SERIES REVIEW: HAWKEYE

 

SERIES REVIEW:  HAWKEYE  

It's been awhile since I've blogged....taking a break to collect myself, and being able to find a way to put words to page in a way that I wanted.  So, while I just finished my movie review of Marvel's Eternals, it was also around this time we had yet another fabulous MCU TV show in the form of Hawkeye. Out of all the other Avengers, we never really got a chance to tell Clint Barton's story post Endgame.   This six episode arc was nothing short of a wild romp, with some great action, a fast-paced story, and introduced us to the newest members of the MCU:  Kate Bishop and Maya Lopez, who are known in the comics as the new Hawkeye and Echo.  Plus, we got some other interesting characters, as well as a reintroduction of a fabulous old-school Marvel villain in The Kingpin, as we see what HE has been up to since the events of Season 3 of Daredevil.  So, it's about time we got to see Clint's story, and see how he and Kate Bishop meet...and the new villains on the landscape...as well as an appearance from Yelena Belova...who's got some issues with Clint Barton.  

This series begins with us taking a peek back at 2012, when The Avengers battled the Chitauri, and little Kate Bishop, who'd been at home, had her family penthouse struck by the aliens in the attack, killing her father.  She watched as Hawkeye was on a roof across the way, fighting the aliens.  She's rescued by her mother Eleanor, and they get out of the path of danger.  Her father is later buired, and Eleanor raises her daughter on her own.  Years later, a grown up Kate Bishop is busted after using her bow and arrow on a dare to hit a church tower, causing it to collapse.  She attends a gala with her mother, where she meets Armand and Jack Deuquesne, and finds out she's engaged to Jack.  Across town at this time, Clint Barton is attending a Broadway production of Rogers: The Musical with his kids, and is getting flashbacks of his past battles with The Avengers.  He bails on the performance, and later goes to dinner with his kids.  He's looking forward to spending time with his family, as his wife Laura is back home until they get there.  

At the charity auction, Kate noses around, and finds out there's a secret auction going on that Jack and Armand are attending, where some special items are being sold---such as Barton's Ronin suit and sword.  She senses something is wrong, when the auction is disrupted by a group calling themselves the Tracksuit Mafia.  They're trying to obtain a watch amongst the other items.  Kate disguises herself in the Ronin suit, and attempts to stop the Mafia, and ends up rescuing a one-eyed stray dog she later names "Lucky the Pizza Dog".  She makes her way to her apartment, and drops him off there, while she goes to track Armand down.  But when she does find him, he's been murdered, and the Tracksuit Mafia tries to capture her, only to be rescued by Barton himself, who can't believe she has his Ronin suit. 

We see that Clint's past has come back to haunt him, and wants to get the Ronin suit back from Kate, so he can dispose of it, and put that part of his past to bed.  He sends his kids back home to their farm, and tells them he'll be home in time for Christmas.  Turns out, when he goes to get the suit with Kate, they're tracked by the Mafia, as they set her apartment on fire.  Clint and her escape, but the Ronin suit is left behind.  When Clint goes to retrieve it, it's been taken.  He finds out that it was taken by a man named Grills, who is part of a LARPing group.  He gets the suit back, and allows himself to be captured by the Tracksuit Mafia.  Meanwhile, Kate tries to expose Jack as not being who he says he is by fencing him, but it's all for naught.  When she tries to contact Clint, he's preoccupied.  And as the Mafia tries to interrogate him about Kate Bishop, she files through the roof and crashes the party.  

It's there that they meet Maya Lopez...a deaf female assassin with an artificial leg who goes by the name of Echo, who interrogates Barton about the Ronin, who had killed her father years ago.  Barton says that Ronin was killed by the Black Widow (Natasha effectively ended Clint's run as Ronin when she found him during Endgame).  Clint gets free, and a fight breaks out, in which Maya breaks his hearing aid (Clint's long-term exposure to massive blasts, and explosions during his time with the Avengers, has caused some serious hearing loss), and he and Kate escape, managing to evade Echo and the Tracksuit Mafia.  Maya's Lieutenant - Kazi - warns her that any more of this kind of action will NOT make her uncle happy.  They head back to Eleanor's, so that they can hack into Eleanor's security company website to get more info on Armand and Jack Duquesne, only for Jack to catch Clint snooping around with his own Ronin sword.

Eleanor arrives, and Clint says that he's just been conducting an investigation, and Kate offered to help, but Eleanor knows he's an Avenger, and doesn't want Kate involved.  Clint is okay with that and leaves, and Eleanor makes a call after that.  Clint managed to get his Ronin sword back, but contacts his wife Laura, and she helps him find out that Duquesne is the CEO of Sloan Limited, which is a shell company that's laundering money for the Tracksuit Mafia.  Kate figures out Clint was Ronin, and also helps him retrieve his trick arrows with the help of the LARPers.  Clint manages to meet up with Kazi, to ask Maya to stop her vendetta against Ronin.  Clint also informs Laura about the watch, and he and Kate go to retrieve it, only for it to set off an alarm, as it's Maya's apartment.  Maya shows up, and there's a fight that breaks out between her, Clint, and Kate.  Just then, a mysterious woman shows up to join the fight, and is trying to take out Clint.  Maya is injured by Kate and bails, while the mystery attacker is revealed to be Yelena Belova - Natasha Romanoff's sister.  Yelena takes off, and Clint has now figured out that this has gotten WAY more serious, and tells Kate to go home before she gets killed.  He'll take care of this mess.  

