Hawkeye celebrates “girls night!”
Florence Pugh steals the show as Yelena Belova takes center stage
TV Reviews Hawkeye
It’s no small feat to out-Hailee-Steinfeld Hailee Steinfeld on her own show. But Florence Pugh makes it look easy, as everyone’s favorite Baby Black Widow takes center stage this week. Everything that made Yelena Belova such a hit in the Black Widow movie is back and arguably better here; particularly her mix of cutthroat ruthlessness, sarcastic humor, and epicurean 20-something enthusiasm. Even her utterly ridiculous Russian accent somehow works, maybe because Pugh is so good at layering notes of real pain underneath Yelena’s excitable interior.
Not that it’s a competition of course. Steinfeld is also wonderful, and she’s specifically great with Pugh during an extended conversation where Kate and Yelena tentatively bond over mac and cheese. In fact, it’s largely the show’s women who take center stage in this penultimate episode, what with Maya continuing her obsession with Ronin and Eleanor revealing some complicated new sides of herself. It’s a choice that makes complete sense for an Avenger who’s always been defined first and foremost by the women in his life: His friendship with Natasha, his sweet partnership of equals with Laura, his mentorship of Wanda Maximoff. Even Clint’s relationship with his kids tends to be filtered first and foremost through his daughter. Clint is the kind of guy who gets along well with his male coworkers, but who only really seems to have female friends. And that provides a nice, if underplayed, energy to anchor this penultimate episode.
Though it features Clint dramatically re-donning his titular suit and ends with a major crossover villain reveal (good to see you again, Vincent D’Onofrio!), “Ronin” is a low-key character-driven affair that’s mostly focused on getting the pieces lined up for next week’s finale. There are places where this episode could have pushed its dramatics a little further. Kate and Clint’s split is resolved remarkably easily given how dramatically it was introduced last week, for instance. But this hour is a consistently entertaining watch, mostly thanks to Yelena.
“Ronin” fills us in on what she’s been up to since the 2016-set Black Widow movie, which ended with her setting off to free other mind-controlled victims of the Black Widow training program. Yelena spent two years working on that mission, seemingly keeping up with Nat along the way. But during one of Marvel’s characteristically unsettling Snap sequences, she was dusted while paying a housecall to an old friend. By the time Yelena returned five years later (but near instantaneously from her perspective), her sister was dead, and the world seemed content to thank The Avengers as a whole without singling out the woman who made one of the biggest sacrifice plays.
As a long time Black Widow fan, I found it deeply satisfying to watch Yelena provide a crucial rebuttal to Kate’s assertion that Clint saved the world. “No, my sister saved the world,” Yelena counters. “Natasha Romanoff saved the world.” For a cinematic universe that couldn’t even be bothered to give one of its founding Avengers a goddamn funeral, it’s nice to see Nat retroactively getting her due here. The same goes for that incredibly sweet scene where Clint speaks to his best friend’s memory before re-donning the Ronin suit.
On the other hand, I’m also worried that Hawkeye is conflating Natasha’s death with Clint’s time as the Ronin in a way that will make it easy for the show to handwave away the latter while only addressing the former. Yelena is right that Clint deserves to be held accountable for the horrible things he did during his Punisher-esque stint as a murderous vigilante, particularly in a world now eager to hail him as an unquestioned hero. She’s wrong, however, that Natasha’s death is his fault. And with only one episode left—not to mention that pointed pivot to focus on the informant who gave Clint the info he needed to kill Maya’s dad—I’m sensing the show isn’t actually all that interested in taking Clint to task in anything more than a surface-level way.
Which is… fine, I guess? In truth, I’ve never really been all that interested in the “should heroes kill??” question that dominates so much of superhero storytelling, mostly because it hinges on the idea that our non-lethal heroes never accidentally kill anyone during all their various goon battles. (Or that they only fight non-humanoid robots/monsters to skirt the issue altogether.) Still, considering how much Hawkeye chose to make Clint’s Ronin guilt central to this season, it would be nice if it didn’t just wind up sweeping it all under the rug in the end.
There’s some other potential weirdness here too. Even though Black Widow’s post-credits scene showed Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Contessa Valentina being the one to point a vengeful Yelena in Hawkeye’s direction, apparently it was Kate’s mom Eleanor who actually hired Yelena to take Clint out. (Maybe Eleanor was just using the Contessa as a broker?) That makes Yelena’s mission an odd mix of professional obligation and personal vengeance in a way that will hopefully get explored more in-depth next week. Still, at least it gives us Yelena dance-celebrating her first time in New York before noting it’s a business trip so her tourist time is limited, which is maybe my single favorite moment on Hawkeye to date.
It’s the little details that really make this episode sing, like the fact that Clint already knew Natasha had a sister called Yelena. (A real relief for my investment in their friendship!) Or that goofy scene where the Tracksuit Mafia goons discuss their favorite tracksuit-wearing pop culture icons. (Run-D.M.C., Olympian Tommie Smith, Tony Soprano, and The Royal Tenenbaums all make the cut). One of the most exciting moments in this whole episode (at least for deep-cut MCU fans) is just a quick shot of a blurry cellphone photo. With that, Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk a.k.a. Kingpin officially hops from the Netflix Defenders Daredevil universe to the MCU proper. And Marvel hopefully starts the process of reclaiming all of those great actors from that now shuttered realm.
Though I have my doubts about just how much resolution Hawkeye is going to be able to deliver in next week’s finale, the show’s smaller scale ambitions mean the pressure isn’t on in quite the same way it was for the season cappers of the previous Disney+ Marvel shows. In fact, these first five episodes of Hawkeye have proved to be a great test run for a series I’d happily watch for several more seasons. If Hawkeye can be an arena to reclaim some Marvel players while giving others a fun place to hang out between movies? Well, that wouldn’t be a bad Christmas treat at all.
Stray observations
- Seriously, what is Maya and Kazi’s deal?!? I haven’t been this confused since that Folgers Christmas commercial.
- Those heading to the multiplexes to see Spider-Man: No Way Home this weekend should take note of Yelena’s comment about wanting to see the “new and improved Statue of Liberty.”
- The season’s strangest dangling thread is that detective who called Kate to come in for questioning about her apartment fire. Why even introduce that subplot at all? My only hope is that it means we’re also getting the return of Royce Johnson’s Detective Brett Mahoney, one of my favorite Daredevil recurring players.
- After that weird Age Of Ultron interlude about Natasha being a monster for not having a uterus/not being able to have kids, I appreciated that this episode casually showed a former Black Widow happily adopting a child.
- Another nice touch: The realistic presentation of lip reading, where Maya is able to understand major words and phrases, but not necessarily track every detail of each sentence.
- I swear to god, if this series doesn’t end with Yelena and Kate taking a Sex And The City bus tour together…
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Yelena made my heart soar even more than I thought possible in this episode, to the degree that I am even sadder that she’s being wasted as a side player on a Clint Barton series. That Yelena/Kate scene was not just my favorite scene in this series, but it might be one of my favorite scenes in Marvel shows so far as there was just so many things happening there. Although Yelena’s reaction to both Kate thinking she was being sarcastic about wanting to see New York and to Kate saying it was good she didn’t kill Yelena were both just moments of sheer bliss here. It was so good that it didn’t even bother me how much of her storyline makes absolutely no sense at the moment.
With that written, Pugh really had to do some massive work in this episode as, for me, the show is going really hard off the rails at this point. There are a couple of reasons, but a massive one to me is Maya as I just can’t comprehend the show’s infatuation with her at this point as it is to the degree that she actually feels really boring for me. Seriously, this is a Hawkeye TV show that introduces us to Kate Bishop and apparently the showrunners lobbied to have Yelena on this show. Yet they’ve had four major fight scenes in this show so far and three of them have focused on cramming down our throats what a badass Maya is. At this point to the detriment of both Yelena and Kate, both whose storyline propably could have used some of those resources being used on Maya. And what makes things worse is that the show hasn’t even effectively established how Maya’s fighting ability works, just that she apparently can go against anyone just because.
As a sidenote that opening scene once Yelena returns from the snap amused the hell out of me. Just the almost casual nature the other woman greets Yelena after she walks out of the bathroom despite it being a monumental occasion as those snapped are coming back was something. It didn’t detract from anything, just made me chuckle once I put the timeline together.
I think it was more an attempt to keep everyone – the bewildered assassin, the startled young child and the confused husband – as calm as possible.
Yeah, that bothered me a little too. The way her friend was talking to her, it was like the Return had happened a while ago and they were used to it, and so now she was calmly explaining it to Yelena, when in fact it happened everywhere at once at the same time and she wouldn’t have any idea what the fuck had just happened.I suppose the second part of that scene could be several hours later, after they turn on the news/check the Internet and find out that it happened everywhere, but the lighting is exactly the same and it feels like it’s about five minutes later.
See the upcoming Marvel Studio show “Echo”It’s all in the service of building up a character average fans never heard of to launch a show that no one would have foreseen a few years ago.And maybe advance Kate/Yalena as the basis of a show at some point.
Two things. First, I knew that Echo/Maya was getting her own show. Second, that doesn’t address my criticism at all. Like in anyway. Unless the show’s full title is: ‘Hawkeye: Man Maya is the bestest’. The forced inclusion of Maya is still hurting the overall show for me.
It would hurt so much less if they just established wth she exactly does
True. Additionally if it felt like they were building her up as a heavy for Clint or Kate to overcome. If they established that Kingpin has this seemingly powered enforcer, then it would make sense for Clint/Kate/Yelena to seemingly have difficulties with her as at least it would be building for something.That’s, for me, one of the reasons why Bullseye was such a highlight on Daredevil as that was big physical threat. Now all the physical are seemingly… the good guys? Like what are they even overcoming in the final episode? A bunch of faceless goons?
Hawkeye still killed her father…not sure how Clint revealing himself makes it LESS likely she will go kill his family.
He was manipulated into it by Kingpin. The info he got to be there to kill them came from Fisk’s guy (apparently Kazi under Fisk’s orders). Sure, he probably would have killed them anyway if he’d gotten the info from some other source, but his speech to Maya was that he was just a loaded gun at the time. Fisk was the one that aimed him at her dad and pulled the trigger.
Maya’s story has definetely been underserved, mainly to keep the Kingpin reveal secret it appears. The basic story is the same, Kingpin killed her father, and then raised her but also used her as an enforcer and told her Daredevil killed her father. Obviously they switched Matt for Clint AND Clint did actually kill her father. Clint’s talk to her about both being weapons didn’t make much sense. One, because we haven’t seen Maya being Kingpin’s ruthless enforcer so they don’t have that in common. Two, because in the comics she was being manipulated into thinking Daredevil killed her father, when he didn’t. In this case, Clint did kill her father, so Kingpin isn’t lying. He just leaked info so that Clint, a sociopathic murder machine, would find him. I don’t see how Maya, even knowing Fisk gave away her father’s location to Clint, would in any way absolve Clint in her eyes after their little talk. He wasn’t working for Fisk. He wasn’t Fisk’s “weapon.” He was just murdering any organized crime he could find and got tipped off. The show is definetely struggling with how to present Clint’s five year long extrajudicial murderous rampage as something that could be in any way forgivable.
Completely. I think the reviewer may have put it this way too: hand-waving away all the murder could have worked, or for Echo actually incorporating Daredevil, or having her father be the one guy Clint spared (“I have a daughter!”). Putting a giant spotlight on Clint being the murderiest guy in all the MCU aside from Winter Soldier (and Punisher who hasn’t showed up yet) and THEN hand-waving it away is looking like it won’t work. I think I don’t see a way Echo gives up on killing Clint, but for Clint I think the only way out of this is for Ronin to become public, for it to become an actual national embarrassment (like they take his name off the plaques) and he leaves the Avengers.Also that other dude was too young to be Echo’s father’s second in command and good call out on that weird weird ad that I immediately remembered
The whole super-murdery-Clint-during-the-snap thing never made a whole lot of sense to begin with honestly. What was his motivation? Random criminals didn’t cause the Snap and his family disappearing. Why wouldn’t he have turned to Natasha, in the least, let alone the rest of the team? How was he not Natasha’s highest priority post-Snap for that matter? By the time Natasha determines to find Clint, Rhodey makes it clear that he’s been on a murderous rampage this whole time, that they were all apparently aware of.Bucky was brainwashed, and his guilt stemming from all the awful things he did while brainwashed is a major part of where they took the character. They’re doing the same thing with Clint, except he chose to be a straight-up murderer… because his family was gone… I guess? It doesn’t help that Bucky being an assassin, outside of his control, divided the Avengers through looking at some of those ethical considerations. Whereas in Endgame, everyone knew Clint went on a murderous rampage but were still, welcome back! It just hasn’t been handled well.
Well, for starters, there’s the Chekov’s gun of Jack’s swordplay, Kingpin’s confirmedly in play, and honestly, I’m not sure Maya’s convinced? Fisk is her uncle whom she’s been close with since she was a child, and Clint’s only got his word that he was behind the hit on the Tracksuits. I don’t read her confronting Kazi as necessarily meaning she’s picked a side yet (her being a total cipher helps).
I agree that it’s weird that they aren’t more direct in showing Maya’s abilities aside from when she took down the kid that was much bigger than her by watching his movements. I mean, she is a ridiculously good fighter, and maybe they think that one scene was enough to show why. They also just had a version of Taskmaster in BW, and it is a bit clumsy to introduce two characters with basically the same abilities, which maybe why they are glossing over it a bit. As to why Maya has gotten the screen time she has? It’s an MCU show, so for better or worse, it’s largely table setting. They are opening up the Daredevil/Hawkeye crossover storylines from the comics. Maya’s origin, now that Kingpin is confirmed, is basically the same as the comics, and she takes on the Ronin mantle for a while before she goes by Echo. She’s then predominantly in Daredevil and Kate Bishop adjacent stories. Yelena actually is too, but here character and origins in the comics have no relation to the MCU version. As to what the possible climax is going to be next week? Setting up Kingpin as a new Big Bad in the MCU (much like Loki did with Kang) and Kate coming to terms with mom being a bad guy. Oh, and both Clint and Kate are going to put on Chekhov’s Costumes and… likely take out a bunch of faceless goons.
