While more lesbians have made it to our screens in the last decade than ever before, lesbian characters amounted to less than one per cent of television roles in a 2016 GLAAD survey. At the time, 30 sapphic characters had been killed off since the beginning of the year. In a 2016 VICE article, Killing Eve writer Kayleigh Llewellyn spoke about how she felt “the loss” of lesbian representation when these women died.
“As a writer I can see how losing characters such as Poussey in Orange is the New Black is a smart move story-wise – it throws up loads of conflict, which is great. But as a gay woman I feel the loss of those representations on screen…”
“…Perhaps ‘bury your gays’ has something to do with lesbianism still being seen as something that’s titillating; dispensable once they’ve served a purpose,” she continued, “and therefore not characters who we want to see outside of those confines: getting married, raising families…”
“…Televisions are these amazing Trojan horses sat in everyone’s lounge, beaming out stories and subliminally telling people that what they watch there is normal and acceptable. It’s incredibly important to make sure gay women are included in that.”
Llewellyn criticized the Bury Your Gays trope around the time Poussey from Orange is the New Black and Lexa from The 100 were killed off. It was a sensitive time. But then, in 2022, Killing Eve killed off an equally iconic lesbian character: Villanelle. Was Villanelle was “dispensable”? Had she “served a purpose,” and the team decided to deny her “getting married, raising families”?
Sure, Villanelle probably didn’t suit marriage and children. But she suited a happy ending. Llewellyn spoke about televisions as “Trojan horses…subliminally telling people what they watch there is normal and acceptable,” so wasn’t Villanelle’s death some kind of punishment for loving Eve? Keeping in mind that just before Villanelle was shot, the lovers finally caught their first breath of air since the first season.
Were Llewellyn’s comments hypocritical, did her thoughts change or was the show’s ending not in her power?
Llewellyn, who was an episodic writer in the series finale, braved criticism about killing off Villanelle. In an interview with METRO, she justified the ending by saying that there was supposed to be a season 5.
“Well, when I was hired, it originally wasn’t going to be the final season, there was going to be another one. That was a decision that was made during the process, so that was a big change.”
Part of why the show never reached season 5 was because of the pandemic.
“A job that would normally have been eight months became kind of two years,” Llewellyn said. “The world kept changing, and filming constraints changed vastly, as well.”
That doesn’t necessarily change Villanelle’s death — it might have happened at the end of season 5. As for wanting shock value, well, because Killing Eve is violence-heavy, a happy ending for the pair would have added light to the dark. It could have been more surprising, especially when you consider lesbians anticipating the Bury Your Gays trope.
