Killing Eve, season 4 episode 6, BBC review ★★★★★

No, we won’t reveal whether Villanelle is dead or not – though a quick Google search would tell you the answer. But Jodie Comer’s famous assassin was indeed shot by a comically sized black arrow in Margate last week. It’s the biggest shock of an unbalanced, rather vanilla final season that’s only recently found some momentum.

That expert bolt to the back reunites Eve (Sandra Oh) with Konstantin (Kim Bodnia), and introduces her to the resourceful wannabe killer Pam (Anjana Vasan). It’s a dream team, an Avengers-like assembly where the dialogue springs with the characters' funny love-hate chemistry. Why didn’t the series do this earlier?

Fiona Shaw as Carolyn. Photo: BBC

It's a slight shame that Carolyn (Fiona Shaw) is missing out, preoccupied with a personal vendetta against the Twelve – which, as was revealed last week, she was once a part of. She’s now cosying up to Lars the leader (Ingvar Sigurdsson), as well as the hostile Hélène (Camille Cottin) in the hope of answering that devastating and exhausting question: who killed Kenny?

Shaw gives another excellent performance here, thriving in Carolyn’s quiet conversations that have earth-shaking intentions underneath. The Carolyn Quip of the Week comes when faced with sexism after discussing assassins: ‘Anyone would think a vagina was an invisibility cloak.’

After realising that Carolyn was in the original Twelve, Eve holds a grudge – one that pushes her into some unreasonable, irresponsible directions. It’s not hard to understand her anger: the main people in her life keep disappointing her. Carolyn is like a final threshold to the inevitable frenzy. Even despite this, her actions turn unconvincingly stupid – it’s hard to know what the hell she’s thinking. It seems like a desperate if character-driven attempt by writer Kayleigh Llewellyn to facilitate The Big Thing At The End.

Pam’s murderous education continues, as Konstantin thinks it’s about time to promote his student from clothes to killing. Unbeknown to Pam, the target is Hélène’s former lover and Lars' estranged wife Fernanda (Monica Lopera). It was Fernanda who inadvertently spilled the beans about her missing husband to Eve in episode three. She’s working for a restaurant, shouting outside with a sign, while Pam wins her trust by handing out leaflets.

Vasan continues to be an adorable but lethal presence in Killing Eve. Pam’s objective is conscientiously strained by Fernanda’s upsetting niceness, it's so palpable. You sense that barely anybody has ever been nice to Pam, and it’s only now – during her morally dubious apprenticeship – that people are paying her attention. It's always exciting to see her strand of violent introversion play out, and this critic can’t wait to see what the writers have in store for her.

Killing Eve season 4 continues on Mondays from 6am on BBC iPlayer and on Saturdays at 9:15pm on BBC One.