Kate heads home, and feels miserable about Clint telling her to leave, and she mopes at home.  Meanwhile, we take a step back to 2018, where Yelena and another Widow locate yet another of their old team named Ana, and try to get her to take the antidote to the programming done to them.  Ana is fine, and they talk for a bit.  Yelena goes to the bathroom, but she's Blipped.  She comes out, and she discovers that it's 5 years later.  She says she needs to find Natasha to let her know she's okay. Kate reveals to Eleanor about Duquense's company is a dummy corp for the Tracksuit Mafia, and Eleanor has him arrested. Kate goes back to her apartment, where Yelena is waiting.  She's looking for Clint, and Kate has no idea where he's at.  She was hired by someone to kill him.  She tries to defend Clint to Yelena, but Yelena has no interest in hearing it, as she feels Barton is responsible for Natasha's death.  She warns Kate that she'll kill her if she gets in her way.  Clint visits the site where the battle of New York happened, and apologizes to Nat about what he's going to do.  He suits up as Ronin and confronts Maya again, saying that if she comes after him or his family, he'll kill her.  He then tells her that he was tipped off the night her father died, and that her boss wanted her father killed.  She doesn't believe him, and goes to attack, but Kate saves him.  They head to Grills to help Clint recover.  Meanwhile, Yelena follows Eleanor, who's entering a building, and Yelena texts Kate, letting her know that it was her mother that hired her to kill Clint.  She also shows a video to her of who she's meeting with.  When Kate shows the video to Clint, he reveals to her that the man her mother is meeting with is the guy they've been trying to ward off this whole time:  The Kingpin of Crime. 

We soon find out in Eleanor's meeting with Wilson Fisk, that her late husband owed the Kingpin a considerable amount of money, and she's paid it back tenfold.  She also framed Jack Duquesne for the murder of Armand, when it was she herself that killed him.  But since Kate is putting the pieces together, she feels it's time to bail on the partnership in order to save her daughter, but the Kingpin isn't liking what he's hearing.  Eleanor says she's got enough evidence to put him away, and walks out.  Fisk is pissed off and orders Kazi to kill her and Barton.  Meanwhile, Kate says Clint should go home, and spend Christmas with his family.  Clint refuses, and says that Kate is his partner, and he's in this until the end.  So, they go about making more trick arrows for the mission ahead.  Meanwhile, Maya----who's had some questions since Clint told her that her father was ordered to be killed by her boss----had questioned Kazi about why HE wasn't at that meeting the night her father died, and he lied to her about it.  She goes to meet with her uncle---The Kingpin---to say she's giving up going after Ronin, and that she needs some time off to clear her head.  Fisk is suspicious, and tells Kazi that she needs to go as well, since she's turned on them.  At Eleanor's holiday party, Clint and Kate enlist the LARPers to help them saving Kate's mom, but Kazi starts shooting up the place from afar, as he tries to kill Eleanor Bishop, as well as Clint.  As people scatter, and Clint tries to divert attention away from the party, Yelena follows behind.  Kate confronts her mother about her involvement with the Kingpin, and says that she's the reason this mess is all because of her, and to stay out of the way.  

Clint battles members of the Tracksuit Mafia until he bumps into Kazi.  Meanwhile, Kate runs into Yelena, and tries to delay her from killing Clint.  They fight a little bit, and Yelena takes off out the window, and tries to shoot Barton, but Kate warns him.  She dives out the window as well, only to be met by more Tracksuit goons.  She fights some off until Jack comes to her rescue.  The LARPers jump in to help out, and she orders them to get Jack and everyone else to safety.  Barton takes down Kazi, and dives out the window, only to land in the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center.  Kate brings the tree down to get him out of the tree.  More Tracksuits arrive, and Kate joins the battle, as she and Clint start taking down the massive amount of Mafia coming at them.  Once having taken most of them down, Kate goes to look for her mother, as Clint is looking to stop the rest of the Mafia, only to run into Kazi again.  But before they have another round, Yelena shows up to take Barton down.  Kate finds Eleanor, as her mother is about to be killed by the Kingpin.  Kate does what she can to fight him, but takes some punishment in the process, but somehow manages to activate some of her broken arrows to blast Fisk, and knock him out.  This allows her to save her mom, but she ends up having Eleanor arrested for the killing of Armand Duquesne.  While Yelena is beating up Clint, wanting answers to Natasha's death, Maya shows up to face Kazi, whom she wants to give up working for the Kingpin.  Kazi says that this WASN'T supposed to be her life, but it's his, and there's no running away from it.  They fight, and Maya ends up killing him.  But before he dies, he tells her to run, as the Kingpin will be hunting her.  

