Hawkeye’s finale occasionally hits the mark
Despite some missteps, there's plenty to like in an action-packed episode with some moving character beats
TV Reviews Hawkeye
Six episodes in, Hawkeye has emerged as a show with very specific strengths and weaknesses. It’s good at character and comedy. It’s bad at plot and coherent morality. That makes this action-packed finale a real mix of highs and lows, as Hawkeye ties together its many dangling threads to wildly varying degrees of success. While much of “So This Is Christmas?” is fun to watch in the moment, it doesn’t retroactively elevate the season’s weaker throughlines in the way I was hoping it would. On the other hand, it does deliver a four-minute post-credits musical number as a holiday treat from Marvel Studios, so I can’t be entirely mad at it either.
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. While Hawkeye once presented itself as a sort of mystery box to be unraveled, here plot points just kind of roll out with a thud. As we learn in a particularly clunky opening scene, Eleanor first got involved with crime to pay off her dead husband’s debts but found herself addicted to the luxurious lifestyle and protection it gave her family, which is why she was willing to kill Armand and frame Jack to keep it. And while those are slightly weird choices for someone whose next move is to try to quit crime altogether, the bigger misstep is how little emotional weight they carry.
Given how much this series has been anchored around Kate’s desire to be a hero, you’d think the reveal that her mom is a murdering mafia stooge would have slightly more impact on her. But it’s strangely underplayed. My guess is that Hawkeye started life as a show that was meant to be much more focused on Kate and her family before wider MCU additions like Yelena and Wilson Fisk wound up pushing the Bishop family throughline to the margins. Because while there are interesting parallels to be found in the way that Kate and Eleanor dealt with the trauma of the Battle of New York by taking opposite paths to try to protect each other, Hawkeye unfortunately isn’t interested in teasing them out.
There’s a similar problem with Maya, a character who’s gotten a substantial amount of screentime this season but never quite popped the way the show clearly wanted her to. Though Maya was introduced as the character who would hold Clint accountable for the murderous vigilante justice he doled out as the Ronin (remember all those sweet scenes with her dad??), here her story pivots away from Clint entirely. Instead this episode positions her in a moral triangle with Kazi and Kingpin, which could’ve been a satisfying payoff for a season of television that put those three characters front and center, but certainly isn’t one for the season we just watched.
Indeed, Hawkeye’s decision to bring in Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk as a major player in this finale only to (seemingly) kill him off seems tailor-made to leave just about everyone unsatisfied. Those who didn’t watch Daredevil will be wondering why this random heavy is given so much focus yet so little backstory here. Meanwhile, those who were excited to have the character back will almost certainly be unhappy about how unceremoniously he’s taken out by Maya.
Of course, leaving his death offscreen gives Marvel wiggle room to bring him back again if they want to. (A spin-off series for Maya is already in development.) But other than the fun of seeing D’Onofrio give his great physically intimidating yet emotionally stunted take on Kingpin again, pretty much everything about how Fisk is handled here is underbaked. The same goes for the way this episode pivots away from the Ronin throughline almost entirely only to briefly return to it in a final scene where Kate and Clint burn the Ronin suit. So… trauma healed and murders forgiven, I guess?
Admittedly, that’s a lot of complaints about an episode I didn’t actually have a bad time watching. Part of that is because this action-packed hour doesn’t leave much downtime to contemplate its plot weaknesses in between all the explosive fun. While the action here isn’t as good as that incredible escape/chase sequence back in “Echoes” (and while the episode sometimes struggles to blend violence and dark comedy in the way it wants too), it’s mostly a good time. Kate and Yelena’s Princess Bride-style respectful friend fight is particularly charming. Meanwhile, Kate having to literally rescue Clint from a tree is a great, absurdist touch.
And while this finale has a strange amount of hand-to-hand combat for a show about two archers (not to mention an almost comically endless stream of goons), it nicely elevates Kate and Clint’s dynamic into a real, purposeful partnership—one where they are actively, rather than haphazardly, working together. Kate never loses her insane “leap before you look” mentality, just as Clint never loses his “I’m too old for this shit” attitude. But that’s exactly what makes them such a solid fit as partners. Their sweet post-battle conversation by the ambulance offers a perfect mix of wry comedy and earnestness that does feel like fitting season-long payoff for the show’s central relationship.
Which finally brings me to my favorite thing about this finale and probably my favorite thing about this series as a whole: The seriousness with which it treats the death of the last person Clint considered a true crimefighting partner, Natasha Romanoff. It’s something Endgame didn’t do in its rush to center Tony’s sacrifice above all else. And it’s something her own solo film elided with a random midquel side quest that was mostly focused on introducing other characters. Here, however, Nat’s death finally matters. And as someone who’s deeply invested in Black Widow as a character (and particularly invested in her friendship with Clint), I found it genuinely emotional to watch Clint and Yelena (literally) fight through the pain and trauma of losing her.
One thing Marvel has always excelled at is using tiny beats to flesh out the depth of Clint and Nat’s friendship. And that’s exactly what this episode does when Clint deploys the Romanoff/Belova secret sister whistle as a way to let Yelena know just how close he actually was with Nat. “She talked about you all the time,’’ absolutely destroyed me. “You got so much time with her,” somehow topped it. So even though it does sort of feel like halfway through the season the writers realized the Black Widow stuff should swap places with the Ronin stuff as the major emotional throughline of the season, the clumsiness was worth it for the poignancy of the Clint/Yelena scene. Clint bringing home Kate as a “stray” for Christmas fills the hole that was left in her life by her mom’s heel turn. But it also helps fill the hole in his life that was left by Natasha’s death too.
So where does that leave Hawkeye as a whole? Like pretty much all of these Marvel Disney+ shows (even WandaVision, which was probably the best of the bunch), it was a series that never quite lived up to its potential. Still, despite some obvious missteps and plot clunkiness, I had a lot of fun spending time in its comedic, holiday-themed corner of the MCU. It’s a series that was helped along by its lower stakes and hang-out vibes, and one I’d happily return to if we do wind up getting a second season. Of course, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that I was already a Hawkeye fan going in. But I suspect our Hawkguy and his new partner managed to earn some new admirers along the way too.
Stray observations
- It’s funny that there was such a buildup to Kate and Clint getting their new costumes when almost all of the show’s marketing already featured them in those purple suits.