Oh, I completely get why Maya gets the screen time she gets, I just feel it is currently to the point where it is actively hurting the story. If they were leaning more on her being Kingpin’s heavy and building up for this big confrontation in the final episode, then it would be easier to roll with it, but they did that Maya/Clint confrontation already here. Probably because the Clint/Yelena confrontation needs to happen in the next episode, but that is currently also hampered by Yelena’s brief screen time.
In essence, they are trying to do too many things in a six episode season and as a result a lot of stuff just feels off as a result.
I completely get why Maya gets the screen time she gets, I just feel it is currently to the point where it is actively hurting the story.I’m also trying very hard to find a reason why I should tune in for her solo show, but coming up blank. She’s the middle-rank member of a low-stake criminal organization who’s good at hand to hand combat, but not as good as Hawkeye (whose main skill set doesn’t even focus on close combat). And she’s deaf. That’s it. The whole thing about allegedly being able to copy other people’s fight styles (which I don’t even know how is relevant when they shoot at her) wasn’t even represented in the show. She used one generic martial art style in every combat scene.
I can’t disagree that it’s feeling a bit overstuffed at this point. They really would’ve been better served by choosing either having Maya or Yelena being a focus, not both. One of them could’ve showed up as a late stinger basically, and setup a future movie or show. I get that both conflicts stem from Clint’s past, and highlight his indiscretions and guilt, so they serve a narrative purpose in that regard, but it’s too much. Not to mention, Kate’s narrative is getting sidelined now too. The finale now has to deal with Kate finding out her mom is a bad guy and dealing with that, which could be an episode unto itself, as presumably there’s significant background as to how Eleanor ended up doing what she’s doing. I expect Kate’s father will factor into that reveal somehow. In addition, we have Yelena going after Clint and somehow resolving that, plus Jack is likely to pop up. Maya may turn up but we may have seen the last of her until her own show. Oh, and you know, friggin’ Kingpin! It’s a lot.Sidenote: they’ve overall mishandled Maya badly. It’s fantastic that they actually insisted on hiring a Native American Deaf women to play a Native American Deaf women from the comics. But then, neither her heritage, which is important to her in the comics, nor her amazing ability from the comics has played any role in her character. She’s supposed to be a nearly unbeatable hand to hand combatant and was Kingpin’s surrogate daughter and main enforcer. The show hasn’t set her up to be that, so when Clint is saying that they are both weapons being used by other people it doesn’t make much sense. The only thing we’ve seen from Maya is that she’s obsessed with Ronin. She works for Kingpin, sure, but seen any indication that she has blood on her hands too.
yep it went way too hard on the backstory for her before we had any reason to care. (an annoying trend in a lot of shows currently)They could have saved the “Ronin killed my family” reveal for a later episode that would have given it more dramatic heft.
I really don’t see how it’s forced, seeing that she’s literally the lieutenant of the gang Hawkeye has run afoul of. If it wasn’t her, it’d be another character to fill the same role. The fact she’s a victim of one of his past vigilante sprees just gives her more motivation as a character to pull at the thread of who Ronin is, rather than ‘just because’.
Also I don’t get how a “villain” being competent at fighting is faux-badassism and cramming anything down anyone’s throats? It’s not like she’s been facerolling everyone either – she retreated last episode and Hawkeye had her pretty much beat this episode.
she retreated last episode and Hawkeye had her pretty much beat this episode. and shot with an arrow. This time around, Clint had her cornered with his sword drawn, and she was able to disarm him and was poised to stab him when Kate shot the sword out of her hand. Like all MCU characters, she’s exactly as strong or as weak as the scene demands, but Maya, Clint and Yelena are basically all physically equal.
She retreated last episode after getting immobilized by the widow’s
Got to work up the “main” villain and then have that twist antagonist turn after all.
First, Ok… Wasn’t really saying you didn’t know, I have no idea what you know. I was pointing out that they have a show for her in the pipeline, so they have to force her in somewhere.Second, um, yeh, it kinda does, like totally address your criticism, or at least validates it. The only reason for the inclusion of Maya, is to build up a fringe character for an upcoming show. That it makes the show suffer is because of that fact. All the plot threads running through the show can be accomplished without maya.There’s also half an episode devoted to making Kate and Yalena have a fun “girl’s night”, which doesn’t have a great point, unless they are going to spin off into their own show.
All the plot threads running through the show can be accomplished without maya.Not at all. Her personal connection through her father brings a reality to what Clint did as Ronin rather than handwaving it away – that’s a pretty integral piece to the character work being done in this series. The fact Clint in a way is making amends by attempting to steer her away from destructive path of vengeance he took himself doubles down on that.
Hawkeye: MCU Backdoor Pilots doesn’t have quite the same ring.
Based on the characters we know are being set up lately, there’s pretty clearly a Young Avengers (Billy, Tommy, Cassie, Kate, Kamala, Riri, Eli, & maybe Yelena) and a Thunderbolts (John Walker, Yelena, Abomination, & maybe Kate) in the works.
She’s also one of the main parts of the comic book storyline they’re in part drawing from (her introduction in Daredevil), so there’s that. Saying she’s extraneous to this story is like saying Kingpin is, and the two are pretty interconnected.
She’s also one of the main parts of the comic book storyline they’re in part drawing from (her introduction in Daredevil), so there’s that. Saying she’s extraneous to this story is like saying Kingpin is, and the two are pretty interconnected.Fair enough, but unless you’re a fan of the comics (which I would guess isn’t a high percentage of the people who have watched the show), it’s more likely that they didn’t even know who she was.I think we are splitting hairs here though. Instead of having a maya obsessed with revenge, it could have come from any other character or even from the top. They have already loaded up the series with the watch, the ronin suit, the big guy, Elenore, Kate, Yalena, Maya, Laura, Larpers, etc. Of all those threads, the least necessary, outside of the need to setup a new show, is Maya, even if she is a central figure in the source material. The only one that is handwaving away what Clint has done, is Kate, which she did with Yalena, not Maya.If the point of Maya is to allow Clint to steer her away from vengeance to somehow “save” her over his guilt, it’s a pretty weak plot point, that could be done with almost any character.All of that being said I like the show and I’m bummed each time the credits roll. It would be great if there were more than 6 episodes.
Fair enough, but unless you’re a fan of the comics (which I would guess isn’t a high percentage of the people who have watched the show), it’s more likely that they didn’t even know who she was.Sure, but who knew who the Guardians were at first, or Ant-Man? I think what matters is that they’re telling an interesting story using the character.
Instead of having a maya obsessed with revenge, it could have come from any other character or even from the top.It’s not just a character obsessed with revenge, because yes that could be anyone. A character obsessed with revenge with lifelong ties to the New York underworld and Kingpin? Candidates get smaller. Character who’s a specific mirror of Clint with a chance of redemption that he himself may never get? Smaller again. Kazi isn’t the one for a heel-face turn, he’s already got a schtick. You could say Yelena is on a similar path but she’s got a completely different history and may have a different destination.
If you think a redemption arc is a weak plot point, well, nothing I can say to that I guess. Better than a one-note character out for blood only, IMO.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with much that you have to say, I am assuming you have more knowledge of the character than I do, so all of my criticism is clouded by my limited (3-4 episodes) of exposure to Maya.Sure, but who knew who the Guardians were at first, or Ant-Man? I think what matters is that they’re telling an interesting story using the character.The disconnect in your line of though is that GotG and Antman were both given their own movies, as well as given bit parts to introduce them (i’m sketchy on the timeline of where/when they first appeared), but Maya is being introduced as a main plot point and also a side plot simultaneously with little or no room to be a main focus due to everything being crammed into 6 episodes.That’s kind of my criticism, the implementation of all of these character threads in rapid succession isn’t making for an interesting story arc. It is the most mundane of all tropes (criminal seeks vengeance, turns back on life of crime when they find out bad guys are bad)… It may be an interesting story for this specific character, but it is told poorly in this show and there is a disconnect between what the character may be in the source material and what they have shown. Someone with no knowledge of her knows – she is a life long criminal from a criminal family, that is good at fighting because she is deaf, which makes her observant and Ronin killed her dad, so she wants him dead. There may be more to her character, but that is the limit of what the show has put forth. On top of that, she is not as good as Clint (he beat her multiple times or at least came out ahead), she is not as good as Yelena, since Yalena was able to fight Kate and Clint to a draw while Maya retreated) and she may not be as good as Kate, since Kate was actually able to hit her with in arrow, which also validates that she is less than Clint or Yalena.If you think a redemption arc is a weak plot point, well, nothing I can say to that I guess. Better than a one-note character out for blood only, IMO.I’ll agree your logic about candidates. Clint like characters working for/around Kingpin is a pretty small pool, but the show hasn’t really done anything to setup a redemption arc. Again it goes back to my point that what the show is doing with her just hasn’t been clear and we could be at the same point in the show if Maya was out and a generic “bad guy” was after the watch, ronin, etc. Yalena would still be hired to kill Clint, Kate and Clint would still be doing their, whatever they are doing, and there still could have been a character working for kingpin, after the watch using the tracksuits, seeking to kill ronin, for revenge or to elevate their own status in the underworld.A throwaway line from clint about ‘yeah i killed your dad, but kingpin told me where to find him, so don’t let vengeance consume you’ is supposed to be the lynchpin that turns Maya on to redemption? Is she supposed to now let Clint go, even though he seemed to confirm that he actually did the thing? Is she supposed to kill Kazi and Kingpin for betraying her father?I guess we are going to find in in the last episode, but my point still stands. Whatever you know about the character from the source material isn’t being given time to be introduced properly. She has been introduced and portrayed as a “one-note character out for blood only”. That she is now going to be given maye 6-7 minutes of screen time to have her redemption arc is just terrible execution and planning. I fully expect for her to meet with Clint at the end of the episode, sign something like “I still hate you, but there is a bigger fish”, then ride off on her motorcycle to her own show where she presumably tries to take down Kingpin or something?If you had told me today that they were spinning off a character from this show into their own show, she would have been somewhere between 5-7 on the list of likely characters IMO.
Florence Pugh is pretty much A-List these days so I don’t think it’s so much of her being ‘wasted as a side player’ but rather that Marvel are getting a bit of extra advance promotional work out of her for her role as one of the new Avengers.
Pugh plays a character who essentially shows up at the final minutes of episode 4, is forced into a muddled fight scene that had to include another new character and is not allowed to have a badass scene of her own.
Yes, Pugh is A-list. Yes, Yelena is the awesomest. Yes, she is being wasted as a sidecharacter on a Clint Barton show. All those things can be true.
You really think this is a Clint Barton show? He may be getting more development than he got in the movies, but he’s very clearly the mentor figure to the next generation of heroes. And Kate is clearly the main character.
I thought it was going to be a “two hander” for Renner and Steinfeld. There’s been a bit of that but there’s also been all this stuff with the boring Maya/Echo, buddy comedy stuff with Yelena and Kate Bishop etc. It’s just a pretty shaggy ensemble thing
I agree on both accounts. Yelena is a better and more interesting character than either Hawkeye or Kate Bishop. Hailee Steinfeld is a great actor but the character of Kate Bishop as written just isn’t that compelling or likable to me. And Maya’s not a very interesting character either and the show has spent way too much time with her
All Hail Sauron, it’s Siede.
I share the concerns about not really being able to land the plane here when it comes to Clint’s guilt/punishment. And I’m hoping that Echo’s issues with Clint don’t end with “Well, someone told him, so that’s who I SHOULD be mad at??
If I had to bet $2, I’d say Clint’s story ends in a way that the world thinks him dead, but he’s really alive and on the farm with Laura. Because I am just not up for Clint dying before he gets home or, God forbid, at his home. Can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to Yelena and Clint sitting down and talking.
As for Val, it’s possible she’s just a broker and sweetened the deal a bit for Yelena to get her to take the job. (Yelena seemed to be over Val’s shit)
BUT… another $2 bet. Val is playing more than one side here. She knows that by telling Yelena that this was the guy who was responsible for Nat, she wasn’t going to just pop the guy from 500 yards away and be done. And she also knows there’s a halfway decent chance Clint can hold his own long enough to at least try to talk to Yelena.
SO… does Val have a reason for wanting those two to get together and have a chat?
I realize that this is on me for thinking for a moment that Marvel wouldn’t wuss out hard, but man did I groan at that Clint/Maya scene and the informant revelation. It was such a bizarre approach of trying to shift the focus away from Clint being actively the person who killed Maya’s dad.
What made it worse that I still can’t comprehend the logic. While Clint was giving that speech about rage making them weapons, the problem is that he was the one using that weapon. No one forced him to go around the world butchering criminals. And even here he wasn’t exactly manipulated into killing Maya’s dad’s crew as it seems like something he would have done with or without that informant.
Even with the 5 years past, the timeline doesn’t add up to how old Maya is to Ronin killing her father. In the comics, Maya had the Ronin identity before Clint so I assume they’re setting up something similar.
Yeah, it’s a pretty colossal muddle. Clint can’t be allowed to beat Maya cleanly, so his threat’s a bit confusing, and even to the extent he was misled in to killing everybody at that Tracksuit meeting, he hasn’t and doesn’t intend to do anything about the person he blames for it. There just isn’t any room within the MCU rails to have this make any moral sense.
But here’s the thing, Clint wasn’t misled into killing those people. He would have done the exactly the same thing if he got a tip from another source.That’s the frustrating part in Clint describing himself as a weapon as it is a mechanism to remove himself from the culpability of his own actions. If the show had challenged that, made him admit to Maya that he was willing murderer, it would actually allow for some moral examination.
