. LGBTQ youth are disproportionately impacted by these harmful tropes. Young people rely on fiction as a vehicle of self discovery, and it's for them that we should be speaking up when we see popular media continuing to make the same mistakes." Between the (previously) escapist realm of Killing Eve and the real-world news, it's hard not to feel like 2022 has set us back 50 years. And I'll be honest, this episode almost didn't make it. Months of fits and starts; me trying desperately to maintain my sanity, let alone focus, while the rights of women and trans folks were being gutted in the country I live was...challenging, to say the least. But every time I started down the mental path of, 'how can I focus on a TV show right now?', I just go online, and the lasting effect of that TV show would hit me like a brick wall. And as the host of a podcast about the importance of representation in pop culture, I knew I had to see my part through. Years ago, when then-Vice President Joe Biden unequivocally announced his support for same-sex marriage, he said he thought the TV show Will & Grace probably did more to familiarize the American public with gay people as human beings than anything else. This might sound like an exaggeration, but I think that's a fair assertion. As television historians have noted, TV is a unique medium, in which families allow fictional characters into their homes every night, enabling them to relate to those characters as they would a friend - Which was a revolutionary step in storytelling as empathy-building. The fact that American approval of same-sex marriage is currently at an all-time high, at the same time we have the most queer characters on TV, is not a coincidence. This is why I talk about representation so much. This is why I started this podcast. The thing is-- as this whole Killing Eve fiasco has reminded us-- representation cuts both ways. When it's done well, it can save lives. But when it's done poorly, it can cost them. Which is why I pulled myself out of surgery recovery three weeks early to rejoin a fight I've fought before, in the hopes that one day it will end and we will be able to move on to other important battles; in the hopes that Gen Z won't even know what BYG is. I think that's why any of us are doing what we can in response to this mess. And hope is what I want to leave you with, dear listeners, because here's the thing - Even without a response from the network, we have seen and will continue to see the results of our hard work. In the weeks following the finale, AMC Networks saw its stock fall to an all-time low and lost thousands of subscribers. Our letters and emails may have gone unanswered, but they haven't gone unread. Those responsible can log off Twitter, but they still have to live in the real world. They have to pass the billboards shaming them on their way to work, and the memorials to a queer icon they signed a death warrant for. They have to explain to their board members why they are now forced to cancel that Killing Eve spin-off due to-- ahem-- lack of viewer interest, to put it mildly. Primetime Emmy nominations were announced this week, and for the first time in three years, the show was rightfully ignored in all categories, except for double lead actress nods. And honestly, shout out to Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer for their incredible acting and chemistry, in a show that did not deserve them.

Eve: 31:45

Relationships are out a lot of work. They require effort. And you will have tough times. Sometimes you'll feel like you're losing your way, and sometimes you'll feel like you're losing each other. But the beauty in your relationship will be found in the ways you reunite. Have you ever heard of Kintsugi? Okay, Kintsugi is the Japanese art form of gluing-- stay with me here-- It's a way of gluing broken pots back together with gold. It actually strengthens the pot. It's a way of bonding to create something new. Something completely your own.

SJ: 32:33

The final season of Killing Eve invoked many allegories it never followed through on - allegories which ended up being about us, the audience. In the wake of the finale, this community picked up the broken pieces of our imagined futures for these characters, our shattered faith in a show we trusted, and we started gluing them back together - with art, with words, with action. We rewrote this story, which is*our* story, reclaiming the happy ending we were robbed of yet again, of which other narrow minds could not conceive. True to the meaning of Kintsugi, we mended our broken pieces into something more beautiful than the original, something stronger- wholly new, and wholly ours. Not until we are allowed in the room to tell our stories authentically will they be treated with the care they deserve. And so our fight continues. And this podcast's mission statement has never been clearer or more necessary. To the community, I see you - all your hard work, your pain, and your resilience. To the networks, showrunners, and writers, it is past time to do better - Do your homework, hire queer writers, and-- for the love of God-- bury your tropes, instead of us. 'Kay? [upbeat outro music kicks in] This was the most collaborative episode I've ever done, and it literally would not exist without the people whose voices you heard. I want to thank Viktorija, for being the first person to reach out to me for this episode, and for sharing what Villanelle means to her. You can follow her on Tumblr@anevolutionarynecessity. I want to thank AV for talking to us about the Killing Eve Billboard Project, as well as Sanna for putting us in touch, and the entire Killing Eve Billboard team, for their ongoing efforts to educate the networks and the public about the harmful legacy of Bury Your Gays. Listeners can help them reach their fundraising goal, which will allow them to roll out more billboards across the UK and US, by donating to their GoFundMe linked in the shownotes. I also want to thank the Killing Eve Open Letter Project for writing in especially for this episode, and for all the work they've done on behalf of fans. Thank you to the entire fandom for these long months of discourse, fanfic, fan art, et cetera, that has gotten us all through. Thank you Twitter and Tumblr-verse, for all your incisive and hilarious takedowns, especially the@loving-villanelle Tumblr and all y'all linked below for some of my favorite tweets. And a very special thank you to my Sapphic chorus, my queer readers, for giving voice to those tweets - Julianna, Laurel, Alyssa, Glenn, Trisha, Lisa and AJ. Links to everything mentioned in this episode, as well as further resources, are embedded in the interactive transcript on Tumblr at popculty.blog. You can also find me on Twitter @popculty, and on Instagram @thepopculty. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple podcasts - It really helps other people discover the show. You can also directly support the show by joining our patreon for as little as $2 a month. Throwing us a couple bucks helps cover operating expenses and gets you some sweet perks as a thank you. Check it out at patreon.com/popculty. A huge shout-out to our sustaining patrons - Suzy, Mary, and Alexandra. Thank you all so much for your continued support. This episode was written, produced, and edited by yours truly, SJ Palm. Thanks for tuning in, and please take care of yourselves - There's a lot of shit going down right now. This is Popculty, reminding you that self-care means watching that life-giving kiss on a loop, and pretending the last few minutes of Killing Eve never happened. Until next time - support women directors, stay critical, and demand representation. [outro music concludes]

Queer Reader #4: 36:41

[beep] Killing Eve having Villanelle and Eve deliver the most passionate kiss of-- oops, let me take it again.[beep] Killing Eve having Villanelle and Eve delivered the Sorry. most passionate kiss in all of television history after five years of sexual tension, and then saying their relationship can be interrup-- [sigh]"Interrupted," oh my gosh.

Queer Reader #2: 37:18

[beep] Killing Eve season four is like your homophobic aunt rewrote the last two paragraphs of your gay romance novel. [beep] Killing Eve says, "You better stop hanging out with that butch girl, or everyone will think you're a lesbian." Byeeee![beep]