- Given how much the missing Rolex winds up being a “Laura Barton was part of S.H.I.E.L.D.!” Easter egg, I think it was a mistake to position it as such a central mystery back in “Partners, Am I Right?” (Also, what was up with Linda Cardellini’s schedule that she seemingly had to be green screened into all of those scenes at the end?)
- I also think it was a mistake to make the LARPers first responders, which feels like putting a hat on a hat of the “anyone can be a hero!” theme of the season.
- On the other hand, it did give us Jeremy Renner’s incredible half-laughing delivery of “We’re all gonna die.”
- While Jack Duquesne never quite paid off as a character (we barely even saw his reaction to Eleanor being evil!), Tony Dalton’s delightfully off-kilter performance totally won me over by the end. I’d watch his spinoff show in a heartbeat.
- R.I.P. Kazi. You died as you lived: With a very unclear relationship to Maya.
- Thanks for following along with this season of reviews! I also covered Loki, if you’d like to check out those recaps. Or you can find me over on Twitter for more sporadic Marvel opinions.
430 Comments
I just find it hilarious that Fisk lectures Maya about keeping a low profile yet decides to kill Eleanor himself and implicate himself with the Tracksuit Mafia and Armand’s death.
He probably watched the news 2016-2020 and realized if he does as much illegal shit as he can they’ll be too confused to arrest him.
Bro
That is the one thing that truly bugged me a bit. Fisk is too smart to go there himself.
Try not to question comic book logic.
That way just leads to madness. 😀
Pretty clear that he instead sent all of his people in and was hanging around on the off-chance that they failed.Fisk does seem like the sort of man who would think he can kill someone in front of Rockefeller Center and get away with it. He also seems like the kind of man who rarely observes any of the principles he articulates to his underlings. He’s a user, he’ll tell other people whatever he thinks will make them behave in the way he wants them to, but he hardly thinks that the rules apply to him.
His plan to have Eleanor killed failed. Then he stepped in. Like his, basically impervious to physical harm, comic counterpart has a million times.
Watching the scene where Fisk rips the door off Eleanor’s car, I’m convinced that D’onofrio was doing his impression of John Huston pulling Faye Dunaway’s character’s daughter out of the car at the end of the movie Chinatown.
Why is there a bow n arrow floating in the air next to the young woman?
It doesn’t, that’s not the grip you’re seeing. Look at the top picture. It’s the shelf(?) to rest the arrow on.
I never watched Daredevil so I didn’t have a connection to D’Onofrio’s take on Kingpin. But when his scenes popped up, I was like, ‘damn, this guy is a villian!’I hope that he makes it back into another show or movie, because I could watch him do bad things any time.
I 100% guarantee he will be back for Echo.
The question is, will Daredevil also be back for Echo?
It’s hard to imagine bringing both him and Kingpin back in the same week, then having Kingpin get shot by Maya exactly like what happened in the comics, then NOT having them both come back in her upcoming show.
You didn’t see it as much here as you did in the Daredevil show, but one of my favorite character choices is that, more than any other MCU character except The Hulk, D’Onofrio’s Kingpin fights like a gorilla. In the comics he is sometimes shown practicing judo or other martial arts, but for me at least, it is MUCH more frightening to see him hurl himself at his prey and batter them with his huge fists like a wild beast.
It’s also a charmingly realistic take on combat. Everyone else is a lithe, svelte world champion martial artist with superpowers, and (until now) Kingpin’s superpower is just… he’s fucking big dude, and he’s reeeaally angry. Which I think is frightening to the audience in a much more visceral way. It’s one thing to intellectually think “oh, that guy’s going to be dangeous, he has some amazing karate!”… it’s another to see a guy who’s 6’4 and 220lbs* and going absolutely apeshit. Our hindbrains automatically recognise that as something to run away from, no backstory required![sidenote: fucking hell, D’Onofrio is 62!? I don’t know if it’s his personal trainer or his costumier and make-up artist, but someone’s doing their job well!]*for context, going by the internet, he’s pretty much exactly the height and weight of the current IBF, WBA, WBO and IBO heavyweight world boxing champion… although I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s actually heavier in this role, or dressed to appear that way. [he was 280lbs in Full Metal Jacket, apparently…]
D’Onofrio is an absolute powerhouse in this role, but physically, they got it right with Michael Clarke Duncan.
He was only an inch taller than D’Onofrio! He was heavier for most of his career, though.
Dinofrio may be 6-4 and 220 pounds but I’m pretty sure Kingpin, even this non comic version, is waaaaay bigger than that
I’ve never seen Daredevil so I’m not familiar with the character. I figured he must have had an actual superpower given that the “too dangerous” arrow blew up right underneath him and he wasn’t fazed, but I guess not? It was weird. I don’t understand why they didn’t bring him in at the beginning instead of the low-level bad guys. I think he would’ve made a bigger impact.
He’s a trained sumo wrestler in the comics, right? I loved that just shoves Kate and she flies across the room.
Daredevil is certainly a show with flaws, but it’s worth watching at least the first season just for D’Onofrio. It’s a majestic performance: frightening, repulsive, and yet also understandable and even sympathetic in a way. He’s like a cross between an emotionally stunted child bully and the hero/villain Shakespearian tragedy…
Watch it until Punisher is arrested and you’re good. I personally like Season 3 as well but the first season and a half are what I’d really recommend in general.
Daredevil is the best of the Netflix shows over all, but the best season is far and away Jessica Jones Season 1.
All three seasons of Jessica Jones should’ve been like four episodes shorter. Great stuff, but so much meandering.Same can be said for most of the Netflix shows but it’s at its worst with JJ because the characters have to transform into morons for a bit there to make their decisions make sense and pad out the runtime.
I still hold that first season of Daredevil as the BEST Marvel show to date. First season of Jessica Jones is a close second.
Which tracks because, while my knowledge of DD-Kingpin in the comics is not encyclopedic, I know that whenever Kingpin actually got ahold of DD or Spider-Man, he wiped the fucking floor with them.
Only until Spider-Man stopped pulling his punches, took off his mask and gave Fisk an in-prison beatdown for the ages.
His take on Fisk is masterful in the Daredevil series. I have to admit, I didn’t find the same gravitas in this portrayal. In Daredevil there’s a good tension created by his extreme wealth, sophistication, intelligence and emotional vulnerability regarding people he cares about, that contrasts with his extraordinary violence when crossed.This version of him has him starting as being somewhat less accomplished, with an office in warehouse, instead of a penthouse. But, damn, I have to still give props to D’Onofrio for pulling off that “simmering rage” cheek twitching.
