What began in 2018 as a smart, mischievous, funny and stylishly violent Phoebe Waller Bridge adaptation of Luke Jennings' 'Villanelle' novels, soon grew stale in the next series - even with Emerald Fennell taking on the role of showrunner.
When Susanne Heathcote took over the reins for series three, the thrill had gone.
Each series just saw the bar getting lower.
As a result, the hype that should have accompanied Jodie Comer's Villanelle and Sandra Oh's Eve's final outing seemed lacklustre.
With another BBC franchise 'Peaky Blinders' also bowing out this month with a huge fanfare, there just didn't seem to be the same noise.
Rather than a trumpet blast, it sounded more like a kazoo.
Series four finds Laura Neale leading a team of writers who include Kayleigh Llewellyn, Georgia Lester and Sarah Simmonds.
The challenge facing them is huge.
Can they bring the sparkle back to a show that lost its magic in the second series? Can they somehow manage to go out on a high?
The last series of 'Killing Eve' begins in a typically gimmicky fashion, with Villanelle singing Primal Scream's 'Moving On Up' in a church - having apparently tired of her violent life.
Living with Steve Oram's Vicar Phil and his daughter, Zindzi Hudson's May, she has found God and is planning her baptism.
Still obsessed with Eve, she wants her former target to attend her baptism.
Now no longer working for the British intelligence services, Eve is employed by a private security firm with Robert Gilbert's Yusuf.
However she is still obsessed with the shadowy group The Twelve who were responsible for unleashing Villanelle and other assassins on many people during the four series.
While she rebuffs Villanelle's efforts to kiss and make up, Eve heads to Russia where Kim Bodnia's old rogue Konstantin, Villanelle's mentor, is enjoying a new life as a pampered Mayor.
Shooting him in the hand, she extracts from him information about the whereabouts of Camille Cotton's Helene, Konstantin and Villanelle's former boss.
Helene is blooding in a promising, new assassin, Anjana Vassin's Pam and recalls Konstantin from his comfy job in Russia to the English seaside town of Margate to prepare her new protege for a life of psychotic violence.
Eve's old boss Carolyn Martens has also been given a comfy job since her demotion in MI6 and is now living the life of a cultural attaché in Havana.
However she also has an itch to scratch and is keen to find out who was responsible for the death of her son, Kenny.
Smarting that Eve seems unwilling to acknowledge she has changed, Villanelle struggles to live a good life.
And it isn't long before she and Eve are back on the path of murder and mayhem - a path that will see them reacquaint themselves with Carolyn, Konstantin and Helene.
That path also draws in Pam who is really struggling with whether she should pursue a life of murder.
With Eve, Villanelle and Carolyn determined to dismantle the operations of The Twelve and kill them, will they be able to resolve past tensions?
Will Helene and the Twelve thwart their plans?
Will Pam become the new Villanelle?
Will Eve and Villanelle be able to reconcile their romantic feelings?
Do the writers make us care?
Alas, no.
Series four of 'Killing Eve' is a bit like watching a beloved pet in the final throes of its life after a lengthy illness.
As it listlessly goes through the motions of existing, it just doesn't feel right watching it go on.
It was clear in series two that 'Killing Eve' wasn't in a good place.
The knowing winks and slick visuals couldn't hide the reality that it was a one trick pony.
And since then, the show has simply got worse and worse.
That's why it is a bit of a relief to see 'Killing Eve' being put out of its misery after four series.
Despite the best efforts of directors Stella Corradi, Anu Menon and Emily Aref, the show just wheezes along, slavishly following the old formula of hopping between glamorous and not so glamorous locations denoted in big pastel letters that fill the screen.
There are plenty of lashings of grisly, cartoonish violence and lots of hints of unfulfilled lesbian desires.
But what once seemed fresh, mischievous and gloriously unpredictable has become stale, dull and formulaic.
Comer, who propped up the venture for three seasons, turns in her weakest performance to date but that's because the screenplays are devoid of any thrills.
Instead she is reduced to pulling faces and eye rolling and appears as disenchanted as her character.
An episode where she plays a vision of Jesus who nags Villanelle doesn't just feel gimmicky, it feels like a low point for an incredibly talented actress.
Oh also goes through the motions, along with Bodnia and Shaw.
Adeel Akhtar returns briefly as Martin, Eve's psychiatrist friend and offers a rare bright spark in an underwhelming show.
Vassin and Gilbert also liven things up but the fact that these new peripheral characters perk up the show says an awful lot about just how spent the principal characters of 'Killing Eve' have become.
By the time 'Killing Eve' reaches its denouement near London's Tower Bridge, you are way, way past the point of caring for any of the series' characters.
One great opening season and three that get regressively boring is a pretty poor return.
No matter how hard Neale, her fellow writers and directors try, it is as flat as a five day old glass of Coke.
All the slick violence, eye rolling and hints of lipstick lesbianism cannot mask that fact that 'Killing Eve' quickly frittered away its initial promise.
It's time for great actors like Comer, Oh, Bosnia, Shaw and Akhtar to move on and bury 'Killing Eve' for good.
Deep down, they must know they should have done that two seasons ago.
(Season four of 'Killing Eve' aired on BBC1 from February 27-April 10, 2022)
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