New Killing Eve head writer drops 20 key hints about the final season

The penultimate season of Killing Eve ended almost two years ago with Eve and Villanelle on a London bridge, walking away from each other for good.

The fourth and final season of BBC America's border-crossing spy thriller and seductive cautionary tale of co-dependence will find our psychopathic assassin and unfettered intelligence agent on drastically different paths yet careening toward collision once again. Eve (Sandra Oh) is fully embracing her independent revenge mission that involves the number "Twelve," while Villanelle (Jodie Comer) is seeking an unorthodox path toward reinvention. "The central question of season 4 is: Can these women change? And if so, what is the nature of their change?" sums up Killing Eve executive producer and new head writer Laura Neal. "We've asked that pretty much for every character, and that's the jumping-off point. Were these people born or were they made? And if they were made, is there a way back for them?"

What else awaits Eve and Villanelle in this concluding season, which kicks off Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. ET/PT? When the blood stops dripping and the credits roll on the series finale, will one, both, or neither be left standing? How many wigs, aliases, and international locales will this season offer up? EW asked Neal to share some key intel on all the kills and thrills to come.

1. Villanelle will kneel before a power higher than the Twelve, dedicating herself to the church and seeking eternal (or at least temporary) salvation."Villanelle is determined to become a better person," says Neal, "and the way I see it, her path to righteousness allows herself to see herself in a way that she — and we — never expected." This narcissistic killer may be trying to turn over a new leaf, but the new version of Villanelle doesn't fall far from the tree. "Of course Villanelle is going to win Parishioner of the Week Award if she invents Parishioner of the Week Award," quips Neal. "That sums up Villanelle's approach to competition in general, but also to religion. She excels."

2. Brace thyself for one of the show's most surreal sequences during Villanelle's religious awakening. "What's exciting to me about Villanelle being in an incredibly febrile environment and being steeped in the iconography of the church," teases Neal, "is that it's just a matter of time before she inserts herself into that iconography."

3. While Villanelle is trying to act less like Villanelle, Eve is starting to radiate Villanelle energy while exploring herself, evidenced in part by the wig you saw in these first-look photos. "Eve express[es] the elements of Villanelle that always were inside of her," says Neal. "Seeing Villanelle's effect on Eve outwardly felt really thrilling to me. And you can expect a few more interesting and exciting Eve costumes and outfits as we go through this series. That's not the only wig for Eve."

4. Eve is as off-books and off-the-cuff as we've seen her as she aims to locate and sever the head of the serpent that is The Twelve. "What's exciting about Eve is that she is cut loose," says Neal. "She is done with doing the good thing, and she's done with doing the right thing. Her sole focus now is serving her own desires, no matter how twisted."

5. On said mission, Eve partners up Yusuf (Robert Gilbert), a charming operative who more than condones her dark energy and curiosity. "He's been there, he's done that, he's come out of the other side," says Neal. "He's enabling that side of Eve in a way that we haven't seen in any of Eve's colleagues or partners before."

6. In addition to the church, Villanelle also will try to find religion via therapy. "I would call it the most terrifying therapy session ever for a therapist," sums up Neal. "She doesn't request therapy in a very, um, subtle way. She demands it in an extremely aggressive threatening way. And then the idea of Villanelle being like, "Fix me!," feels like such a monumental task that no human would be up to it."

7. Villanelle will go toe to tail with a formidable adversary named Lucifer. "Villanelle literally takes on Lucifer in episode 1," says Neal. "In terms of a cosmic battle, you're not going to get any bigger than that."

8. Eve and Villanelle may not be destined to wind up together, but viewers like them best when they're together in the same room. Season 4 reunites them much earlier than previous seasons did, but the dynamics have metamorphosed. "It's electric when those two characters are in a room together, and this being the final season, we wanted to have our cake and eat it," says Neal. "We're aware that in order for those scenes to be electric, that has to be a bit of distance between them. But we wanted to get right in there for the very first episode and have them come back together — partly to do something different, partly to say, 'This is a change in the cat-mouse game.' They know where they are, they can find each other. But actually what we're talking about here is that they're trying to set emotional distance between themselves."

9. Whether Eve will solve the enigma that is Villanelle remains unknown, but "It feels like Eve has got a new understanding of Villanelle's power over her," says Neal. "She's able now to recognize that and to understand it and say, 'Okay, I know you are going to come for me. But I have this very important thing to do. So if you can just give me some time to do that, then you can come for me.'"