I don’t think there’s much to explore with Clint morally, tbh. He feels terrible about the things he’s done, but only to the extent he suffers no consequences for it. It’s why he leads with the threat, which feels pretty nonsensical under the circumstances.And maybe Clint would’ve gone after the Tracksuits anyway? We’re still left incredibly vague on how bad they are, but Clint talks about being used/manipulated as weapon and says he went after that meeting because of an informant working for Fisk. And I don’t think it makes any sense for Clint to know that unless he found out after the raid, which then suggests he went looking for that info.
This all comes back to making Clint a straight up Punisher-style killer in the MCU when he was Ronin being a mistake.
Also for me a lot of the problem is the vagueness about what exactly Clint did when he was “Ronin” and why exactly it was so over the line.
Pretty much that. There is no sensical motivation as to why he would suddenly turn into the Punisher because of the snap. The snap wasn’t caused by criminals. Or why he wouldn’t have turned to Natasha, his best friend, and the rest of the team, after the snap. Or why the rest of the team would be cool with Clint’s mass murdering in Endgame, when he just becomes part of the team again. It’s a completely unnecessary hole the MCU has dug for itself and it’s tough to see any convincing way out of it.
I think there’s some sense to it. These MCU shows have doubled down on dealing with post-End Game grief (well, post-Infinity War, really, in a way). Wanda captured and mind-controlled a whole town out of grief, and who knows what she’s up to next. And, as clumsy as it was in its deployment, grief was a motivating factor for several of the major players in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.Clint lost his whole family pretty much right in front of his eyes. He was shattered. As Caroline points out, he’s not really “friends” with any of the Avengers bar Nat, and she’s also shattered by the whole thing and hell bent on trying to keep the world together. So in his mind, where, as others point out, he sees himself as a “good guy,” he directs his rage towards killing “bad guys.” Some people might drink themselves into a black pit of despair, some might turn to drugs, or to religion, or throw themselves into a project . . . who knows. For Clint it’s rage-fuelled killing, and that makes total sense to me. And then he comes back from that only to have to watch Nat die. He’s definitely fucked up in the head, even if the show only hints at it.
It makes sense that people would tip off Ronin, then he’d go in and lay waste to whatever criminal organization without remorse. Especially if this is all building to incorporating the kingpin into the universe
No, I mean there’s no reason for Clint to trace the informant back to Kingpin after hitting the shop unless he had misgivings about it, hence talking about being used/manipulated.
My assumption was the tip off was something like “these are really bad guys who are affiliated with kingpin” so ronin took them out
Not impossible, but the thing about the explanation to Maya is the more Clint knew at the time he was helping Kingpin cement control of the gang, the worse it scans in terms of the MCU’s usual morality—the parallel here will be that Yelena decides not to kill Clint bc it’d be on behalf of villains, and thus she’s no worse than antihero.FWIW, my guess (whether or not it’s specifically explained) is that Clint only learned about Fisk in the first place after the raid, which is why Fisk isn’t dead. Otherwise, what’s the point of a vigilante assassin?
Maybe he always knew the tip was from Kingpin. The man doesn’t exactly hide his criminal machinations.
I think the thing is that Yelena is (somewhat) right about Clint. Ronin wasn’t just a vigilante, he was a bad guy. I think the implication is that Ronin wasn’t just going around the world killing criminals, he was going around the world killing criminals FOR KINGPIN.
Seems like it’s the opposite though, right? Kate’s mom want’s to kill Hawkeye for killing so many of Kingpin’s underlings, so she hires Fontaine to get Yelena to do the deed, telling her that he killed Black Widow for motivation, whether anyone actually believes that remains to be seen
Of course, Mya’s dad and his gang weren’t saints either.
Dude, Clint Barton is a guy who believes that he is a good guy despite BLOWING UP A SKYSCRAPER IN BUDAPEST. He had always been an amoral assassin who hides behind other people telling him that he was killing people for a good reason.Of course he’s going to try to deflect the blame
The way Black Widow shrugged off the fact that they blew up a building filled with people is genuinely one of the most astonishing things about that film.And I get the blame deflection part. In truth, for me it would be a fascinating characteristic if they show actively confronted him about it. Instead we get multiple versions of the weapon speech which is inherently stupid because he was also the person who decided who that weapon targeted.
As soon as this was going to be Christmas themed that went out the window. I was personally looking forward to at least a 3 or 4 episode arc similar to Punishers in Daredevil season 2 to really delve into Ronin then and now. Infact it may have worked even pushing this series to 9 episodes like Wandavision so we could have started with the ‘Ronin’ episodes released etc…
I’ll be completely honest: I don’t really care about the whole Ronin thing. I thought it was a stupid concept to begin with: Clint lost his family because of a space wizard god. What killing street-level criminals has to do with it? The leap doesn’t make much sense (on top of having nothing to do with comic-book Ronin). But in this universe, treating violent vigilantism as the Ultimate Unforgivable Sin is pretty hypocritical of the MCU. Most Avengers have directly or indirectly caused collateral deaths, and several of them have dark pasts. They are/were a collection of assassins, weapon makers, destructive monsters, former villains, government-sanctioned enforcers, ex-convicts. And wasn’t Thor kind of genocidal and Asgardian-suprematist against the other Realms, originally?
But this doesn’t treat vigilantism as the ultimate unforgiveable sin, does it? It’s more like it’s a bad habit that someone acquires that eventually they can quit, with enough willpower and the right support network.
I’ll be completely honest: I don’t really care about the whole Ronin thing. I thought it was a stupid concept to begin with: Clint lost his family because of a space wizard god. What killing street level criminal has to do with it? The leap doesn’t make much sense (on top of having nothing to do with comic-book Ronin). But in this universe, treating violent vigilantism as the Ultimate Unforgivable Sin is pretty hypocritical of the MCU. Most Avengers have directly or indirectly caused collateral deaths, and several of them have dark pasts. They are/were a collection of assassins, weapon makers, destructive monsters, former villains, government-sanctioned enforcers, ex-convicts. And wasn’t Thor kind of genocidal and Asgardian-suprematist against the other Realms, originally?
So, multiversal mischief notwithstanding, does the Kingpin reveal contextualize all of the Netflix characters into the MCU? Because Cottonmouth is now Blade. Is this just a “we’re not going to think too hard about this” kind of thing or did Cottonmouth have a half-vampire twin brother?
They’ve had actors in multiple roles before; Sersi in Eternals was identical to Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel with a different skin color.
Man, I absolutely forgot about that character.
Johnny ::Chris Evans!:: Storm…and Steve ::Chris Evans!:: Rogers.Actually, at this point Chris Evans could probably play half the characters in the MCU, and nobody would be bothered by it…because he’s Chris Fuckin’ Evans. So I’m fine with two-time Academy Award Winner Mahershala Ali having been Cottonmouth, and now being Blade — he’s gotten the awards, now it’s time for him to cash in with a few big paycheck roles.
The former.
Alfre Woodard has been in the MCU as two different characters, major one in Luke Cage and the woman who goads Tony Stark into signing the Accords in Civil War, so yeah I don’t think they care that much about different characters being played by the same actors.
They can’t be the same person. Blade wears sunglasses and Cottonmouth doesn’t. He wouldn’t be able to see.
Blade? I thought he was called Stab-Man or Knifey-Boy or some such.
Mystery Men taught us that!
Would give you a second star for the Mystery Men reference if I could.
Finally someone with some common sense around here.
Joking mode: His name is not Cottonmouth.
I think they just realized they had good actors to play these roles and are soft rebooting them to be a part of the MCU. Still don’t expect events from the Netflix shows to ever be referenced much at all.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a mention of Fisk being “out of jail.” Just a little detail from the events of Daredevil, without needing to go into the whole thing.
Legally, I don’t even think they can be, except in the vaguest of terms. Disney has the rights to the characters back and can hire whoever they want to play them, but Netflix presumably still owns the rights to the shows they actually made, which is why you can only watch them there and not on Disney+. On a meta-level, they’re obviously trying to evoke the audience’s affection for those versions of the characters, but I suspect you’ll never catch anybody outright saying, “Yeah, this is the same Kingpin from the Netflix series” either in or out of universe.
And Minn-Erva is Sersi and Mariah is also the grieving mother who confronted Tony Stark. Some people in MCU just look a lot alike.
Can’t forget Michelle Yeoh as Aleta Ogord in GotG2 and then also Shang Chi’s auntie in Legend of the Ten Rings. Or Kenneth Choi as Jim Morita in The First Avenger and Morita’s grandson in Homecoming.
Anyway, Marvel has the rights to every previous iteration of Marvel superhero movie now, outside the SPUoMC or whatever. My hope is that they keep those that worked, recast those that didn’t, and we can all just enjoy the movie show.
And Tony Curran as Odin’s father and that Irish gangster the Punisher fights.
I think it was Daredevil actually, but, yeah, him too!
Oh, sorry, Punisher fought him on Daredevil. We’re both right!
Yes, they clearly don’t care and frankly people make too big of a deal of it. Let’s say it’s a Jessica Chastain/Bryce Dallas Howard kind of a deal in universe.
Evan Fowler — yes.Or maybe…Cottonmouth didn’t die, he was turned into Blade! And now he’s atoning for all his villainy in LUKE CAGE by becoming a vampire hunter….
Imperfect clones. They look alike, but don’t think alike.
I hope they can find a way to bring back The Purple Man (David Tennant) and introduce his Purple Children into the MCU. He’s been killed and brought back to life in the comics before…
People get recast. It’s not real.
I’m pretty sure the same guy plays both Spider-Man and Peter Parker, so…
Wait a minute, are you saying there’s a connection between Ben and Glory?
Theoretically Captain America and Johnny Storm are in different movie universes….
Remember: the Netflix characters were already in the MCU. The issue was that the film side, Marvel Studios, was ignoring the TV side. But the Netflix shows always took place in the MCU.It certainly wasn’t difficult to believe that Marvel Studios could have been planning to throw them out and de-canonize them given how long they were ignored but this Kingpin reveal simply reconfirms that they’re MCU.
Of course, I doubt they’re going to reference them heavily. They’re not going to make it so viewers have to watch shows on a competing streaming service to understand what’s going on. I’m expecting an Incredible Hulk situation where it is still canon and happened in the universe but isn’t directly referenced for quite some time.
Is it weird that I assumed the Netflix Marvel shows were already part of the MCU? Or at most in a parallel Marvel universe? I think the continuity still works unless someone can prove it doesn’t.
Is it weird that I assumed the Netflix Marvel shows were already part of the MCU?It’s not weird at all. Feige literally said they are: (18:15 if the timestamp doesn’t link correctly)All this talk about the shows not being in the MCU comes from people who either didn’t know they were in the first place, or people who are making crap up based on shaky/no evidence.
They were in a version of the MCU but it was never confirmed that it was the same multiverse. Kevin Feige has always hedged his bets about how the characters will the formal MCU version.
“All of those things inhabit, however far on the outskirts, the same continuity.” ~Kevin Feige, in the video I linked above that you clearly didn’t watch or else you wouldn’t have said something that this quote directly contradicts
People have got such blinders on that they won’t even believe the word out of the horse’s mouth. Gosh.In all honesty though, it’s likely a soft reboot: Daredevil, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, even Cloak & Dagger and Runaways and even (*shudders*) Inhumans happened within Feige’s MCU Story Bible of canon events – but they don’t have to spend time rehashing what happened in those shows within the movies or D+ series. Characters who died will stay dead unless there’s a compelling motivation for reviving them AND a reasonable way to reveal they’re actually alive, and characters who are alive that make sense to fit into the story later on will fit themselves in.
Do not be surprised if Daisy Johnson shows up in Secret Invasion but NEVER ONCE MENTIONS COULSON. Do not be surprised if Colleen Wing shows up with the Iron Fist powers in Shang-Chi 2, but the movie makes no mention of Ramen Hair… err, Danny Rand. Just by virtue of featuring her with the power of the Iron Fist they’d be honouring the show without spending a minute on some white boy who doesn’t belong in a movie focused on Asian characters.
Exactly.
I’m convinced they’ll reintroduce Ming-Na Wen’s Agent May at some point if only for the fact that with her being both a former Disney Princess (Mulan) and helming co-lead status in The Book of Boba Fett she’s the ultimate cross-franchise Disney Easter Egg.
This is not the one people are referring to. Its the one from the Netflix cancellation of the shows, and the 2 year bar on them appearing anywhere else. Its like two year old where he says, we’d like to use them but, we don’t have the rights and we don’t know if the characters will be in the same form.
If I hadn’t said thank you for this already, then let me say thank you here. 🙂
I’m assuming same actor, different continuity, though I’m guessing they’ll avoid repeating too many plot points.
The rumor has been that actors from Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Punisher will return, but Luke Cage & Iron Fist actors will be recast. That tracks with Jessica Henwick saying she was asked to audition for a role in Shang Chi and that the role wasn’t guaranteed, so it couldn’t have been Colleen Wing.
The apparent retcon of it not being Val who hired Yelena is especially weird as it seemed in Black Widow like Val was getting rid of Clint for her own reasons, and basically lying to Yelena about his role in Natasha’s death to get her to do it. Here it seems like Yelena is mostly after Clint because she’s an assassin and Kate’s mother (through Kingpin?) hired her to do it.
I took it as Val just being the handler. Eleanor hired Val’s services, and Val sent Yelena as the assassin.
But what the hell would even the time window for that be? I mean Clint has been in New York for, what, four days now? Especially since it didn’t seem to be winter wherever Yelena was Val approached her.
I think Yelena has been tracking him for awhile. Probably popped up on her radar from all the clamor of Ronin running around again. Not that she knows he was Ronin, but it’s definitely a lead.