D’Onofrio, Evans and Hemsworth are the best casting in the MCU, IMO, as far as tracking tne closest with the comics. In my head anyway. Hugo Weaving too.
I think I’d add Josh Brolin to that list.
Having not watched Daredevil either, here were some parts where I was like “THIS is your bad guy?” Then he kicked the crap out of Kate and I was like “Oh, I get it now.”
So this was pretty great as a tv show . It would have made a better 2 and a half hour movie ,all you need would be a bigger budget . All the parts were here .Some trimming and more cash and you would have a hit at the box office. I like how Fisk had his cane and was BIGGER than other characters , looks like a combo of bulking up and how he was filmed The mid credit brought a smile to my face ,although I as expecting to see some one sitting in the back with a smile on his face uttering the line “Not Bad”
Thank Norman Osborn, it’s Siede.First, anyone who truly believes Kingpin is dead needs to have their TV-watching license revoked. C’mon, really?I think you zeroed in on the disconnect in some of the reviews I’m seeing.
It’s time to accept that Disney+ isn’t making puzzle box shows. Making that watch Laura’s is perfectly acceptable. She was an agent who infiltrated the underworld and that watch would identify her. Full stop. (It also explains why she has to hide, while Clint and the kids can gallivant around)
I do think the show finally just decided to walk away from the Ronin stuff. I personally would have loved a scene where Laura says to Kate, “You know what I was doing when I vanished? Putting mayo on a hot dog. That’s how absurd it was. If I had been left behind? With our skills? I do the same thing. Clint doesn’t have to apologize to me or anyone else. This is the life we chose.”
Here’s why the MCU works. On paper, that scene with Yelena and Clint reads just like Superman and Batman’s fight, except it’s a whistle instead of “Martha!???”
Except they gave us Yelena and Nat. They gave us Clint and Nat. They gave us Pugh and Renner and ScarJo. They let Renner – whose low-key style of acting means he will never get credit for just how fucking good he is – talk to a damn plaque and sell it. They let Yelena glare at JLD.
It all works.
As for the end-credit, I am a sucker for a well-placed troll and that’s the best one we’ve had since the Boner joke. Bravo.
But other than the fun of seeing D’Onofrio give his great physically intimidating yet emotionally stunted take on Kingpin again, pretty much everything about how Fisk is handled here is underbaked.
For me this tracked as a follow-up to seeing him bottom out, more or less, at the hands of Daredevil; if he were truly on his game, Wilson would be lording it over that Christmas party.
You have to imagine that the Blip was as weird/difficult a time for him as it was for everyone else.
Now that you mention it, finding out that Wilson got Blipped would explain a few more things.
I don’t think he did, because it doesn’t seem like Hawkeye is all that far past it, and it wouldn’t jibe with Kate’s mom having worked with/for him for years and years. But having half the world disappear, including on average half of the players in your criminal empire, would be hugely disruptive even for someone with his capabilities.
Fisk set Ronin after Maya’s dad during the blip; he survived the snap.
So where does that leave Hawkeye as a whole? Like pretty much all of these Marvel Disney+ shows (even WandaVision, which was probably the best of the bunch), it was a series that never quite lived up to its potential.
The one thing most of these shows have in common is that they could have really used one more episode to flesh things out. With pretty much all of them, after the second-to-last episode I was always thinking, How the hell are they going to wrap everything up in just one episode???
*********COMIC SPOILERS*********
———–Sidenote: When Grills first introduced himself early on my stomach dropped. I am so glad that they didn’t have Kazi didn’t shoot him in the head.
I don’t think it’s the number of episodes, but how they’re used. Once you drop the super-long credits, most of the episodes didn’t even reach network drama length. I enjoyed the show, but it wasted a lot of time it could have used to build characters (e.g., Eleanor, Kingpin, Maya).
I got a big smile from the mid credit scene but expected someone sitting in the rear of the theater, it was shot like that was being set up……
“Am I getting any damn royalties from this?”
The single best throwaway detail in Falcon & Winter Soldier was repeatedly saying that he was rumored to be on the Moon, both as a “Marvel keeping its options for a later Chris Evans cameo open” and as a “no, I think that’s my preferred in-universe truth”. I deeply hope it eventually turns out that he is up to something on the Moon.
I was so torn between being so happy Isaiah Bradley got his moment to wondering what it would have been like if he is there and hears a voice that says, “Captain Bradley” and it’s Old Man Cap, who salutes him.
Really, they could have put one of a dozen people in that cameo and it would have been hysterical or moving:
* Old Man Cap, as you said, with either an amused or horrified look on his face
* Scott Lang, who is constantly telling people he was there and then Banner turns around and says, “No… you weren’t.”
* Hawkeye with his kids again, sitting through it this time
* Yelena, welling up when Nat is there
* Falcon and Bucky being like, “Dafuq?”
* Darcy and Jimmy Woo, just because. They are singing along.
* TopherParker and GarfieldParker, having a man-date
* Mephisto
It’s a while since I watched the show where the drop from the first half to the second half was as steep as here. The writing was just idiotic, they introduced just random stuff at the last moment and didn’t pay off a single mystery established in the beginning. Like the Rolex because the Tracksuit mafia specifically went to the auction to look for it, then it was supposed to be a major piece in some big thing only to turn out to be just Clint’s wife’s watch? Or Kingpin coming around, apparently beign superpowered (?), hanging around in a home tiki bar (??) and then being the heavy in the Kate fight (???). This was just a staggeringly badly written show.To be honest, I could have at least rolled with that if the action was good, but it wasn’t. Especially their big action sequences here were really clumsy and bafflingly choreographed. And I’m not even going to touch on the fact that Kate and Clint clearly killed a bunch of people there.
The Avengers have very clearly always killed low-level goons (think of all the times Stark hit people with those small yet obviously lethal missiles of his) which really made the whole ‘Ronin killed bad guys’ arc come across really strangely.
That’s completely true. It’s just that here it came across so weirdly as Kate never seems to have a reaction to scenes where she is clearly killing someone. And with someone like Stark or even Clint it fit their character, but Kate’s supposed to be new at this.