10. You will see Eve's former boss in paradise — and out of her element. Season 4 opens with Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) working as a cultural attache in Mallorca, which does not suit her at all. "We find her kind of out to pasture," reports Neal. "She's been deemed too much of a risk, too much of a liability by MI6, and they have given her a cushy job in the sunshine. In repayment for that, they're expecting her not to make any trouble. And, of course, not making trouble is not in Carolyn's nature, so she's immediately annoying everyone back there. She needs to be in the center of the action, she needs to be five steps ahead of everybody else, and she can't stand it when she's not."

11. Like the audience and Eve, Carolyn is unsatisfied with the flimsy explanation offered by Villanelle's elusive former handler, Konstantin (Kim Bodnia), as to how Carolyn's son, Kenny (Sean Delaney), met his death. And the politics of intelligence leads to strange, dangerous bedfellows. "Her previous moral code is thrown up in the air," says Neal. "She aligns herself with people that were previously enemies." Oh, and in potentially related news? "Carolyn spends more time than we've ever seen before with Villanelle."

12. Like Carolyn, Konstantin is living the good life. But unlike Carolyn, he's enjoying his life, back in Russia. "We love to the idea of giving Konstantin a bit of luxury," says Neal. "We find him finally with an ounce of happiness and with an ounce of true status. And I enjoy watching him in that place, knowing that it's about to be ripped out from under his feet."

13. The man with nine lives (and more than nine lives) will question how he has led them. "We were curious to see what would happen if Konstantin started examining his own life and his own behavior and his choices — and what that would lead him to be wanting in this season," teases Neal. Bonus Konstantin clue: "If you've ever wanted to see him wet, then you're in luck."

14. Twelve assassin Hélène (Camille Cottin) plays a more prominent role in the final season, as well as in Eve's life. "She allows us to explore Eve's obsession with dangerous women through another dangerous woman," says Neal. "And what's exciting is that Eve is meeting this dangerous woman [as] a very different Eve to the Eve that she was when she met Villanelle. So what does it mean to Eve now to interact with somebody like Hélène, having been through what she's been through with Villanelle, having doled out chaos, having chaos thrust upon her? How has that changed how she reacts to this kind of woman?"

15. Hélène and Eve will find themselves shooting for the same enemy but for different reasons, and they generate unexpected sparks in the process. "Their relationship's pretty hot in episode 2 — like, literally hot with the stove," says Neal. "But it only heats up."

16. Not to get too morbid, but death looms over season 4 in unexpected ways. Meet Pam (Anjana Vasan), a seemingly timid mortician who should not be underestimated as she undergoes assassin training from Hélène. "We loved the idea of seeing an origin story for an assassin," says Neal. "We also loved the idea of somebody who is much more of an underdog than Villanelle. Here is somebody who has been used and abused and oppressed her whole life, and is a kind of unlikely assassin. We wanted to put someone in the show who is used to death, but who isn't necessarily a psychopath, and see whether they could become a prototype Villanelle. Does it take more than an affinity for death to become somebody like Villanelle?"

17. Speaking of new killing machines.... "We have an extremely fierce additional assassin (Marie-Sophie Ferdane) who we meet carrying an enormous sheep," says Neal.

18. Let us also speak of old killing machines: Over the years, Villanelle has attracted the attention of the authorities — and viewers — through her colorful kills (see: poison needle to eye, killer perfume to nose). Neal hints that season 4 contains a few to remember: "For anyone who's wanted to see Villanelle brandish a humongous rock, they're in luck."

19. If Villanelle will rock you to death, Eve will rock you.... to sleep? We're not quite sure what to make of this hint from Neal: "There's a great scene with Eve in a sleeping bag."

20. The finale is only eight episodes away, and while Neal is reticent to spill any details just yet, she will share an important thematic word: "I felt extremely emotional writing that episode and I hope that people will feel the same emotions watching it as I did writing it. And what felt really important for the finale was to instill a feeling of glory. That felt like a key word. We threw it around a lot when talking about the final episode. The final episode could be a hundred different things, but it had to be glorious."

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Related links:

• Sandra Oh, Jodie Comer preview final season of Killing Eve
• See first photos of Killing Eve final season
• Villanelle finds God and Eve in Killing Eve's final season trailer
• Killing Eve producer answers burning questions about the season 3 finale