But that’s not the scene being discussed here. The movie ends with Val approaching Yelena and asking her if she wants to deal with the person who killed her sister, with that being Clint. This episode has Yelena sending Kate a message that she found the person who hired her to kill Clint.Even if you do those mental gymnastics to make it work, and I’m expecting the show to try to pull something next episode, it is still a needlessly contradictory flow information. Especially as I still can’t figure out why Yelena was shadowing Eleanor in the first place.
Actually now that I think about it, both can be true. Val told Yelena about Clint, which we saw, and Eleanor could have hired Yelena to kill Clint. Neither has to be a retcon nor a contradiction. Incredibly coincidental? Absolutely, but both could have happened and still have been the reason to get her to NYC and be face-to-face with Clint.
Whatever they go with, it gets Kate to draw focus on Eleanor which could leave an opening to Clint which is probably Yelena’s end goal.
Oh, completely true, but it just all feels so unnecessary. Here’s an easier solution: Yelena knows that Clint was Ronin, as she actually seems to be aware of. There was a newsitem about Ronin appearing in New York. Yelena goes to New York.The reason they had to involve that someone hired her, which is such a headache to begin with as it means Yelena was just waiting around for a Clint contract, is that she could shadow Eleanor. Which doesn’t actually make sense in itself as if she was following Eleanor because she realized who hired her, why was the stalking necessary as it required her to already know that information.
Sorry for so many different replies, but the reason Yelena needed to be hired for this is because without it, she has no reason to want to kill Clint, and the plot needs her to attack him before they’re able to talk.
Yeah this is what I’m going with. It’s still just really bad writing and storytelling
I still can’t figure out why Yelena was shadowing Eleanor in the first place.Yeah, this is the real stretch here. She went to Kate’s apartment to find Hawkeye, Kate says “i don’t know” (which was true), but then inexplicably, Yalena doesn’t keep tabs on Kate, not assuming the simplest course would be to follow Kate, knowing that she is much more likely to make contact with Clint than her mother?Val probably has dozens of widows in her employ. The Widow who’s house she spent the snap at retconned that whole deal with her ‘now your back, you can go freelance and do contract work, like the other widows’. Val showed her a picture of Clint in the Ronin suit, so as soon as Ronin shows up on TV, Yalena is sure to show up there. That is the easiest leap to make.If Clint has been with his family, which is stashed far away from the Avengers world, then we have no idea how long Yalena has been looking for him. I suppose it is a byproduct of being forced to do the Black Widow thing that may make her much more curious about the hows and whys. Her sister held Clint in very high regard, as does Kate after a few days, so i can see her backing off a bit to discovery why, but again, trailing the mother, the least likely person to give her information on Clint is confusing.
Yelena’s shadowing Eleanor because Kate said she should question why she was hired. The implication is that Eleanor called Val when Clint left their penthouse and that’s why Yelena’s in NYC. It doesn’t really line up with the BW stinger, which you could rationalize as happening as late as early fall, but even then, Val doesn’t say that Clint killed Natasha and Yelena doesn’t appear to think so (she says he got her killed).
I’m guessing they’ll stitch up the Clint/Yelena sitch by focusing on Natasha’s legacy, but it feels weird to have Yelena to talk about killing Clint on entirely moral terms when for her it’s purely personal.
But that first line is my whole issue.
I can understand that Yelena figured out that Eleanor hired her, which is another minefield so let’s not go there. But she was following Eleanor which led her to figure out that it was she who hired the Widow in the message to Kate. If she had figured it out before, then why was it necessary to follow Eleanor to confirm it? Like what was she expecting Eleanor to do?It was just a contrived situation so that they could follow her to Kingpin’s place.
Yelena’s a spy, so I don’t think her following Eleanor really needs to be explained; it could be Val scheming, it could be Yelena doing more background work, it could be happenstance. It’s not explained, and though it might be getting saved for more worldbuilding, it doesn’t particularly have to be.
But it goes a little bit back to my dissatisfaction with the Kate/Yelena scene, because it seems like outside of that, Yelena’s motivations are clear: she’s taking the job for money, and her particular interest in Clint is the size of the paycheck and what he may be able to say about the unclear circumstances of Natasha’s death.I assume they’ll be spending more time on Yelena’s moral arc (in terms of Natasha’s legacy, etc.), but it just feels off to have her frame Clint as being bad enough that he specifically deserves to be killed, and not replacement-level guilty that doesn’t deserve to spared when somebody’s willing to pay, which largely seems to line up with her and Natasha’s pre-Avenger worldview.
I think the only part that doesn’t line up with the Black Widow stinger is that it doesn’t look like winter? That’s solved by having an unseasonably warm December.
Possibly? But we’re having an unseasonably warm December in the mid-Atlantic right now and the trees are bald.But I mostly mean that the BW gravesite scene implies that it’s Yelena’s first time there, and the end of the intro scene this episode suggests that Yelena would’ve gone pretty soon out of coming back from the Blip.
I don’t think it implies it’s Yelena’s first time there at all? YMMV, but I think the implication is very strongly that Yelena/the ex-Red Room Widows are the ones who arranged for the grave at all. No one else would have included Daughter and Sister on the headstone. And the way Yelena tidies up at the grave site, which seems to have been there long enough to accumulate a little shrine, would imply she’s been caring for it in her time off.I’ve always assumed the grave has been there for some time, and Yelena has been visiting regularly.
Who knows, but that’s how it felt at the time. We only see Yelena for a few seconds before Val cuts in, but she walks up to the gravesite and just looks at the headstone before Val blows her nose.[edit: I’m a dope and was going off the first youtube result for the scene, which cut out the approach/tidying. When I watched the movie over the summer, I thought it was meant to feel like Yelena’s first visit, but that could easily just be the audience surrogacy of confirming that Natasha’s dead in the MCU]
I would say there’s nothing explicit to say how long the stone has been there or how often Yelena has visited, so it kind of comes down to how you read the actions. For me, it felt like at least several months had passed since the Blip.That could reasonably also be because Black Widow came out after WandaVision and the Falcon and the Winter Soldier so I mentally slotted it in “sometime after FatWS.”But I don’t think there’s anything inconsistent with where they’re putting it in the timeline now.
I mean there is obviously no body so it’s more for remembrance not Natasha’s actual grave. I’m sure she has an Avenger approved one and statues for people to lay their flowers but this one is clearly for family only – in Ohio where they used to live.
I would imagine there is a more public memorial too, sure. The point is more that it’s clearly where the family goes to pay their respects, and it seems to me like it’s been there a little while.
It’s autumn (-ish enough) though, Val has on her long black coat and gloves, Yelena has her fur trimmed jacket.
Yeah, I’m up in the northeast and it absolutely doesn’t look like winter at all up here right now.
It’s in the Kate & Yelena scene. Yelena reads all of Kate’s reactions and knows she’s telling the truth – as Kate sees it anyway. So, she decides to do a little legwork and track down who hired her (who initiated the contract). I get the impression that Kate’s Mom, Val, and Kingpin are more co-equals in the underworld and not a chain of command. Though, I’m sure Eleanor would have to get an ok from Kingpin to Kill an Avenger because they’re co-villains/partners in crime. … Or it’s just an evil supervillain cabal doing evil supervillain cabal things.
deal with the person who killed her sisterThat sentence didn’t make sense then (Yelena knows how her sister died, since the world knows), and in this episode they already tried to massage it by suggesting Yelena thinks Clint let Natasha die (by not sacrificing himself in her stead), not that he somehow murdered her, which is just ridiculous to think.
Or so-n-so spotted Hawkeye at Rogers: The Musical.
If a member of the Avengers went to see Rogers: The Musical, you know it would make the news. Even if actual reporters hadn’t noticed it, you know Clint would have been recognized by people in the audience and it would have been over over social media. We saw at least 1 person in the audience recognize him.
Yup. Broadway… packed house. It would have been funnier if Clint was there with the kids on Rogers! 17th week with only 25% of the seats filled – the show flopping and the staff grumbling. Then no one would notice him.
Not sure where Nat’s grave is supposed to be, but maybe it’s one of the states where it doesn’t snow during winter?
I assumed Ohio, where they became a family?
I live in the Buffalo, NY area, famously a snowy place. It’s halfway through December and we’ve had about six inches of snow *total* so far. Right now it’s around 50 degrees.I’m sorry but climate change is real.(That last bit was snark. I’m not accusing you of being a climate denier. I’m just annoyed by people like the local news and my parents making light of the weather “being so nice”. UGH.)
Plus who knows what the effects of climate change will be in two more years.
Atlanta?
Valentina did say she was allergic to the Midwest, so I’m guessing Ohio.
That’s basically all of them now lol
As somebody who lives someplace where it does snow in the winter (Missouri), I can attest that it doesn’t snow every winter, nor is there snow on the ground all winter. They’re both wearing heavy coats in that scene; that’s enough.
I think the whole Ronin suit and sword sale was designed to bring Clint out of hiding. They knew that once it is in the open he will, as Yelena said, come to save his reputation. I’m pretty sure that Kingpin would like all his deals with the Ronin to never be discovered so he hired Eleanor to take care of it as her company seems perfectly set to fix things like that for rich and powerful. She hired Val – who clearly is a broker to anyone with enough money to use her services – to get an assassin capable of taking Clint out and she organised the auction to lure him out.
She probably also organised the Tracksuit Mafia attack to make sure all these Ronin stuff starts floating in public so Clint would have to come. I mean the whole thing was supposed to be about the watch but it was just lying in Maya’s apartment like no one cared.And she was probably always planning to use Jack as patsy for her less savoury deals and Armand found out so she got him killed. It was all going to work out but then Kate got involved and that brought Clint too close to Eleanor. Kate found out about Jack setup and that made Eleanor use Jack quicker that she expected to to throw Kate off the scent. It also got her running to her boss and because of one more thing she miscalculated – Yelena wanting to know who put her on Clint’s scent – her secret dealings with crime bosses are no longer secret.
That makes sense on a certain level, except that Clint was already out in the open by coming to NYC, and even Kate’s access to Bishop Security is able to easily track his location. Including the Ronin gear as causal rather than coincidental just makes it make all more complicated, IMO.
Sure, but they didn’t know he would be in New York already and had no way of planning for that. Releasing Ronin stuff into the open meant they would know when and where he’ll would be (or at least have more limited scope of time and location) and it’d be easier for their people to find him. Kate can only track he because he gave her his phone number but even for Eleanor finding details on an Avenger might be hard not to mention it could be tracked back to her once he dies and everyone of his powerful friend get upset. Much safer to do it by proxies that couldn’t track to her. I think Jack was final fail safe if they still as she could throw him under the bus then. But then Kate got involved and it all fell apart.
I think it was the 14th of Who Gives a Fuck and it was half past Get the Fuck Over It.
Eleanor: “I mean it’s one assassin. What could they cost?”
I think that overcomplicates it.Val got Yelena all fired up about killing Clint. Yelena was looking for Clint and found out Kate’s mum wanted him dead, so took the contract. Coincidence, rather than complex machinations.
See, I think that’s overcomplicating it haha.
That’s a very generous way of parsing it
I don’t think it’s a true retcon, just really muddled and bad writing. I guess we’re supposed to think something like Julia Louis Dreyfus simply told Yelena that Clint killed Natasha (which is technically true but removes context) but at some later point Eleanor actually hired to kill Clint
I mean, there is the possibility that Val made it look like Eleanor hired her… Or that Yelena didn’t go digging deep enough into who hired whom. (I mean, she did pretty much just text a couple hours later…)
There’s also the possibility that Ronin killed someone close to Val, and she wants revenge. Kingpin may not even be a colleague, just a necessary connection to get a job done. The fun thing about what we know right now… Val could either be in league with Kingpin, or, she could be the one pulling his strings. We don’t know! It’s kinda fun.
getting rid of Clint for her own reasonsI’m not even sure what those reasons could be, since he’s basically retired. It has to be vengeance by someone in the criminal world, so Kingpin makes sense.
Makes sense the CEO of a security company would go through a third party to have someone killed. It’s pretty risky to go seek out an assassin herself for many, many reasons
Eleanor hiring Yelena makes no sense as written. It was a rushed reveal anyway and for no reason. Given that these are mostly 30-35 minute episodes they really could’ve devoted some additional time to fleshing out Eleanor’s character.
Watching this episode right after going home from seeing No Way Home is just perfect. Love being an MCU fan.
But that tired, boring MCU “formula” !!!
Love Yelena saying that she wanted to see the “new and improved Statue of Liberty”.
The show’s good. This is my first real time with Yelena since I have yet to watch Black Widow, and I love her. She’s great. I had no doubt she would be since you know, Florence Pugh, but she’s so cool.
If you have access to Disney+ (which I assume, given that you’ve seen this episode), then watch Black Widow already. Pugh steals nearly every scene she’s in.(Otherwise, you are total poser.)
I like the Kingpin reveal for the MCU at large but I really hate it for this show. Something like that needs to be the stinger or the last episode because now I think most fans will go into the finale with expectations out of whack. There feels like a lot of other threads that need to be tied up, its a strange choice to either introduce him so late or to tease him and then not use him at all. I would’ve preferred Loki style with everything else wrapping up and then this essentially bookending the show.
For a second I thought they recast Wilson Fisk. That photo, albeit grainy and out of focus, did not look like Vincent D’Onofrio. The credits obviously dispel that.
The plaque at Grand Central Station noting the formation of the Avengers is another nice touch showing a lived-in universe. But it should have an exact date! Grills, you’re a nice guy obviously, but in what world do you think your couch is a better accommodation than a hotel room? Good recovery by offering your bed though.Poor Jack. He’s nothing more than a sweet guy with a sword obsession being made a patsy. Should have listened to his uncle. They have to give him an action scene next week.