I don’t think any of the trick arrows were supposed to be lethal. The exploding truck and miniaturised truck tho, those dudes are dead lol.
Jeez, it’s a TV show, so lighten up, Francis!
The comics tend to draw a line between Wolverine killing people in the heat of battle and the Punisher just being a serial killer. Wolverine wouldn’t execute a surrendering henchman but Punisher would unless he specifically needs to interrogate him or something.
really made the whole ‘Ronin killed bad guys’ arc come across really strangely.For real. Although, to be fair, the “Ronin killed bad guys” arc ultimately deflated into a shrug. Turns out murder is okay, as long as you have a very devoted fangirl reassuring you you’re still her hero.
Murder is ok in MCU as long as you’re not doing it because you’re sad that your family died.
Jesus Christ, as I keep writing about this, I keep getting worked up how absolutely idiotic the writing on this show was. So I will continue venting about it, feel free to ignore.Why did no one on this show have a human reaction to anything? Hell, when Kate shows Eleanor that video, Eleanor doesn’t seem to have any questions at all why Kate had that in focus video shot from a really weird angle that had that extremely incriminating discussion. Have the writers of this show ever spent any time with other human beings?
Eleanor’s initial reaction to the video’s fine—she’s in elite black hat corporate security after all.If you want to pull threads on why characters act the way they do, why when Eleanor says that Kate’s dad owed Kingpin money to explain why she’s working with him in the context of Kingpin trying to kill her for ending that relationship, does Kate not think that maybe Eleanor’s at least somewhat a victim in all of this?I.e. defining a hero as ‘somebody who’s willing to do what’s right no matter the cost’ may sound great coming out of Kate’s mouth when she says it to Clint, but when Eleanor doing the right thing earlier may have gotten her and/or Kate killed, it hits a little different, you know?
Eleanor didn’t say “you want me to kill a man and frame my fiance for it? Nah, I’m out.”She said “fine” and then did it. It was when her daughter was in danger that she walked. She was willing to do anything to protect her, however horrible.There wasn’t a lot of subtlety in Eleanor’s speech about consequences right before she was arrested.
There wasn’t a lot of subtlety in Eleanor’s speech about consequences right before she was arrested.
Right, and what I’m saying is that that’s starting with the story beat and working backward. And case in point, I’ll cite two examples:a) accept that for whatever reason that Fisk demands that Eleanor kill Armand. Why with a sword, the night she introduces Kate to Jack? If not for that, Kate has no reason to suspect Eleanor’s doing anything wrong.b) we don’t see Eleanor decide to choose Kate over Fisk, but when Eleanor meets with Fisk, she explicitly says Kate’s why she’s doing it, and does this without either talking to Kate beforehand or taking any measures to protect either of them from Kingpin’s inevitable reaction.It’s not even relatably delusional, there’s just no coherent character there. All the better to smooth out Kate’s choosing the Bartons as her surrogate family.
Kate was working with a fucking Avenger, which Eleanor was very aware of. Why would Eleanor even question how the video was gotten? Obvious Avenger shit. She’d assume it was Clint in the least.I have no issue with Eleanor’s reaction. What I do question is how Yelena got hidden cameras into that room or why she would even bother to.
What I do question is how Yelena got hidden cameras into that room or why she would even bother to.
Perhaps Yelena could have hacked into Fisk’s security cameras for the video and Eleanor’s phone for the audio. Both surveillance tropes are common enough in shows and movies.
That would have made the scene better? Eleanor asks Kate how the hell she got that video, and Kate spends the next three minutes explaining things that we already know from earlier in the episode, bringing the action scene to a dead stop. That would have fixed what you characterized as a clumsy action scene?
Spending time with actual human beings is a reason to get booted out of the Marvel writers’ rooms.
You are a miserable fuck who hates joy. Someone has to tell you this.
Okay? Do you feel better now that you got that off your chest?
I do. Thanks for being here for me.
Dont bother criticising anything where ‘joy’ and ‘fun’ are used to mask terrible writing. Especially a Disney product.
Oh look, the miserable fuck has another miserable fuck trying to stand in front of him.
I’ve been here for every episode and this miserable fuck has been nitpicking, whining and carrying on like the worst stereotype of every nerd ever. It’s tiresome.
Not everybody slobbers down everything Disney throws at them. If you blindly liked it and think its perfect good for you. You loved it that’s what matters. Why are some perceived flaws and criticisms that others believe they see so upsetting to your psyche. Out of everyone I only see one person resorting to personal attack’s on a real person in defence of a fictional show.
Not everybody slobbers down everything …If you blindly liked it… I only see one person resorting to personal attack’s You might need to get your eyes checked, then.
How so..‘Not everybody slobbers down everything Disney throws at them’. Not directed at him merely a statement.‘If you blindly liked it and think its perfect good for you’. Pay Careful attention to the word ‘if’.Somehow that’s comparable to calling two different people miserable fucks for having the audacity to have a problem with the show or episode.
if he’s a miserable fuck for believing audiences deserve even semi intelligent writing from the shows we watch, color me miserable too.
OK, you’re so colored. Was it everything you dreamed of?
at what age did you realize your learning disabilities were actually a symptom of your autism?
it’s so interesting how disney fans are incapable of imagining that anybody who doesn’t like their funko pop shows can experience joy
While this show is nothing to get emotionally upset over, he’s uh not wrong. Which may not be the point, but I can imagine disliking this show and being fine with other people’s enjoyment aren’t mutually exclusive.
Like the Rolex because the Tracksuit mafia specifically went to the auction to look for it, then it was supposed to be a major piece in some big thing only to turn out to be just Clint’s wife’s watch?It had a SHIELD insignia on the back and the number 19, which indicates that Laura Barton is the MCU’s version of Mockingbird, who is a high-level SHIELD agent, and, in the comics, 40 years of constant relevance, including being a founding member of the West Coast Avengers, a team that also featured, at various points, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Vision, War Machine, and Moon Knight, all of which are the subject of previous or future MCU TV shows. It’s actually kind of a big deal.
But I’m sure Laserface1242 can explain all that mess better than I can.
And none of that means anything in the context of the show. It’s a really cool easter egg, but why would that mean anything to the Track Suit Mafia? How would that have allowed Maya to track Ronin down?
