Hawkeye has always been the odd man out of the Avengers and although there have been attempts to make him a more vital part of the team, most notably in Age of Ultron where Hawkeye was positioned as the every-man plopped down admits superhumans and Gods, none of these attempts were ever really that successful. There is only so much you can do with a bow and arrow going up against Universe-ending threats like Thanos. But the Hawkeye series brings the archer back down to street level where his character makes much more sense. The only problem is that even in his own show, Hawkeye is playing second banana to the newest member of the MCU, Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop.
Hawkeye is clearly working off the 80s buddy cop formula. Shane Black’s influence can be felt all over the show, and not just because it’s set during Christmas. Kate is the spunky young upstart and Clint is the grizzled old veteran that’s getting too old for this shit- ala Lethal Weapon. There’s a reason why so many people go back to this troupe over and over again, it works and it works here. Steinfeld and Renner have great interplay and strong chemistry, although Hailee Steinfeld is so charming that she can have great chemistry with just about anyone.
All that being said, Hawkeye is very much a Kate Bishop origin story where Clint Barton plays a supporting role. There isn’t anything particularly wrong with that, Jeremy Renner is getting up there in age and I can’t imagine he wants to be slinging arrows for the rest of his career. Plus, this is a great way to introduce some fresh blood to the MCU and set up the groundwork for a young Avengers arch at some point down the line.
The first episode starts on the day of “The Incident, ” also known as the Battle of New York. Kate Bishop is a young girl at the time, presumably around 5 years old- MCU math has become incredibly difficult following the 5 year time jump in Endgame. The attack spills into Kate’s family home, a beautiful two floor apartment in the middle of Manhattan signaling that her family is filthy rich. Her father is killed during the attack but she sees Hawkeye going up against the alien invaders giving her the inspiration to take up archery and martial arts. Makes you wonder though- what would have happened if she had seen Captain America, would she have joined the army? What about Iron Man, would she have gotten really into robotics? Hulk? Gamma Radiation? It’s lucky for her that she did see Hawkeye because his gimmick is a lot easier to imitate.
This opening is fairly standard superhero origin stuff, a traumatic event, the death of a mentor/parent, a call to action, there’s nothing wrong with it and it’s mercifully short. The opening sequence following the flashback shows us how Kate has progressed in her training becoming a skilled fighter and one of the best archers in the world.
Following an incident at college involving a clocktower, Kate comes back home to New York to visit with her mom played by Vera Farmiga. Farmiga is a great actress but there is something about her performance that just seems off. And I don’t just mean that she looks shady, she definitely looks shady and is caught up in some criminal activity for sure, but it feels like Farmiga is really phoning it in here. She feels very distant in every scene she’s in; like she’s constantly trying to figure out what she’s actually doing here. And in fact, Renner has a bit of that same look in a few of his scenes, especially the ones with his kids.
Speaking of Hawkeye’s kids, he takes them to go see Rogers: The Musical based on Captain America and the Avengers. This is a funny bit, we see signage for the musical all over New York and if I’m being perfectly honest the song that’s featured in the first episode is pretty catchy. Clint and his family slip out early and go to dinner. This dinner scene is where I realized that the three children playing Clint’s kids are some of the worst child actors I have ever seen. All the scenes with them are incredibly awkward, they have to put in a bunch of ADR to make these scenes work. Renner has a quick and odd delivery so maybe the kids were trying to mimic that to show they are really related. I don’t know what it was but I didn’t like it.
Back to Kate’s story. She is dragged to a charity auction by her mother and her new fiancé Jacques Duquesne, the Swordsman in the comics. At the auction, she has a chance meeting with Jacques’ sketchy uncle Armand Duquesne III. Kate follows the two to the basement of the event where there is a secret black market auction happening selling off the items of a mysterious vigilante known as the Ronin. For those of you who haven’t seen Infinity War in a while, Ronin was the alias that Clint Barton used during the snap years to go around brutally murdering members of orgized crime synidactes all over the world. After the auction is broken up by some Russian goons who are part of the “Tracksuit Mafia,” Kate gets hold of the Ronin suit and puts it on.