They need to reveal that Eleanor’s already bailed Jack out, or even that the whole arrest was staged. I even kind of want their relationship to be real, there’s no reason Eleanor can’t still be the boss. A status quo where Kate’s parents are villains but she still has to deal with and to some degree get along with them has possibilities.
I kept waiting for a line of dialogue in the last 2/3 episodes that would tip that Eleanor was grooming Kate to be a supervillain (or, you know, the grayscale version of such). But to the show’s credit, they’re keeping that card really close to the vest.
Possible Runaways cameo – “Your parents are villains? Where have we heard that one before?”
I imagine after the whole “eight years later” thing, they’re staying far away from noting any specific dates.
I hope that Jack is actually a weird alien plant person.
I loved Jack’s totally casual reaction to being arrested and framed.
I thought the same for a second lol
I think Grills was more implying that Clint should be with people, be with friends, on Christmas, instead of alone in a hotel room. Grills, of course, implying that he was said friend.
“Grills, you’re a nice guy obviously, but in what world do you think your couch is a better accommodation than a hotel room?”Grills obviously knows that a hotel is better than his apartment. But he is awestruck by not just having Hawkeye in his apartment, but that he came to him for help! He wants to keep Hawkeye around for as long as possible.
Really really really hoping a certain something doesn’t happen in the next episode. If you’ve read the comics you know what I’m talking about.
I would watch an entire show of Kate and Yelena riffing off each other.
Low key epic scene: that’s two future Avengers bonding right there!
*Bucky and Falcon nod*
I find the dynamic especially interesting since Yelena has killed tons of people, and Kate’s never killed anyone. That must create a huge gulf between them, for all they have in common.
…did you not see Kate blow up a trick full of Tracksuits a couple of weeks ago??
True, but we don’t know if any of them actually died, and Kate did not have to confront the ugly reality of a corpse with one of her arrows sticking out of it.
Kate killed some tracksuit guys when she blew up the van.
Quite possibly, but we didn’t see for sure, and neither did Kate. She hasn’t had to confront the cold reality of a corpse she made lying on the floor in front her.
She shot an exploding arrow at the van that had at least two people in it and the van blew up. They are most likely dead, and she is well aware of what happened, she saw it blow up.
Sure, but there’s a difference between ‘shot an exploding arrow that turned out to be far more powerful than she expected, which flipped a van with unseen (maybe fatal) consequences for the occupants, who were armed and pursuing her with violent intentions’ and ‘shot a person who did not intend you harm in the head or torso, watched blood spurt out, heard the person’s cries of pain, and watched them die right in front of you’. Kate has the former on her conscience, Yelena the latter, and the gulf between the two is vast.
That scene had a real Killing Eve vibe and both actors seemed to have the Eve/Villainelle roles down pat.
Considering their career trajectories, I don’t think anyone would be super surprised that Florence Pugh and Hailee Steinfeld are working together on a project right now. But it speaks to the embarrassment of riches that is Marvel’s roster of talented actors that they’re both together in a goddamn superhero series on Disney Plus.
The Amy March-Emily Dickinson teamup that we now so obviously need
I would love a short about them just talking about quilting
And their embarrassment of money trucks.
yeeeeeep
It’s kind of cute/clever that the new Hawkeye and new Black Widow are becoming best friends.
Kate & Allie remake
This scene alone made this an A grade episode.
It helps that they’re two of the best actresses of their generation. I’m gonna say top 5 with Saoirse Ronan, Anya Taylor-Joy and Elle Fanning.
It makes me really really hope Yelena is somehow involved in the inevitable future Young Avengers project
And there is just *one* of the biggest differences between the MCU and DCEU: the relationships among the characters. That, and the humor, is what Stan Lee contribution to the genre.
In a total surprise twist for Marvel, the final episode just consist of Hailee Steinfeld, Florence Pugh and Wallace Shawn having dinner together and discussing life.
There is an easy to prove to Yelena that Clint isn’t responsible for Natasha’s death. Time to fire up the time machine and head back to Vormir!
I know I’m lost in the greys but the 3 minute mark of kingpin’s theme played right after Clint said “i’m worried the big guy is gonna get involved” and i just knew, knew and was waiting for it. Flipped my shit. My wife giggled and said this atop finding her favorite sushi has made today a good day
I will bet a shiny nickel that Kate’s mom is also a black widow who has been under long-term contract to Wilson Fisk. If so, it will be really interesting to see what happens when Yelena hits her with the red mist.
Do we get to have Kingpin and Val have a scene together? Goodness, I want those two to have all the scenes together.
I’m also enjoying the Disney+ Marvel series commitment to the shows being an origin story for characters new costumes.
Early 20-something women enjoying Mac & Cheese = truth.
After that weird Age Of Ultron interlude about Natasha being a monster for not having a uterus/not being able to have kids, I appreciated that this episode casually showed a former Black Widow happily adopting a child.UGH, that’s not…..it’s not what that scene was about….it’s….ugh
THANK YOU.This is like the internet version of “The Mandela Effect”, where so many blogs and reviews were written misinterpreting that (admittedly somewhat hamfisted) scene, that now the bad takes have become a widely accepted “fact”.
It doesn’t help that these days, Joss Whedon isn’t exactly someone that anyone is eager to jump to the defense of.
Hell no, and I’m definitely not defending Whedon (I mean, can you defend Whedon? And if you could, why would you? Seems like he’s good and gone now, although the things he said and did can’t be undone, unfortunately).I’m more defending the character, if anything, as it seems like a lot of the people misintepreting/misunderstanding that scene (often because of Whedon’s involvement) seem to be angry that “it’s canon” when… it’s not! That’s not what she said, that’s not what the scene meant, and it’s pretty clear when you watch it back, even if it does come a bit out of left-field.
It’s not the mandela effect when the person has a known record of treating women like crap.
I didn’t interpret the line in that way, but when I realized who it was written by…I was like “oh, he toast”
We are going to be litigating that shit until the end of time. They are just holding on to the outrage at this point. Let them have it.
It was a poorly written scene. Authorial intent was not transmitted well, leading to a very commonly held interpretation. I don’t think it’s a scene worth defending in any way, regardless.
This! I don’t think he meant it that way but the whole scene was so very poorly written I don’t blame anyone for misconstruing. He desperately needed an editor but I think he was at the career point where he didn’t want to listen to anybody. There’s a way to structure that scene so you don’t smash cut from hysterectomy to “I’ma a monster,” like ending with her killing a classmate instead. Just sloppy and bad.
It could have been fixed with one line. Just one line:It makes everything easier… even killing. (beat) And I was really good at killing. (pause) …Still think you’re the only monster on the team?That’s all it would have taken. Just one extra line to emphasize how it was conditioning to be a better murderer, not her inability to have children, that made her a monster. Fixes that should be that easy really bug me in movies, man.
“Fixes that should be that easy really bug me in movies, man.” Oh, me too. Which is why I think he was really resenting any editing of his “genius.” If he had someone who could give him constructive feedback, it would have been a super easy fix.
Also starting with the “not to defend Whedon” caveat, he actually was dealing with a lot of meddling with his “genius” with all of Marvel’s insistence on the inclusion of plot points that set up future movies but had little to do with AoU. We know their heavy-handedness has also bugged other directors (some to the point of leaving), so I don’t imagine JW is any different on that front. I can see him finding little scenes like this one and fighting to keep them, for the “characters” or something like that . . . “I’m going to keep this little moment of character bonding just as it is, screw those bastards” – of course, resentment like that might feel good but doesn’t lead to great writing, and I agree that the scene is pretty poorly constructed overall (as is the whole stab at a Nat-Bruce ship, imo).
That’s a fair point. I can see both these thing being true. He got a lot of unwanted meddling like shoving in the Thor-takes-a-trippy-bath storyline and that helped make him resent even the feedback that was actually constructive and on point. Add in his burgeoning ego and it doesn’t end well. Which is not to say I don’t enjoy many parts of Ultron.
Like toads getting hit by lightning really bug me.
Like toads getting hit by lightning really bug me. EXACTLY. It bugs me on a “you guys don’t understand… my script for ALIEN: Resurrection was *perfect*. They’re the ones who messed it up! The entire production… the cast, the director, even the crafts table, they all just did it wrong. Whereas I, Joss Whedon, never do anything wrong. Ever”-sort of level.Freaking Whedon.
THANK YOU x2When this first blew up as a “controversy” I went back and watched the actual scene: I can’t fathom the brain of a human who read it that way. Period.
“I murdered the shit out of a bunch of people and also I forcibly sterilized so I would never betray my bosses whilst killing said people in case I had children but I’m a monster because I can’t have kids.”Yeah, the read on that is definitely the infertility part.
I was going to comment on this but figured someone else would have by now. It’s crazy (but not that crazy) how many people completely missed the point of that scene, just for a “Marvel thinks women who can’t have kids are monsters” take. Unfortunately it’s entered the pop-cultural shorthand, much like the belief that the ending of LOST was “they were dead the whole time.”
I don’t think YOU quite understand why people came to that conclusion: The problem is Whedon doesn’t have the best of track records on his treatment of women, which stems all the way back before even the first Avengers film. That’s why it was so easy for the public to grasp the absolute worst interpretation of that line.
It’s like someone saying: “Hey, I didn’t say anything racist!”
But if they’re wearing a Klan hood, you’re like…”um, we can’t give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Yes, I can’t believe we’re still debating this. The scene makes it very clear that Natasha thinks she’s a “monster” because the soviets turned her into a brainwashed killing machine.
It’s not, but it can be read that way, it’s what a whole lot of people read it as, and whoopsie daisy now it’s probably the most popular reading.
I’ve never understood that whole thing. It’s pretty clear in the movie that the “I’m a monster” line was in reference to her being trained as a killer from the time she was a child. I suppose the issue is the placement of the line after the information that Black Widow subjects were sterilized, but still… I honestly don’t get how someone would go there.
Yelena’s instantaneous return from the Snappening in exactly the same position where she vanished confirms the horrific possibility that hundreds of thousands of people who were snapped from aircraft and boats around the world suddenly reappeared at 36,000ft and/or in the middle of the ocean with no vehicle to save them.
I like to think that those people reappear on the boats or aircrafts, rather than in the middle of the air or above the ocean.
I mean, I’m sure a lot of extra people died due to the sudden disappearance of 50% of people (doctors mid-operation, caregivers leaving helpless people abandoned, pilots mid-flight, etc.) but I prefer to imagine that whoever returned through Tony’s snap returned safely, given his omnipotence at the time. It’s just a dash of optimism that lets me gloss over the ugly realism of the scenario, which is what comic books are good for after all.
That would make sense since Earth moved way further that any plane or boat could in those 5 years and yet no one reappeared in the empty space where Solar system used to be.Of course the interesting part of this is what happened when those planes/boats etc crashed or where decommissioned in the meantime. Didi those people reappear in scrapyards? And if they are still being used did they reappear while someone else was in the same bed or sitting on the same seat? Did they push the 2023 person out? How did the planes deal with extra weight of extra passengers?
Reminds me of Tenet. Imagine getting snapped back, where a concrete wall now sits. If i could snap “the snap” away i would. For everything, it the messiest most inconstant thing they have done in the MCU and it is going to take years to clean up the poor execution of the idea.
We are probably overthinking it. After all Infinity Stones are the ultimate Deux Ex Machina – they can do whatever you want them to do so if Hulk wanted everyone to come back safely they did and all the extra food needed materialised along with them. And after that the life went on – just like with our pandemic it was life shattering in some aspects but mundane in other but mostly people just continued living their lives. Some better some worse than before.
Fully agree, though Marvel has not helped by making a mess of how they have handled the snap back across properties.
FaWS was predicated on that life didn’t go on. That in the intervening 5 years the world was, obviously, turned on its head and the return of everyone was a disaster for the people who weren’t snapped. It’s a bit more realistic, as far as realism can be stretched, than any of the post Endgame properties have been. It showed that Bruce’s snap wasn’t some omnipotent fix the world thing. Even FaWS was bit light on how world shattering such an event would be but every MCU property, aside from it, has treated it as a “back to normal/ignore everything” button.
We see different takes on what Blip meant to different people because there are bound to be many reactions. FaWS also shows a very particular group – those who were the most negatively affected by the Return – the repercussions for them and how they react to it. But this is just a certain group point of view. A clear minority group since World Council has no problem swiping them under the rug.
Just like with let’s say the immigrant crisis – even though the lives of so many changed so much and there were vast political repercussions many other people lives change very little. There were people unhappy about the second Snap and there were those very relieved. There were those who landed in resettlement camps and those who went back to school like nothing happened. And those who had to figure out all the paperwork, job and apartment search and then went back to daily grind. I mean look at us living through a life changing event and still arguing about entertainment on the internet.
Endgame showed the world was utterly decimated by the Snap. 5 years after it happened major cities were still ghost towns. I mean, in real life the entire world would have fallen apart. Governments and economies and infrastructure would have crumbled. There wouldn’t even be internet, for instance. Keeping the internet up requires massive amounts of energy, money, replacement parts, and infrastructure. Nothing would be normal for anybody. Then all those people popping back into existence would actually be even worse. There wouldn’t even be enough food for them. The Snap would be millions of times worse than anything the human race had ever endured. A pandemic doesn’t even come close. In the comics the Snap was reversed quickly, so these weren’t even considerations, but the MCU having it take over 5 years is a bit absurd. Hence why they’ve been inconsistent about its effects from property to property. It’s basically whatever the writer of the film/show needs it to be.
“Decimated” means “reduce by 10%.” Thanos de-halfinated the universe. If the snap also halved all plant and animal life, too, then Thanos is as stupid as he is purple. Why the hell would you get all worked up about intelligent life using too many resources, but then also cut in half a good deal of those resources — crops, livestock? All Thanos did was leave the acreage and mineral resources And a lot of critically endangered species that got that way because of human activity — tigers on the brink because of habitat loss, whale species that still haven’t recovered despite most of the world observing a whaling ban. — if those species’ populations were suddenly cut in half, they’d collapse.