At a black market auction, presumably as well advertised as a black market auction could be, selling at least three lots of items recovered from the wreckage of the Avenger’s compound, there’s a watch with a clearly legible SHIELD logo on the back, and it’s “pinging.” That strikes me as reason enough for Kingpin would want it, and why he would dispatch the Tracksuits to lift it. It’s also HEAVILY implied that Hawkeye has history with Kingpin, and if Clint and Laura met while both agents of SHIELD (which seems likely) they might have even fought against Kingpin together.
Why it ended up at Maya’s apartment, just kinda sitting on a dresser, that’s a good question, but it didn’t bother me that much. I’ll fully cop to the fact that, having been an avid reader of Marvel comics in the 80s and 90s, I have a MUCH higher tolerance for plot threads that don’t get resolved for a LONG, LONG time, not to mention the occasional retcon that strains credulity.
Not saying by any stretch that a lot of your critiques don’t have merit, just that the Rolex-brand MacGuffin was a lot more than “just Clint’s wife’s watch.”
Oh all that makes snese and wouldn’t bring it up except in that raid at the auction, and if I am remembering this wrong hopefully I am corrected, the goons specifically say they are looking for the rolex. Then it becomes this tracking point of trying to find that rolex.Which in itself would have been fine, even if it had been just a memento, but after spending that focus on it for the first four episodes, it is odd how it just becomes an afterthought in the last two.
Maybe Kingpin knows it belongs to Agent 19, and is hoping it will lead him to her. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess I’m less prone to look at gaps in storytelling as “Plot Holes” and more as “openings to explore more stories down the road . . . or not.”
If it says anything, I was a big fan of Brian Cronin’s Abandoned an’ Foresaken column over at CBR.com back in the day.
https://www.cbr.com/the-abandoned-an-forsaked-archive/
But I’m fine with plot holes as there is no such thing as a perfect story. For example the ease with how everyone is able to find anyone in New York was pretty funny to me, but never distractingly so because there were moments when that just needed to happen.Having written that, if that’s how you enjoy stories, I’m not going to argue that you shouldn’t. However, I also don’t find it that compelling a counter-argument as it doesn’t address the criticism at all and just requires us to think that every plot detail that doesn’t make sense is just something that might be picked up later. So it’s never simply bad writing.
Yeah, it wasn’t perfect. As someone else in the comments (or maybe even the recap? Maybe it was you? What am I gonna do, scroll up?) said, the show feels a lot like one that was fully written and fleshed out with Clint, Kate, Eleanor, Jaques, Kazi, Maya at the center of it, with Fisk as the big reveal, and then someone said “Oh, we gotta get Yelena in there, too” and it blew up the structure. There were weird contrivances, and lots of blithe reactions to remarkable coincidences/occurrences. But overall I enjoyed the shit out of it, and just don’t have the heart to dissect minutiae and split hairs. Overall, I enjoyed the show. It was fun.
Again, I grew up in the 80s, when comic book media was just fucking terrible. If a show is as good as WandaVision, that’s remarkable. But honestly, I’m happy if it’s as good as an episode of Simon & Simon or The A-Team.
Would you go as low as Matt Houston though?
I’ve never seen a Matt Houston, but . . . yes.
I agree. And even if Kingpin was the big reveal, he hadn’t shown up anywhere in the show or any of the movies so it’s still a problem of trying to make too many MCU connections. I’ve never seen a minute of Daredevil and couldn’t have told you anyone who was in it (Ben Affleck?). So for me it was, “Oh that’s Vincent D’Onofrio. I like that actor.” I can’t imagine I was the only one. Still, it was a super enjoyable show for me!
Ok, but what about the watch itself is supposed to identify Laura more than the Ronin gear would identify Clint?
MockingbirdMan, I don’t think there’s an actor who was treated worse by Marvel than Adrianne Palicki. “Here’s your spin-off series. Actually, no, scratch that, you’re fired instead. And now we conflate your character with this other unrelated character that’s already cast.”
Hunter & Bobbi’s farewell episode was the first time Agents of SHIELD made me cry. It wouldn’t be the last time, of course. What a show.
She should have been She Hulk.
Just read this glop of misery:
You have a problem with the watch being Laura’s when that was clearly telegraphed all along? For how she knew all about it instantly? And she asked about it right away? You aren’t very good at TV watching, are you?
And you don’t want a strong woman to get something nice, is that it? Are you a sexist fuck as well as a miserable fuck?
Like the Rolex because the Tracksuit mafia specifically went to the auction to look for it, then it was supposed to be a major piece in some big thing only to turn out to be just Clint’s wife’s watch?Uh… that watch revealed that she’s Mockingbird. Or Kingpin coming around, apparently beign superpowered (?)He is inhumanly powerful in the comics. He’s beat the piss out of Spider-Man.hanging around in a home tiki bar (??)That was the warehouse were his office was. Even if you considered the Netflix shows as canon, which they definetely aren’t, the Blip would’ve done a good job of destroying most of his criminal empire. and then being the heavy in the Kate fight (???)I don’t understand this complaint. It was obvious after the last episode that it would be Clint/Yelana and Fisk/Kate as the final showdowns.And I’m not even going to touch on the fact that Kate and Clint clearly killed a bunch of people there.Ah, yeaaah. Have you watched the MCU? They all kill tons of people. Winter Soldier alone has a body count rivaling a Rambo sequel. They went through some effort to show Kate was shooting arrows into legs and shoulders but she also tried to dead center Kingpin. Killing people who are trying to kill you has never been a hang-up of the MCU. Ironman is basically the inaugural MCU you film and he kills a ton of people in it, even burning them alive.
And how does the watch proving that Clint’s wife is Mockingbird actually matter? Especially because seemingly it is just a watch that belonged to Mockingbird with nothing allowing it to be tracked to the wife? Why woudl Maya, a person obsessed in finding Ronin, consider finding Clint’s wife to be crucial for that?Oh great, he was also pretty strong in Daredevil show. Where he didn’t rip out car doors, kick people across the room and survive massive explosions. By the way, a curiosity question, if I showed that scene to a random person who didn’t read the comics, do you think they would just assume that was simply a really strong regular guy?As for the office, Yelena didn’t follow Eleanor to a warehouse. I don’t even know where you pull the warehouse for as a defense for this.And finally for the killing, as I pointed out in another thread, I don’t think it’s a cardinal sin in MCU. In this show, it felt odd, as it was about Clint warning Kate not to be a killer and her never showing any reaction to obviously having killed someone.