Clint uses Natasha and Yelena's secret whistle to stop Yelena beating him.  She wonders how he knows that, and Clint says to Yelena that he and Nat talked about her all the time.  He tells her that Natasha loved her, and saved the universe, because she fought him for the right to die, and that she was better than he was.  Yelena feels she could've stopped Nat, but Clint said there was nothing that could've stopped Natasha from making the choice she made...and they have to live with that.  Yelena helps him up, and they make their peace, and she leaves.  The Kingpin manages to escape, only to run into Maya, who knows it was HIM that ordered the death of her father.  As he tries to reason with her, we hear gunshots, but do not see whether or not the Kingpin dies.

Barton makes it home for Christmas, and brings Kate and Lucky along.  As Laura welcomes Kate to their home, she joins the rest of the Barton kids for Christmas.  Clint says he found the watch at a black market auction in New York.  It turns out that Laura was once a SHIELD agent, and Clint tells her to keep a better eye on her stuff.  He then takes Kate outside, and they burn the Ronin suit, while they discuss a new code name for Kate---which Clint suggests should be Hawkeye...as the title card comes up. 

This show had a GREAT "Die Hard" kind of feel to it, due to the holiday season, but for the sheer improvisation that both Clint AND Kate displayed during this 6 episode arc.  We also got introduced to Kate's mother Eleanor, who seemed sketchy from the beginning, and we found out why as the show progressed.  It was AWESOME to finally bring the Kingpin into the regular MCU, and Vincent Dinofrio was SUPERB in his portrayal of the Kingpin of Crime yet again.  The Tracksuit Mafia was amusing and annoying all at once.  I hope we get to see more of Grills and the LARPers, as they're a nice welcomed addition, and that they get to work with Kate Bishop more.  Jack Duquesne was also a nice welcome addition, as we thought he was a complete douchebag at the beginning, only to see the swordsman prove his worth by helping out Kate in the final episode.  I hope we get more of Jack as well.  He grew on me.

The introduction of Maya, hearing HER story, and seeing how she becomes a solo act from Fisk was a great story as well, and we'll learn more once HER series starts.  I'd NEVER heard of Alaqua Cox before, but she is such a presence, and I welcome more of Echo in the future....I dig her character, and want MORE.  I don't know if they'll be a 2nd season of Hawkeye, but if there IS....I'd LOVE to see her interact with Kate more.  That would be an interesting relationship to explore.  

The big story for me was Clint.  Out of everyone from the original Avengers...they all had their stories told (well....except the Hulk, but hopefully we'll get more from him soon when his cousin's series picks up), Clint was the only one with unfinished business.  To finally have his story told, to finish his story, and allow him to pass the mantle onto Kate Bishop---their relationship was funny, yet they showed they worked extremely well together.   When he asked Kate why she's doing this, and to hear her response...I think it sank into Clint that she's the real deal, and she's the perfect choice to take up the Hawkeye mantle.  We get to see Clint put his past as Ronin to rest, and to also confront Yelena, and explain to her what happened with her sister, and that it wasn't what Yelena had thought.  This allowed Yelena to finally put to rest her issues with Natasha as well, and make peace with Clint.  To find out that Laura Barton was once an agent of SHIELD...Agent 19 to be exact...wasn't so much an eye opener, as she's ALWAYS been understanding of Clint and his role as Hawkeye.  Now we know MORE....that she'd BEEN through that...as a Mockingbird.  Probably the original Mockingbird before Bobbi Morse took over the role.  Hard to say on that, but we got more insight into Laura Barton.  

The absolute BEST part of this show?  The developing relationship between Kate and Yelena.  Their interaction was just absolutely PRICELESS.  Florence Pugh and Hailee Steinfeld have such TREMENDOUS chemistry on screen, it just seemed so fluid and natural.  I SOOOOOO wanna see more of THOSE two on camera together.  Yelena and Kate play off each other so well, and I really hope we get to see these two become the best of friends...just so we can keep the friendship of Hawkeye and Black Widow going...with new people inheriting those roles.  I can NEVER get enough of them on screen, and I KNOW they'd be best friends down the road---driving each other crazy.

Overall, this show kicked ass on every level, and I can't wait for more.  If this was it for Clint, I'm satisfied, and I'm ready for Kate Bishop to take off, and see what adventures SHE will have.  I have a feeling she'll continue to be an integral part of this new MCU Phase 4 going forward.  I wanna see how she interacts with Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Moon Knight, and anyone else as we see Kevin Fiege and Marvel Studios build up the next big threat.  We're seeing the next crop of heroes come to the forefront, and I can't wait.  And I HOPE Kate Bishop is a huge part of it. What did YOU all think of this show?  Subscribe and drop me a line below.

Until next time....