More confirmations that the entire Blip thing was too complicated to handle properly and should have shelved in favor of a simpler solution five minutes after whoever came up with it pitched it to Feige.
*Bruce’s snapMarvel creatives have said Bruce made sure people were safe when they returned, which we kinda saw in Wandavision (nobody reconstituted inside a chair or gurney that was moved around).
That’s just Marvel’s creatives’ way of saying “oh, those people just moved to a farm upstate where they get to spend their days chasing rabbits”
where they get to spend their days…hero-worshipping vigilantes.
If I recall it’s actually *very* quickly mentioned in the film.There’s still a lot of loss of life as a result of the Snap, though, and the post-Snap issues (50% of plants and animals go as well, according to Word Of God, which means serious messiness post-Blip.) It’s made very clear that the Infinity Glove can’t bring back the dead because Bruce does try to bring back Natasha and stares this.
50% of E. coli was blipped away too. 20 minutes later, there was exactly as much E. coli as before the blip.
It’s more like 75% of e. Coli — the 50% in the various creatures, plus 50% of what then remains. Otherwise…correct.
I was assuming that when people (and animals) got dusted, half of their internal/external flora was also dusted and the other half just fell as a little pile on the floor. Maybe that’s what the dust was!
That was always my read. My personal theory is that the reason that Bruce struggled so much with his snap compared to Thanos was that Bruce’s desire was far more complicated. Thanos just wanted to kill half the universe at random. Bruce not only wanted to bring them back, but also wanted to account for situations such as that, and the longer he took to formulate those instructions to the stones the more of a struggle it was for him to do it.
In that case there will be hundreds of instances where an airline passenger will be absentmindedly minding their own business, maybe watching a film or enjoying the complimentary nuts when BLAM! They’re blown up (messily) when the previous occupant of the seat rematerialises in their exact position in time and space. Either way someone is dying horrifically!
Bruce snapped everyone back, you goddamn motherfucking moron.
Just to clarify, it was Bruce‘s snap that brought everyone back, not Tony’s.And yea Feige confirmed that he deliberately brought everyone back safely. So they returned where they came from, unless returning to that very spot would have put them in immediate mortal peril.
We’re missing the real horror here: clearly at least a few people were having sex when the snap happened, and some of them must have been on the brink of orgasm. So basically, somewhere some naked guy snapped back into existence, possibly in front of a group of strangers, and immediately ejaculated.
the moment the snap happened and 50% of life was eliminated from the planet, there was immediately a planet-wide traffic catastrophe that killed 10% of the remainder, when all those drivers disappeared, leaving their cars driverless.
Five years later, all these people reappear in the street, in traffic. Another debacle, cars careening about. another 10%. When will the butchery end.
50% of life you say? So all the critters and shit had to reappear somewhere too…
Yes, and not just on earth. It was for the entire universe.
jesus, half the gut flora alone.
“there was immediately a planet-wide traffic catastrophe that killed 10% of the remainder, when all those drivers disappeared, leaving their cars driverless.”That reminds me of a chapter in Stephen King’s The Stand after the plague had wiped out 99% of the Earth’s population. Of the survivors, a certain percentage of them died in the weeks after from “accidents” (i.e. someone steps on a nail and gets tetanus and dies, someone slips and falls down a well and starves to death, etc).
I love you.
You do? Wait till I tell my therapist about this!
Hulk’s snap
Bravo! I wish that was his catchphrase.
You’re forgetting what would be the biggest killer: cars without drivers. Statistically, 50% of all cars on the road would instantly have become driverless
Well, we did see that helicopter crash in flames into a building at the end of Infinity War.
You’re talking about the Infinity War post credit scene where a suddenly driver-less car crashed into Nick Fury’s and an unpiloted helicopter crashed into a building.
Hulk’s snap, actually. Tony’s snap vaporized Thanos’ army.Keep up 😛
I think we covered all of this once. Bruce said to bring everyone back safe. So, if you were mid-air, you went to your starting or ending point, or the nearest spot on the ground below you.
The bigger beef is for people in the planes whose pilots got snapped and they went careening into the ocean or into a building (which we saw happen) Or nursing babies whose mothers disappeared and the babies fell to the ground. Or patients on the table whose doctors/nurses vanished.
Banner isn’t going to make a rookie mistake like that.If you can buy “guy wearing gauntlet with gems can make 50% of life vanish, violating most laws of physics” but not “other guy wearing gauntlet with gems can make them all reappear, but not safely,” I don’t know what’s wrong with your suspension of disbelief. This is the “they reappear safely” kind of narrative, not the “they all appear in deep space because the solar system moved over the five year gap” kind of narrative.
The great thing about art is that it’s always open to interpretation and my interpretation is that people died horribly (and hilariously) in the desnapping goddammit!However I am willing to consider the ‘magic wand fairytale happily ever after’ scenario in which people reappeared safely – much like Yelena did in that lady’s bathroom. Of course, given the 5 year timespan, many people would have moved on from their original residences meaning that millions of people would suddenly reappear in complete strangers houses. Obviously this wouldn’t be much of an issue in most nations however in the gun-loving, super paranoid ‘Stand Your Ground’ United States of America, it would be an absolute bullet-ridden bloodbath!
“Of course, given the 5 year timespan, many people would have moved on from their original residences meaning that millions of people would suddenly reappear in complete strangers houses.”This is exactly what happened with Aunt May, as explicitly detailed in Far From Home, so not exactly an issue we’re supposed to not think about.
We did see many refugees in TFATWS series.
The great thing about art is that it’s always open to interpretation and my interpretation is that people died horribly (and hilariously) in the desnapping goddammit!Except your interpretation is not supported by what’s presented onscreen in Endgame, Far From Home, WandaVision, & now Hawkeye.
people died horribly (and hilariously) in the desnapping#ThanosWasRight
If you can buy “guy wearing gauntlet with gems can make 50% of life vanish, violating most laws of physics” but not “other guy wearing gauntlet with gems can make them all reappear, but not safely,” I don’t know what’s wrong with your suspension of disbelief. This is the “they reappear safely” kind of narrative, not the “they all appear in deep space because the solar system moved over the five year gap” kind of narrative.I don’t know, though, it’s not a fairy tale, and it doesn’t want to feel that way. It wants to show us the gritty consequences of the Snap, not engineer some happily ever after.In this sense, yes, it’s wish-level magic. But I can buy that kind of magic working more smoothly (or at least differently) when it destroys than when it has to walk back that destruction.
Well, so far all the examples of the Blip show people returning safely.
Like in the middle of a basketball game, nobody was brought back in the same space as another person running through the court.
So it makes sense that Tony, now caring for everyone with a super genius mind said to the stones: “Please bring everyone that Thanos snapped out back, SAFELY!”
I mean technically, if they reappeared right where they left, they would be floating in space, but I see your point.
My head canon since they’ve said everyone was returned safely is that people in those scenarios rematerialized either at the closest place on land to where they were, back at the airport, or at their home.The disturbing implication still left though is that people who died as a result of other people disappearing weren’t able to be brought back, such as passengers on planes where the pilots were blipped. and people taking their own lives, etc.
According to Marvel Smart Hulk was…too smart for that. If he needs to move you when you got back in to a safe location he did. Otherwise you returned to the same spot.
Well also like, what if they remodeled the bathroom in those five years instead of just repainting? Could Yelena have re-appeared half stuck in a wall?
D’Onofrio being on Hawkeye and Cox (probably?) being in Spiderman all hitting on the same dang day is a masterful bit of timing. Helps that many fans have been clamoring for them to come back.Now, fingers crossed similar rumors about Krysten Ritter returning as Jessica Jones for She-Hulk pan out. It’d also be nice to see Mike Colter return as Luke Cage, he didn’t always have the best material to play off of but the actor himself is charming AF.The others? Ehhhh? I could take em or leave em.
I think you forgot to mention a certain lady Iron Fist
WARD. I want Ward back!
You mean the Ward that’s alive & we last saw travelling with Danny, right? ‘Cause the other Ward is so dead that his constituent atoms were literally vaporized in an outer-space nuclear explosion.
Yes. Ward Meechum.
Ok, cool, then I agree.(I’ve seen some really wacky folks talk about how much they want Grant Ward to come back again somehow.)
They could have done it by saying “we downloaded the good Ward from the Framework into an LMD body” etc. etc. if they’d wanted to bring him back for good. But I think there wasn’t enough mileage left in that storyline anyway, and trapping Daisy in constant love triangles wasn’t the best thing for her character.
Ward was the best character on that generally terrible show. Every time his dad or someone would monologue at him about evil schemes, Ward would be like “GOD FINE WHATEVER I DON’T CARE CAN I GO NOW” and it was delightful. He was just done with all these people and so mad that he couldn’t actually get away from them. Double-barrelling his dad’s purported surveillance devices was the best.
He started the series as just awful and I hated him, I though the was boring and dumbly evil. He ended the first season as my favorite.
Agent Nobody Wants Until He’s Not There
Wrong Ward lol.
Yes! After Charlie Cox, Jessica Henwick is my second most wanted Marvel Netflix transplant.
Oh yes! Certainly, I’d love to see that. I’d only want to see that incarnation of Danny Rand brought back if it’s just to keep dunking on him. But a Daughters of the Dragon series with Misty Knight though? Hook it to my veins.And come to think of it, while his series was so-so at best, the Punisher was expertly cast so if he can be brought into something with a better story then him too.
Isn’t Cox’s Matt Murdock rumored to be showing up in She-Hulk as well?
He is, yes, plus there’s the idd thing that this is supposed to be the 4th wall breaking She-Hulk, so I wonder if they’re going to tie this to the multiverse. The MCU is unchained!
D’Onofrio apparently (i have not read it, or where it was sourced from) made a statement to the regards “Don’t forget about the excellent Deborah Ann Woll”I say the rumours around Ritter returning for She-Hulk are 99% now.
Hogarth would make a lot of sense showing up in She-Hulk, more so even than JJ. But with one, you get the other. Assuming Bruce is only in the premiere – and then the occasional phone call, it would be nice for Walters to have a super-friend for back up. The only problem:Screaming Person: “Jessica!!”Both: “What?!”
That’s hardly a problem. That’s a gag good for four or five scenes, at least.
She-Hulk is Jennifer.
I knew that joke was too good to be true.
Don’t orry, Spiderwoman will be calling shortly
Maybe they could bring in Jessica Drew to make the joke work.
That is why the characters name is Jessica.
She’s a Jennifer, isn’t she? Spider Woman is the other main Jessica, I think.
Found it. It was from his very own twitter. At the start of the hawkeye series he put out a tweet in regards to being excited for the show. It could be just honest admiration, but at this point i am more inclined to say it is a massive hint at what is coming.
I think he’s right that Woll brought a lot of depth to her performance, but man did the writers go in some dreadful directions with that character.
Woll was saddled with so many contrivances that it’s a testament to her acting ability that she always seemed present in every scene. She was fantastic in Punisher was well.
Deborah Ann Woll is a serious board game nerd and is a regular on a serious board game nerd instructional video series with some other serious board game nerds (none of whom are Wil Wheaton). It’s spectacular.
I have no idea how this comment section could sound so civilized and calm right now.
Because once they showed Kingpin…I LOST MY GODDAM MIND!
I like how scaled-down this is. It’s mostly about Hawkeye getting home for Xmas
That’s kinda what my reaction was since the first couple of episodes. You have Sam and Bucky off dealing with super soldiers, Wanda vs. an evil powerful witch, and Hawkeye’s biggest problem at the time was having o deal with a bunch of nerds.
It’s really what they need to do to stay relevant. Especially after something like Thanos, you can’t really one-up a threat to the universe like that. Other franchises like Star Trek or Star Wars feel the need to have to have a world or galaxy-ending threat in every plot, and that’s where the relatability and original ideas die.
“Bro, he called us a bunch of nerds.”“Not cool, bro.”
mostly about Hawkeye getting home for XmasI wish it was. It seemed to be after the first couple of episodes. Now it’s become steeped in guilt and grief, like your regular dark superhero stuff. Is there even a point to Clint coming home to his kids for Christmas if he’s dead inside and feels like he deserves to be punished?
I think we’re meant to look back on those opening scenes in the context of the introspection he’s been going through. It’s clear that he wasn’t really ok, and in hindsight it feels like he’s trying way too hard to have a “perfect Christmas” with his kids because he thinks that’s what will make him feel complete again and let him put Ronin (and Natasha) behind him.
Florence Pugh is HILARIOUS in this episodethat is all
Hooooooly shit, the opening is a heartbreaking recontextualization of Nat’s sacrifice.
Ugh, I still hate most of this show – Kate Bishop is the worst – I truly don’t understand why we’re supposed to care about her at All, let alone her just ‘believing’ she’s good enough to be a superhero (all the other non-superpowered heroes in the MCU have been like, former assassins and secret soldiers and such? Not just good at college Nationals or whatever)However! Really like the different but not route they’re doing for Maya/Echo, and Yelena was awesome (it is funny how her fake Russian accent is just…easy to accept? Yet MCU-Natasha Had to sound like she’s from New Yawk or something?)I hope they give Yelena a better reason for believing some stranger over a different stranger who’s a superhero (did she not know who ordered the kill until she texted Kate? Sounds pretty dumb), but – if she thinks Clint is garbage for having killed people – does she not remember her own life? Or her sister’s (who then Was celebrated as a world-saving superhero)? Also, why does Maya think that her gangster father should Not have been killed? I’m guessing they used the guns and other weapons they’ve always had for Not murdering people? Ugh, dumb. (I mean, ACAB – obviously – but if her dad got shot in a raid by the police, would she swear vengeance on Officer Sipowitz or whatever?)