But the entire moral of this show was Killing bad guys is wrong. They burned the Ronin suit. And Kate is a college kid hobbyist, not a hardened soldier. How is she brushing off taking multiple lives like it’s nothing?
It was clear that the watch belonged to Clint’s wife in the first half of the show, and that it could be used to identify Clint’s family and track them down. The only ambiguity was whether it had special powers, and we still don’t know that it doesn’t.And while I’m sick of the “murder in self-defense” thing that keeps happening IRL, under the circumstances I think Clint and Kate have a reasonable claim to be defending themselves. They did show a lot of shots that would probably cripple someone (“my entire leg froze off”), but fewer that definitely killed.Those guys in the truck that the owl got are in trouble, though.
I thought the action was good in spots, like tracking Kate and Yelena fighting through the apartment. But I too was frustrated with how the writing stitched this show together. Wasn’t a cop looking into Kate’s apt fire? Are you telling me a man like Wilson Fisk would hire and put up with the Tracksuit Mafia’s incompetence on the regular? Nothing about Eleanor made sense to me. Just a lot of weird choices.
Looking back on the action, I realized that my issue with it is a bit more complicated and that Kate/Yelena fight is actually a great example of what the show struggled with.I think that fight scene was absolutely gorgeously shot, and that applies to a lot of the action scenes aside from that rooftop fight. However, they use this generic choreography to everything which means that the fight scenes feel very separate from events that is happening. So for example in that fight, in the second half of it after the Clint check-in, the story should be that Yelena just wants to move past Kate without hurting her while Kate is trying to slow Yelena down. However, if that scene was shown to someone separately, there’s absolutely no way would interpret it that way, which is a shame as that would be a really neat fight scene.That lack of really inventive fight scenes is a compounding issue with the show as it results in every character feeling physically the same, Kingpin I guess being the exception, as none of them feel like having their own styles or action identities.
I agree that there were a number of inconsistencies. The tracksuit mafia might not fit with the boss (we only got a brief bit of the character here). But they were a highlight for me and definitely fit the tone of the rest of the show. If anything, the boss didn’t fit that tone. I enjoyed the show overall, but it came up short of being great for me.
Why the hell are you so worked up, it was a perfect level Hawkeye comic book show.
The whole point of this series was to feel more Die Hard than John Wick, when the finale includes a gigantic christmas tree falling with the protagonist, were you expecting Shakespeare afterwards?
This show was so great. Top five MCU for me. Finale stuck the landing. A few wobbles (I’ll agree the watch was not a deft throughline, why did the bros want it in the first place) but great acting, lots of fun, holy shit give me a Yelena and Kate Bishop series. Terrific.
Kingpin told them to get it. It’s not any more complicated than that. I mean, you can head-canon it if you want.
Laura infiltrated Kingpin’s organization and got out just before he identified her. He has been hunting for her. (Give or take some blipping) When he got word a Rolex with a SHIELD logo on the back was up for sale, he ordered his yahoos to get it.
This would also solve why Clint and the kids can go running around NYC, but she can’t. How many people still alive, in the main timeline and on Earth, other than Clint and his kids, do we know for sure knows the identity of Clint’s wife? I think it’s just Fury and Banner (and now Kate) that we are sure about.
Yah, for sure. I like your idea of Laura haven’t actually been a double-agent or deep undercover in Kingpin’s organization. I was thinkingthe same thing about Clint and the kids.Although.Why does the Rolex exist? Why didn’t she just destroy it lol
Fair question. Clearly, it’s got a tracker on it, so it was probably used to have Laura check in or be checked in on. As for why it wasn’t destroyed, my take is that Clint kept it for sentimental reasons (or, in the beginning, when no one realized what was up, kept it so she could find him if she came back) and had it with him when Thanos attacked Avengers Compound.
It ended up in some rubble and they thought it had been destroyed.
kept it so she could find him if she came backyeah, makes sense enoughclint didn’t count on the magic of CELL PHONES 😉
That would’ve been interesting. I wish they’ve would’ve actually done that in the show, though.
“(Also, what was up with Linda Cardellini’s schedule that she seemingly had to be green screened into all of those scenes at the end?)“Yah, it does seem that way. Covid? Schedule? Who knows. Linda c spent the series acting to a phone and alone, and still crushed it. Can we get her being a badass superhero spy already???
I’d like a series with her and Ned being the ‘guys in the chairs’
The watch said agent 19. That means she’s Mockingbird. I doubt we’re going to see Cardellini going all Mockingbird on mofos. We can hope though.
It means she WAS agent 19. Mockingbird is Bobbi Morse, specifically.
Apparently she was filming “Dead to You” season 3, so that’s why all her scenes are on one location, and you know what? they worked so well. It’s kinda crazy how a character can have so little backstory but the performance just elevates the dialogue -of two people not even in the same room- so much. You could feel that level of trust between Clint and Laura as if it was an old thing, but beyond their scene on AoU, this is the first time we even see them doing this.Proof you need a really talented performer in such a a simple role, she really elevated the material. But if the season had ended with a failed home invasion that Laura singlehandedly thwarts, that would have been so awesome.
She’s great as a series regular in “Muppets, Now!”
I watched the end again. She doesn’t quite look green screened, but it seems obvious with the way they framed the shots that she and Jeremy aren’t sharing the same space. It’s unclear.
On a positive note, at least the Yelena/Kate dynamic continued to be superfun even if I was a bit annoyed that Kate was able to hold her own against Yelena. Although I guess it can be kind of handwaved away and the show’s approach to skill levels has been odd as well. The chemistry was still there.However, I don’t understand so many of the choices the show made with Yelena. So somehow she is simultaneously been hired to kill Clint, which would make her an active contract killer despite previous indications of wanting to be free of that life, and has her own personal vendetta to want to kill him. I mean why was it necessarily to add the contract stuff, I mean aside from the really lazy plot contrivances to get that video, as everything could have just been smoother if Yelena was seeking vengeance against Clint?Then there is that final discussion between Clint and Yelena which was absolutely bonkers as the direct implication there was that Natasha had told Clint about the sisters’ childhood together, but apparently not about them having found themselves again? As in that situation I can’t figure out why Clint would bring up the airplane story without any reference about how glad Natasha was to be reunited with her sister? Again, the writers made these baffling choices in situations it felt like there were so much easier options available.