We have to take a minute and talk about the galactic level of contrivances that are going on in this show. Kate’s childhood apartment is located right next to the attack where Clint is fighting. She’s returning to New York at the exact same time as Clint and his family are visiting- I can forgive this one since it is Christmas. She stumbles on a black market auction where they are selling the Ronin suit that Clint wore years ago that they mention was recovered from the rubble of the Avengers compound upstate. That’s a bit much, even by my standards but I digress.
Clint recognizes his old Ronin suit on the news and tracks Kate down after she discovers that Armand has been murdered. At the start of the second episode the Tracksuit Mafia track Kate down to her apartment and they burn it down with Molotov cocktails. Kate and Clint make their way to a safehouse, but Clint has to go back to get the Ronin suit. Here is another contrivance that doesn’t really make any sense. Clint explains that the Ronin suit is dangerous because he made a lot of enemies while wearing it and if someone else wears it those enemies will come after them. I think that that is pretty shaky reasoning and if that is the case then why doesn’t he destroy the suit immediately? We go through a drawn out, and at moments humorous, LARPing (live action role playing) scene where Clint has to find the person who stole the suit from the burnt remains of Kate’s apartment.
While Clint is off LARPing, Kate has to go into work for her mom at the family security agency. This is another very convenient thing, Kate has an app on her phone from Bishop Securities that can seemingly track anyone, anywhere, at any time. She uses it a handful of times and it makes no sense. Kate is kind of like Batman but instead of Alfred she has a one eyed dog. Kate’s dad seemed like he was into some kind of deep cover stuff so I wouldn’t be surprised if the conspiracy around Armand’s death involves him as well.
Later on in the episode, Kate and her step-father-to- be Jacques have a friendly fencing competition. This is a pretty obvious hint that Jacques will become the Swordsman at some point this season. Oh also, he managed to snatch the Ronin’s retractable sword in the first episode so that will surely come into play at some point. I actually really like the actor playing Jacques, Tony Dalton. He seems like the only person who is having an absolute blast being on this show.
The second episode ends with Clint intentionally getting captured by the Tracksuit Mafia in order to obtain information. His wife, Linda Cardillini, calls that one of Nat’s old tricks harkening back to the first scene of Black Widow in the Avengers movie where she is holding an interrogation while being captured. Black Widow’s presence is felt throughout the show, seeing her in the musical is what initially prompts Clint to get up and leave and his daughter makes a note of it later on. This will probably be the centre of Clint’s character arch throughout the season, coming to grips with the fact that she’s gone and forgiving himself for letting her go. I have no doubt in my mind that at some point we will see Florence Pugh in this series seeking revenge against Hawkeye.
The episode ends with Clint and Kate being captured by the Tracksuit Mafia and we get our first glimpse at a new character. I am going to be honest, I had no idea who this person was so I had to look her up. Apparently this is Echo, played by Maya Lopez, who is deaf and can perfectly emulate anyones movements and fighting styles. She will be getting her own series in 2022 so expect this to be something of a backdoor pilot for that. In Hawkeye, she seems to be the leader of the Tracksuit Mafia so we’ll see what role she will play.
Overall, Hawkeye feels good, but I don’t know if it actually is good. This show feels like the MCU, I don’t know if it’s having one of the original six back in the spotlight or being back in New York but there is a familiarity with this show that feels good. But when you break it down into its elements, it doesn’t seem very necessary. Sure, this show’s main purpose is to introduce Kate Bishop and it’s done that already, I don’t really know what they are going to do for the next 4 episodes. There will be a lot of quippy one liners and a tender moment or two but what does this show really add to the MCU? It sort of feels like an executive just for kicks said hey, you know what would be funny if we gave Hawkeye his own show, and then they actually had to make it and ran into the problem that Hawkeye is not interesting enough to carry his own show. But it’ll probably be a fun, easy watch and the Christmas setting is nice, so I’m giving it a chance.