I don’t understand everyone’s desire to see Clint punished for his time as Ronin. He should take responsibility for it emotionally and in his self image, and he seems to have done that. But let’s be clear, the MCU is 100% clear that he was murdering his way through organized crime. And while that total lack of due process is unacceptable in any halfway organized society, Endgame’s early scenes made it very clear that society was barely functioning, and what functionality it had was largely due to the remaining Avengers holding things together. So we’re somewhat past the Batman threshold (It is generally wrong to be Batman, which is why Gotham is always basically a hopelessly corrupt failed state in modern fiction to justify the existence of Batman. Once you are past a certain point of social breakdown, that kind of private action because justifiable or even imperative.)His motives were impure, but he was doing a more extreme version of what the Avengers themselves were doing post-Snap. This weird “they must show us he’s been held accountable” is deeply strange. The guy isn’t Cletus Cassidy.
Put a different way – no fucking jury is going to convict him.
Did they ever explain why Clint & the kids were in NY without Laura?
So I could be wrong because it doesn’t seem apparent to me yet if they’re rebooting the Netflix characters albeit with the same actors – like M being Judi Dench in two different Bond eras – or just bringing that continuity into the MCU proper, which would be fine because I don’t think fans are gonna care that much if it doesn’t all add up and because the Netflix shows could all easily have taken place well before the snap (and also the MCU remains a master of retcons because it wasn’t nearly all as planned out in the beginning as a lot of people seem to think). But, it seems to me that a really good way to at least handle Kingpin and Daredevil’s reintroduction (these are clearly the two we know are coming back in even if we have yet to see Charlie Cox) is to keep the same continuity but have Daredevil have been snapped and Kingpin risen back to a powerful crime lord in the five years that passed. This would connect it to the Netflix show, which I think a lot of fans (myself included) would love because the show was so popular, but also allow for a soft reboot of the characters in the Disney+ shows. This would also save a lot of time establishing who Daredevil is and why he and Echo start working together in her confirmed series, which I’m assuming is kind of a given at this point. She’s out for revenge because he indirectly killed her father (there’s some sketchy stuff in letting Clint off the hook that easily but I digress), he’s in it because he thought he had Kingpin handled but then he got snapped and couldn’t do anything and that’s kind of all you need to say about the original Daredevil show before moving into new territory with him and any other characters they bring back. Also, and I know this is reading a lot into one blurry cameo, but I really hope this means they’re bringing back Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones (heard it rumoured she might appear in she-hulk). I will always love Daredevil, but Jessica Jones was always my favourite and Ritter’s portrayal of her was definitely equal to Charlie Cox and Daredevil.
Funnily enough, the only one of the main TV shows that’s *definitively* at-best MCU adjacent is “Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, and then only after the first three seasons. It finished up at least several timelines away, though, and a candidate for a TVA reset. “Cloak & Dagger” and “Runaways” are a bit grey-area, but could be folded in, especially with the multiverse in play.Feige committing hard to the multiverse, though, puts *everything* on the table. All the non-MCU stuff can be cherry-picked as they need, just like the Star Wars Legacy EU is being mined for things the current Star Wars universe can use.
I would say this, on the return of KingPin. I have a suspicion he is going to be the big bad for the MCU TV shows, to varying degrees. His actions will create issues in all of these.Hawkeye: Based in NYMs. Marvel: Based in NYShe-Hulk: Based in NYMoon Knight: Based in NYEcho: Based in NY Where, i would not be surprised, if we see the Netflix Characters big and small, make returns across all these new series. They are established and can be folded in with ease. What will be interesting will be the Luke Cage to Cloak and Dagger to The Runaways connection. Might we see more of the youth show up in the Ms. Marvel show? i am thinking specifically Cloak and Dagger if they were to extend the connection that far.
I like the idea of the Kingpin as an overall bad guy. The MCU needs better low-level, persistent villains.But it seems incredibly unlikely that they’ll bring in Runaways or Cloak and Dagger characters.
Small Correction (unless the Ms. Marvel show said otherwise and I missed it), but Kamala is a New Jersey-based hero.
I think Ms. Marvel is in Jersey City but that is still very close to NY.
Kingpin doesn’t really seem like a good fit for a major villain for some of those higher-powered characters.
I’m finding these Disney+ Marvel shows think their reveals are more surprising than they are. I mean, I’m sure some people watched the last episode and then this one and went “OH MY GOD WHAT NO WAY” but I reckon most of us, who’ve been able to largely keep up with either the movies or relevant news stories, simply nodded their heads and offered a satisfied “Of course.”That’s not to say that the Kingpin reveal wasn’t cool. It was cool. It was very cool. I *am* excited to see how they incorporate this version of the character; I guess they’ll act like he’s a shadowy figure only certain people know about, but I’d love it it they go “no fuck it, everything that happened in Daredevil is now canon because why not” haha
I dunno, I think it’d be somewhat fair to think that Yelena’s ‘hunt’ might’ve been saved for some future Black Widow/Hawkeye film or something – think about how long it’s taken some other MCU setups to pay off. How many years was Thanos teased for? Would they really set up a stinger for something to be resolved in a streaming TV show?That said, with all the ridiculous fan theories and hope/cope surrounding the other shows, WandaVision especially, I was fully prepared for the big boss to end up being Jack or one of Kate’s parents, even with the years of rumors of Charlie Cox’s involvement with the latest Spider-Man film. Just seeing a blurry picture of someone dressed like Fisk was enough to get my easily-excited fanboy heart pumping, even before there was confirmation it was D’Onofrio.
That’s such a ridiculous notion.
Yelena was in news stories; that wasn’t supposed to be a surprise. Fisk was only in leaks, though; that was supposed to be a surprise. I’d love it it they go “no fuck it, everything that happened in Daredevil is now canon because why not” hahaAlways was. That’s the status quo; a surprise would be if those events were removed from canon.
I was already loving this series but adding Yelena and her goofy accent is the best!
That ending was pretty great, and maybe my favorite use of “You’re a mean one..”.
“You’re a mean one, Mr-”“We don’t say his name.”
Kate’s apartment came out remarkably well. Very little fire or water damage.The thing that upsets me about Eleanor being involved with the Kingpin
is that I really wanted to watch her POV going forward. From, “My
daughter is a little girl,” to, “My daughter is an Olympic level
athlete,” to, “My daughter knows an Avenger,” to, “My daughter hangs out
with some of the most dangerous people on Earth.”
As for that Folger’s Commercial…
– FUCKING FISK’S BACK, BABY!!- Florence Pugh needs to be in everything. And Marvel, make Kalena a thing, you cowards.- I knew Val and Eleanor were real wrong ’uns, so the two of them being in cahoots with Fisk makes sense. The hints that Kazi was the informant that Fisk had lure Ronin to Maya’s father came as a surprise, though – I guess he’s looking after her out of guilt as well as (probably) love. Boy, is Maya gonna kick the boy’s ass when she finds out.- With this and No Way Home, today is a damn good day to be a Marvel fan.
“Yelena is right that Clint deserves to be held accountable for the horrible things he did during his Punisher-esque stint as a murderous vigilante, particularly in a world now eager to hail him as an unquestioned hero.”Does he though? Clint spent the years between the Snaps taking his grief out on murderers and traffickers in the underworld, people who deserved to be punished in a time when society was breaking down because half the world disappeared. He didn’t kill any innocents. What’s really the difference between what he was doing here and a black ops operation that he would have done back when he was in Shield?I get the guilt he feels for Natasha’s sacrifice, but as Ronin he honestly didn’t do anything wrong (at least not anything he wouldn’t have also done to bad guys as an Avenger).
It’s the judge, jury, and executioner thing that makes him a bad guy, well unless you also think that Judge Dredd and the Punishers are heroic characters in the moral right.
THANK you… it’s the same point I made a few episodes ago!I understand why Clint feels like he’s not a hero, and why he might want absolution — but that’s very different than needing redemption…
It’s been left vague what Clint actually did as “Ronin” but clearly we’re meant to think it’s something beyond the pale and not within the usual collateral damage and other killing he did as an Avenger. I’m not saying it makes a lot of sense or that there’s a consistent standard here but in universe everybody thinks what he did crossed a line. The fact that they never say exactly what he did kind of makes the whole thing not work very well, but the writers don’t seem to want us to hand wave it away since he only killed “people who deserved it” or whatever
It’s also a bit awkward in that pretty much every MCU hero kills people — the idea that they were going to hold to the unrealistic “heroes don’t kill” idea that often cropped up in the old comics went out the window as soon as Iron Man mowed down terrorists by the score.
I always assumed that it wasn’t really the killing but the brutality of the killing that made everyone uncomfortable in that it was clear he was doing it for emotional reasons and just going ham. They were concerned about his psychological state, not upset that he took down a whole cartel. I think that’s why they were ok with Clint rejoining the team for the time heist. And I think Clint actually feels bad that he let himself get carried away by grief and that now his former actions endanger his family rather than feeling bad that he took down the Yakuza. And of course mostly feels guilty that Nat had to die.
I think “do superheroes kill?” goes to how much of a threat the villains are to the superhero. The higher-powered and invulnerable the hero, the more careful they should be to avoid killing. This is why overpowered beings like Superman should be extra careful but also why I mostly forgive him snapping Zod’s neck in Man of Steel.
My hope for more tie ins from Netflix characters is bringing Jessica Jones in for She-Hulk.
Two episodes in and I’m finding this highly overrated. It’s…ok at best.
Nobody gives a shit what you think.
If you’re only 2 episodes in, maybe you shouldn’t be reading a review of episode 5.
Read? I don’t read articles! That’s for losers!
I think it’s the best since Daredevil. Wandavision was irritating. Falcon and Winter Soldier was dull. Loki was dull (except for Loki). What if? wasted an opportunity to do something interesting and turned it into table setting. This show, anyway, is way more coherent, plot-wise, than those others (as far as that goes in the MCU).
The cops dangling thread is leading to…well won’t spoil…but it’s in the trailer…you’d have to be blind not to see it
“Still, considering how much Hawkeye chose to make Clint’s Ronin guilt central to this season, it would be nice if it didn’t just wind up sweeping it all under the rug in the end.”The Black Widow movie swept Natasha’s acts under the rug and even let her save the life of the little girl she thought she killed, so why shouldn’t this show be any different? Hell, I thought the reveal was going to be that it was actually Jack in the suit when Maya’s dad got killed.
As a long time Black Widow fan,
I found it deeply satisfying to watch Yelena provide a crucial rebuttal
to Kate’s assertion that Clint saved the world. “No, my sister saved
the world,” Yelena counters. “Natasha Romanoff saved the world.” For a
cinematic universe that couldn’t even be bothered to give one of its
founding Avengers a goddamn funeral, it’s nice to see Nat retroactively
getting her due here.
I love Natasha as much as anyone but how did she save the world more than Clint, exactly? Or any other Avenger for that matter? They were all in this together and I don’t know what Yelena knows that we don’t.As for Clint’s time as Ronin, I get why some people would be upset by that, but a Black Widow assassin? The most famous motivation of Natasha was her “red ledger”; should we understand that Yelena has none? Or that she isn’t aware about Natasha’s? Or about how Clint helped her take care of it?I love Pugh’s performance (she was both funny and scary in that scene with Steinfeld) but her character was wrong about too many things in that scene, including stuff she shouldn’t have been.
I love the character work they do for Yelena via her costume. She’s got a tonne of accessories – bracelets, necklaces, brooches – that reflects her newfound freedom to wear whatever she wants, as discussed in ‘Black Widow’. Same with her almost child-like glee about doing the most touristy things in New York.Unless Jack is playing along with a plan of Eleanor’s, he really is the most chill guy. “No honey, it’s cool you called the cops on me, we’ll figure it out. Thai for dinner when I make bail?”
Yelena discovers Kate’s mom hired her to kill Clint. Didn’t Val personally enlist her to do so at the end of Black Widow? Is she being paid twice?
When Clint was in his serial killer phase, why didn’t
he just murder Kingpin? It seems he wasn’t Snapped since he told Kazi to
set up Echo’s dad. If he’s so concerned about protecting his family
& ending this Ronin fiasco, now would also be good time to make a
Wilson Fisk pincushion.
Val is probably the middleman/go between. Eleanor contacts her (probably with at least permission maybe even behest of Fisk) and Val then gives the job to Yelena.
Kingpin is probably too well protected. If he wasn’t able to fend off Clint Barton, then he’d make for a pretty poor Big Bad that he’s definitely going to be.
Seriously, what is Maya and Kazi’s deal?!?