It was less of Kate holding her own and more Yelena just not having any interest in fighting, and Kate not being her objective. Kate was more of a slight annoyance on the way to do the thing.At least that is how i read the situation.
That’s the handwaving I referred to. And it wasn’t that big of a deal, I think it was more of an indicator of the general issues this show had with combat choreography. So for example the scenario you are describing, and by the way I suspect that was the intent, was could be read from the story, but not from the how the scene itself was played out.
I don’t think creators need to spell everything out, they trust the audience enough to figure some things out. This is a case of that.
Asking for the fight scene to effectively tell a story is not same is requiring the creators to spell out everything. If that was the intent of the scene, and to repeat myself I think it was, the fight was badly made for that purpose.I could similarly that the audience doesn’t need to excuse the creators for not succeeding in telling the story they intended.
The fight scene told exactly that story. It was not even a “fight” Yelena was moving forward, and Kate kept on trying to get in her way and Yelena kept knocking her down. From where i stand, this was really easy to follow and see what they were trying to do with the scene.
I’d recommend you go and watch the fight scene as that’s not how it plays, I personally just did to check if I remembered it incorrectly. That’s the first half of it, but when they have Clint contacting Kate again, that’s not the dynamic. It’s actually a pretty traditional scene there where Kate is actually the one leading and Yelena only moves away from Kate at the end of it. Before that, she tries to strike Kate, who seems to easily dodge and gets actually kicked down by Kate from a direct angle.Will repeat this, get the purpose of the scene, but the execution was bad.
It didn’t work for you, fine. There’s multiple commenters here for whom it did work, loud and clear.
I did as well. As for Yelena being a contract killer. I’m guessing post-blip when she came back, finding out Natasha was dead just drove her to do the thing she’s good at, like the other Widow had done.
But she said it was really fun! So maybe not just an annoyance.
This isn’t a complaint, but a fair question to ask is why a character whose signature weapon immobilizes people without really harming them would not simply have left Kate writhing on the elevator floor. The MCU’s always been about starting from the story beats and working backward.
Yelena likes kate, and finds her interesting and knows she poses no real threat, so no need to use the weapon on her.
Liking Kate’s all well and fine, but Yelena is explicitly trying to kill somebody Kate cares about, and by the time she’s getting off the elevator, that plan already involves rapelling down the side of the building. How sure is she supposed to be that Kate’s just going to let that happen?
The vibe from Yelena was very, “You, Kate Bishop, are out of your league and I won’t let you stop me, but also I like you and I want to be supportive of how you’re doing right now, because you are doing very good, considering.”
The comparison to the Princess Bride fight dynamic from the review was spot on, I think.
I read all that in her Russian accent. Props.
Same, I thought it was quite clear honestly.
Yah I read it as Yelena not actually wanting to hurt Kate. She could have taken her out quickly if she wanted to, she was just a friendly annoyance.
Yelena just not having any interest in fightingAnd starting to fall in love, as the shippers would say. I’m just reporting it.
You’re assuming Clint knew. Nat goes from the end of BW straight to Infinity War at which point Clint is off on his farm. His family gets dusted and he goes off as Ronin. While she kept tabs on him as far as we know the first time they talk is in Endgame by which point BW is 5 years in the past an not necessarily something that would come up.
Clint and Natasha may not have been in contact between BW and IW. He was under house arrest, she was on the run. We know they weren’t in contact during the Blip, which leaves them to have all this conversation between her dragging his ass back to the compound, and her death getting the Soul Stone. There was only so much catching up they could on.
Fair point, although it still requires some gymnastics to get to work. Not an unreasonable amount, though.What I think it kind of all roots in, and this isn’t anyway the fault of the show, is how awkwardly the end of Black Widow fits in with Natasha’s actions in Endgame. For example I kept thinking that it’s kind of funny that Yelena meant this much to Natasha, but the latter still didn’t bother leaving any message behind for her sister. Or even tell Clint to deliver a farewell of any kind. Again, not on the show and as bad as the writing in here was, for my taste at least, I will admit that this would have been a really hard hurdle for anyone to handle.
And just after I finished writing my first response it hit me why they made this choice. I think in their logic if Clint had known that Natasha had found Yelena and that they had liberated the Red Room, he would have sought out Yelena to tell her what happened with Natasha. Which is a reasonable point of view.The kind of conflict, which is that lack of fit between the movies that I mentioned, is that for this to be true requires Natasha not to have mentioned in anyway the biggest event in her personal life to Clint at all. And even if they had limited time together, that seems like such a massive thing to not say that it really strains the suspension of disbelief.
I think in their logic if Clint had known that Natasha had found Yelena
and that they had liberated the Red Room, he would have sought out
Yelena to tell her what happened with Natasha. Which is a reasonable
point of view.
Yeah. I was thinking about this after the last episode, and I think the basic bones of it are that Clint was on house arrest during Infinity War and disappeared after the Snap and for whatever reason when they reconnected in Endgame, it just never came up.Still can’t really reconcile why Yelena’s first attack on Clint was masked and apparently intended to beat him to death, or her second was to just shoot him from outside of a building he was in, and the whistle was a bit much, but most of the scope about what Clint knows about Yelena seems fine to me.
So somehow she is simultaneously been hired to kill Clint, which would make her an active contract killer despite previous indications of wanting to be free of that life, and has her own personal vendetta to want to kill him.That fact that Yelena returned to contract killing was made explicit in the episode where she returned from the blip. That was the “work” her friend said she could find. The post credit scene in BW showed Yelena had continued her assination work in the interim. Seems like they walked over Valentina’s involvement at pointing her at Clint mainly because they were like, hey, we have Kingpin (and Daredevil) back so we’re going to adjust this a bit. As in that situation I can’t figure out why Clint would bring up the airplane story without any reference about how glad Natasha was to be reunited with her sister? That I fully agree with. I expected Clint to reference what happened in BW, Nat and Yelena finding each other again, but his only reference was to when they were kids. As though Natasha never mentioned the events of BW to Clint after she helped free him from the Raft. In general the events in BW were a round about way to introduce Florence Pugh. Narrative logic aside, that’s a job well done, MCU. Pugh elevates anything she’s in.
“As though Natasha never mentioned the events of BW to Clint after she helped free him from the Raft.”