* They grew up together and I think he’s always had a crush on her, perhaps setting up her father at a time he knew she wouldn’t be around. I believe Kazi’s plan was that he becomes the leader of the tracksuit gang, Maya, the grieving daughter, falls into the loving arms of her best friend and new boss. Or maybe it was just bad luck that she didn’t die with her Dad. Regardless, it didn’t work out the way Kazi planned. William’s death made her driven and Fisk chose her to lead both to allay suspicion and because she was the obvious choice – something Kazi didn’t expect.* Revisting the Amy March vs Emily Dickinson: Yelena seems to be firmly in the “Amy will ruin Emily” camp. But I also must acknowledge that the finale apparently includes a fight scene in an ice rink.* Speaking of Yelena: Me-lova Belova. No disrespect to Scarlett Johansson whose version of Natasha I came to love, Yelena is exactly what I wanted the Black Widow to be, including the slightly cheesy Russian accent. The difference between the MCU Natasha and the comic book Natasha is the overt passionate nature of the latter, a quality Pugh’s Yelena shares. The comic book Natasha was more openly alpha and intimidating, and embraced life and relationships with little held back. She could also be subtle, deceptive and strategic — she is a master spy — but her core nature (perhaps a caricature of the Russian persona) was forward and blunt, Johansson’s Natasha held her emotional cards close to her tactical vest.I still believe that Yelena hasn’t decided whether or not she will kill Clint, she seemed to be debating the decision with herself in her conversation with Kate. Her decision to track down Eleanor suggests that she is not absolutely positive that she should finish this contract and given Yelena’s history, she knows better than to immediately buy any story she is given.* Still not sure whether Jack is a cunning villain or a dupe — he looked far too nonchalant about his arrest. That means he is either sure he has a way out or that he is kind of dumb. The latter would interesting because if Jack turns out to be completely innocent, misunderstood and used by Eleanor, that means he might hang around as a character in Kate’s life, which would be hilarious. I’m thinking Jack would make a great (meaning awful) Alfred to Kate’s Batman.* Is Kate attracted to Grills? The way she ran down a quick checklist of his virtues suggests that she does.* Kudos to whomever thought to combine Clint’s sad walk to Grills house with the theme to A Charlie Brown Christmas.* They have definitely given the dog canine diabetes at this point.* I don’t have trouble believing that Valentina would work with people like the Kingpin. I get the feeling that she is more concerned with global threats and is obviously an ends justify the means type of person. * Who thinks Maya is going to end up with the Ronin costume and sword?* I’m sensing the show isn’t actually all that interested in taking Clint to task in anything more than a surface-level way…Which is… fine, I guess?It’s an interesting choice for the MCU (as is presenting contract killing as a viable career for former Black Widows) but its fairly conventional mores for action entertainment aimed at adults. The genre sometimes utilizes a killer’s code — if its business and not personal, that negates the need for revenge. Not sure why that would stop Maya from wanting to kill Fisk and Hawkeye, but obviously the MCU wants Clint to stick around as a character. But does that mean he is going to kill again or is he going prevent further killing? The answer to that question will answer how the MCU wants to address the morality of killing if at all.
I think Scarjo’s Natasha made sense for the first wave, she was guarded till the end, but we saw she cared deeply about her new family. Yelena I think works perfectly for this new batch of avengers, candid and silly, and living life on her own terms without having to constantly put up walls, just like her sister would have wanted.
I think Scarjo’s Natasha worked, but “made sense” implies a grand plan for the character that i don’t believe was there. Cast Angelina Jolie as Widow and and Ryan Reynolds as Hawkeye and the dynamic of the Avengers is totally different. Feige has great instincts and certain amount of vision, but his true talent is seeing what works and flowing with it. Imo, he flowed with the Natasha that Scarjo gave him.
that’s fair, I can’t really see someone else playing the black widow that ended up being my favourite avenger by the end except Scarjo, and she found a way to evolve the character with what little wiggle room she was given in the first movies to become the heart.
They need to keep Jack around. He needs to meet Mantis so we can have the MCU version of the Celestial Madonna arc…which will be hilarious. Especially if Gunn directs it.
“the slightly cheesy Russian accent”Which always makes me think of The Venture Bros.’ Molatov Cocktease, who I always assumed was inspired by comics Black Widow.
the show should have at least 3 more episodes. One more doesn’t seem enough. Oh well.
I’d have to watch the part where Jack gets arrested again. Who pointed him out to police? Kate? Eleanor? Did he notice that his stolen, fancy sword was missing after Clint left a while back?
With Echo being set up for her own show, I wonder what, if anything is going to happen between her and… “her uncle” by this next episode? Hmm.
Hasn’t Disney learned not to saddle a clear up and coming superstar with a fake thick foreign accent?
Between Bucky and Sam and Yelena and Kate, we will have absolutely no shortage of quippery in Marvel’s near future. Hell, Shang-Chi and Katy are gonna be left in the dust.
Pugh was fantastic, alternately hilarious and emotional. The Kingpin reveal was also excellent; maybe not a surprise but still great to see, and with a very fun musical cue at the end. This show has been nice and lower-key than, say, WandaVision, and I’ve enjoyed it just the same.
I really enjoyed this episode, but holy cow do they have a lot of shit to resolve in just one more episode!1) What’s going on with Laura Barton and the Rolex2) What’s going on with Kate’s mom, the boyfriend, Kingpin.3) Clint has to make peace with Echo and Yelena4) Clint and Kate have to get back together.5) Christmas at the Bartons
That’s not that much IMO. Seems like one big confrontation with all players which ends with 5-10 minutes left to let characters have quiet moments together would do it.
Good episode but man…Pugh’s accent was noticeably bad in this episode. Like I never really minded it much in BW but here it just kind of stood out.This show has delivered on everything I could have wanted overall. Kate is great, having Hawkeye deal with his Ronin past is great, Echo is setup well for her own series, the action has been good, Yelena (outside of accent) had been fun, and Kingpin is back. Show doesn’t even need to nail the ending at this point.
That scene between Yelena and Kate was gold. I do hope they can stick around in the MCU.The use of the Charlie Brown Christmas music was amusing. The use of the Grinch song made me go “HUH???”
There’s a version of the Grinch song with Kingpins name used…”you’re a mean one Mr. Fisk” so it was a nod to that
Story speculations notwithstanding, I’m just gonna say that I could have sat through an entire episode watching Yelena and Kate just talking to each other at a kitchen table. Pugh and Steinfeld inhabit their characters so well. Perfect casting.
I’ve seen a couple of replies here painting Echo as some kind of forced inclusion to the show or something, which is surprising because I thought it was made abundantly clear in this episode what her role is in this character study of Clint – she’s a reflection of himself. Both are weapons used by other people to accomplish their aims, both lost people dear to them, both have decided to go on self-destructive tears of vengeance in response. The difference is, Clint’s family came back, but more important he has an opportunity to pay forward what Natasha did for him before Echo gets in too deep.
It’s also worth noting that Echo’s general story here is pretty faithful to her origins in the Daredevil comics, complete with her connection to Kingpin and his manipulation of her as a personal assassin. You can’t do her origin without the big guy, so her inclusion in this story makes all of the sense for me.
I remember someone chewing me out because I said Florence Pugh wouldn’t just be “wasted” on Hawkeye, she’d get some good stuff to work with and in all probability would be a continuing character later in the franchise, so some nice (partial) vindication on that front.
I’ve barely had a second thought about any of the MCU movies this year, they’ve generally been fine but not something I think about later, but Pugh is so much fun. The thicker that accent gets, the more delighted I get. I liked her a lot in the BW movie and here I’m just having more fun than I’ve had in the MCU since Dr. Strange’s fight with Thanos.
The series needs to end on Clint and Kate walking into the Barton house as the family is getting ready for Christmas dinner. Music cue: “Every Time You Go Away”. The kids excitedly hug Clint. Laura and Kate exchange a glance, and Kate says “Hello, Mrs. Barton,” to which Laura replies, “Hello, Miss Bishop.” Then Laura embraces Clint and they share a long kiss as the camera cuts to Kate and she smiles, freeze frame and fade out.
On the other hand, I’m also worried that Hawkeye is conflating
Natasha’s death with Clint’s time as the Ronin in a way that will make
it easy for the show to handwave away the latter while only addressing
the former. Yelena is right that Clint deserves to be held accountable
for the horrible things he did during his Punisher-esque stint as a
murderous vigilante, particularly in a world now eager to hail him as an
unquestioned hero. She’s wrong, however, that Natasha’s death is his
fault. And with only one episode left—not to mention that pointed pivot
to focus on the informant who gave Clint the info he needed to kill
Maya’s dad—I’m sensing the show isn’t actually all that interested in
taking Clint to task in anything more than a surface-level way.
I’ve got to say, Yelena is certainly not in any position to be demanding accountability for someone else killing bad guys, considering she was a literal assassin for bad guys before being saved. Sure she’s helping free other ex-assassins, but that’s not exactly being held accountable for the murders she committed. That said, I am not at all interested in Clint being held accountable for killing bad guys. He’s done with that period of his life and he feels remorse over it, and that’s good enough for me.
I was afraid Yelena would confirm she really was trying to kill Hawkeye on the rooftop. The very first frame of film we see of her, she’s prone and aiming a scoped rifle. Not only does she go on an assassination mission differently from how they established, but she doesn’t even try to be smart and stealthy. She has a pistol, she could have shot him while he was distracted. It doesn’t make sense that she would get the drop on him and try to beat him up before killing him. When she finally takes her gun out, she aims it at Kate. When Clint steps between them, she doesn’t use the opportunity to kill him. Then Yelena throws Kate off the roof attached to a cable (why?) and then does absolutely nothing while Clint spends 21 seconds having feelings before cutting Kate loose. She looks really bad at her job.I rewatched the post-credit scene from Black Widow, and I’m reminded that Yelena has been working for Valentina for some time now, and is given her “next target.” Valentina is Yelena’s boss, Kingpin contracted Valentina’s org to put a hit on Maya’s father and Hawkeye. For what purpose will probably not matter. I’m curious how Kingpin isn’t in prison since his arrest was a big deal. Also, did anyone notice the change to the animated credits? The silhouette wasn’t there before.What’s up with involving Grills again? Why was Pizza Dog already there? Why did Kate return to her crispy apartment and not her aunt’s? If Clint was going to go to a hotel anyway, did he really just stop by Grills to eat some pizza? If Clint took the couch and Kate took the bed, where did Grills sleep? They’re taking really clumsy shortcuts establishing Grills. It’s like they added the LARPers subplot very late into production just to get a guy who can make them costumes. Maybe having a Hawkeye outfit at all was a late addition, too.
Speaking of narrative shortcuts, how did Yelena find out Eleanor hired her? And why would following her do anything for Yelena? I know they’re trying to establish Kingpin’s presence, but it doesn’t make any sense. Eleanor just happened to visit Fisk during Yelena’s limited time. She’s betraying her employer instead of doing her job. I imagine we’re going to see a US Agent vs Yelena story at some point.
Kate went back to her place to get whatever stuff was left. Her mom even told her to do it.
The season’s strangest dangling thread is that detective who called Kate to come in for questioning about her apartment fire. Why even introduce that subplot at all? My only hope is that it means we’re also getting the return of Royce Johnson’s Detective Brett Mahoney, one of my favorite Daredevil recurring players.I feel like this is a great time for charlie cox to defend her, since she won’t have access to her mother’s money I would assume.
Maybe I’m just so old that I remember watching the old Incredible Hulk and even Spider-Man TV shows, but I get the same sort of vibe from Hawkeye… which is great. I love the old school sleuthing angle, the buddy/mentor relationship (and my wife is THRILLED there’s not a sexualized component of Kate & Clint’s relationship), some fun action, hazy villains who come into focus. I’m not saying identical, just wisps of those old shows.I’m really enjoying the lowered stakes of Hawkeye, and especially watching Hailee Steinfeld do her thing, and now getting the opportunity to do it with Florence Pugh. If that’s the caliber of actor Marvel is wrangling (and Tatiana Maslany wuote soon), I think the future is hopeful for comix nerds.
I’m glad I’m watching because I’m just happy to watch anything with Hailee Steinfeld and/or Florence Pugh, but I’m a bit disappointed by the direction the show has taken. The first couple of episodes made me hope this was going to be a lighthearted action romp with great banter. And now we’re deep into guilt trips, grief, traumas, demons of the past, vengeances, betrayals, secretly villainous relatives. Except at a level of relevance so low that it can’t help but feel inconsequential.Couldn’t this just be Kate Bishop emerging as the new Hawkeye and Yelena as the new Black Widow (which is clearly the endgame) by fighting some villain that’s just a villain, without angst and heartbreak? Just for the sake of being heros? With Clint coming off of retirement to play the begrudging mentor role, Kate wanting to prove herself, earning Yelena’s respect, and yadda yadda.All these MCU shows start fun and end like they were written by Zack Snyder.
I loved this episode. I even loved Yelena’s “utterly ridiculous Russian accent” because… it seems perfect to me. I work with a Russian woman and I can’t tell the difference. (Except the woman I work with is not an assassin. Probably.)Even though we all knew and hoped Wilson Fisk would show up, I got such a thrill from seeing the photo, and Clint’s saying “Kingpin” so matter-of-factly was icing on the cake. Like “here’s the next inevitably terrible thing happening to ruin my Christmas…”(I’m finishing up a rewatch of Daredevil, which reminds me that Vincent D’onofrio deserves every award possible for his portrayal of Fisk. The MCU is famously great at casting, and I’d put him in the top ten at least.)
“In fact, these first five episodes of Hawkeye have proved to be a great test run for a series I’d happily watch for several more seasons.”No kidding. I’ve really enjoyed this show so far! And I had like no expectations. The only thing I’m worried about now is the finale, which the TV MCU has whiffed on with both Wanda and Loki… please no blue sky beam! (Seems unlikely.)Lot of threads will be left hanging, though. We’ll see. I’m hopeful.Oh and yes, Pugh and Steinfield stole the show, but I continue to be impressed by Renner’s low key tiredness and vulnerability.
Agree with all of this! This show, more than any of the MCU films, has made me truly appreciate both the character of Hawkeye and Renner’s portrayal of him. I am really enjoying this show – I only wish they would give these series more than 6 episodes to tell a story.
That is the saddest girls’ night ever. Sitting in a crappy apt eating out of the box Mac & Cheese? Why does Yelena speak with that heavy accent and act like she knows nothing of the US? She’s a world travelling assassin. Aren’t we past having Russians sound like Boris & Natasha?
This is my favorite Disney TV Marvel series to date. I like the lesser stakes and it is more grounded. But I am meh about the Yelena stuff..sorry. I do not like plots being driven by motivations that could easily be worked out if Yelena just talked to Clint first. She knows they were best friends and it seems a little to idiot plot that she would just believe some stranger over what she already knew, even if second hand.I am hopeful now that we will get Daredevil next week. He would seem to be the most obvious old Netflix hero to join the new Marvel-verse. The other Netflix characters? I am doubtful.