She didn’t do that, though. No one freed him from the Raft – he and Scott chose house arrest while Sam and Wanda decided to go with Rogers when he broke them out. Given the timeline presented it seems more likely that that happened before Nat went off to find Rogers at the end of BW.
I swear, there was a scene they cut that explained what Kazi’s deal was, and then they forgot to replace it with anything.
Yeah, I felt like he should have been the betrayer but then last minute died to save Maya? Or something like that? His feelings for her seemed very genuine so just fully abandoning her didn’t seem right to me.
The problem there is that what we see of Kazi’s behavior is pretty consistent and it’s Maya who misread the situation. But everything that led her to do so is in the background, either cut for time or the MCU’s sexlessness or saved for the spinoff.
Didn’t Tony bang Leslie Bibb practically on camera?
Yeah, the first movie in the MCU had Tony having sex with the skank reporter who sleeps with subjects. The very next one had Norton Banner refusing to go down on Betty just because he can’t get his own rocks off.
That’s kind of it until WandaVision when Wanda put the beds together.Clearly, Pepper and Tony had sex at least once and Clint and Laura at least three times, but other than that, we’re dealing with a bunch of virgins here.
He did- it’s why I found the talk about Eternals having Marvel’s ‘first sex scene’ odd…they had one in the first 30 mins of their first movie!
Leslie Bibb’s CHARACTER
That too
To say nothing of Luke and Jessica…
That’s probably the one element that didn’t work for me in this how.
I think there are a bunch of scenes they cut for time that screwed up their continuity, or just caused things to not make sense. Another egregious example is that at some point the show clearly had Maya going to that party, because in the scene where she kills Kazi, she has clearly got a full face of “going to a formal party” makeup on, and looks completely different from how she looks during the rest of the show.
Ah, that explains it. We were wondering why here hair was down and that would definitely fit with what you’re suggesting. Was a bunch of stuff reportedly cut from the show? Why?
It’s just rumors I’ve heard. The Maya going to the party one is just the most obviously supported by what we actually see on the screen. She looks totally different for no stated reason. And like most women, her daily makeup and hair routine is much prettier than her going to a fancy party hair and makeup.
Nobody believes Fisk is dead. Lol
Most obvious fake-out since they dusted Spider-Man right before his already announced solo movie was coming out.
“we totes panned up before the gunshot for no reason you guys honest lolz”
Well over a year before, but true enough otherwise.
My guess is she shot him in his bad leg.
He’s probably in the ICU with a bullet to the face. Nice opportunity for a nasty face scar.
If it follows the comics she shot him in the face. Which blinds him for a while. I expect the Echo series will pick up where that left off.
Echo with a pissed off Kingpin after her would be so awesome. And the flashbacks!Honestly a first episode where Maya is finding herself and trying to build a new life, only for the knowledge that the Kingpin survived and is after her? That would be so freaking cool as a set up.
Maya has her own show. My guess is Charlie Cox might be involved and so is vincent so Fisk will return
If anything he’s already on some secret operating table getting “enhancements” from the Power Broker so he’ll be all huge and crazy next time.
Maya should have aimed for the head.
1. Jack was hilariously low-key about everything; usually when someone is that blase about being framed it’s because the whole thing is a ruse, but no, he just figured he’d get it all straightened out quickly. And he did!2. I’m imagining Laura’s reaction to Kate being “Oh…you didn’t mention that your work protege looks a whole lot like a younger version of me. Well, anyway, Merry Christmas!” [Where’s Jack spending Christmas? — ah, with the LARPers. I’ll take that.]3. That musical number was terrible. It’s probably supposed to be, but I just found it painful.
I don’t know that I agree Laura and Kate look particularly similar but in another show you definitely would imagine Laura going ‘what is up with this’ to Clint bringing home a college-aged girl. I hate, hate, hated that musical number and have been surprised how much people on the internet talked it up in the episode it was originally in, but then I hated the song in the first season of the Witcher too so maybe I’m the weird one.
🤷 I love toss a coin to your witcher and loathed save the city. I get it’s supposed to be semi-parody but I don’t even find it listenable. Jaskiers tune was fairly short and didn’t have an entire Broadway number dedicated to it. As a plot point it served its purpose.
I think the problem is that the broadway number has no sense of structure – it just goes on and on, with no development, no variety but also not much direct repetition…
Sorry, thinking of Spamalot’s “This is the Song That Goes Like This”…
I a little bit wonder if they initially only planned the bit for the scene in that first episode and then decided to flesh it out for a post-credits things without rewriting/reshooting what they’d already done.That said, whatever anybody thinks of the song itself, putting it after the credits in lieu of a plot-driven stinger was a good call.
I suspect it’s the other way around: they did the whole scene and then thought “oh crap, nobody’s going to sit through all of this… fuck it, let’s just stick it in the stinger”.
“I a little bit wonder if they initially only planned the bit for the scene in that first episode and then decided to flesh it out for a post-credits things without rewriting/reshooting what they’d already done.”
I think it’s more likely that the whole song was written and shot for editing into the earlier scenes, so they had the full production already, and figured might as well show it off.It’s also kind of amazing to me that anyone somehow misses the deliberate cheesiness of that song as both a send-up of some over-the-top Broadway stuff while also being reminiscent of the kind oversentimental hagiography about departed national heroes that is all the rage among a certain type of crowd. Between this and the (attempted) upgrade of the Statue of Liberty into a Rogers tribute, I wonder if they’re planting a seed or two for a future story where his name/memory are being used for cynical or nefarious political purposes.
On one hand, it is totally a gag song meant to be goofy.OTOH that is a lot of effort for a terrible song =D
They probably wrote and shot the Broadway number as a digest of what the entire musical would be like, so they could use clips from it during the sequence in the first episode. It was cheaper and easier than to write and shoot five or eight different mini-segments with glimpses of a plot between them. When it’s shown in one piece, there’s some self-indulgence, but it’s definitely funny and it also mocks how musicals tend to pile on characters just before an act break.
And the hook was right there… individual New Yorkers telling stories of how individual Avengers saved their lives, in couplets. Otherwise, it was just a generic show tune.
yeah, i’m no musicial connoisseur, but like, watching hamilton, you get the repeated motifs and riffs quickly. Or Les Mis.
Yes, but on the plus side, I hear they can do it all day.
Well, if Laura was Mockingbird as some has suggested… she would have been a blonde when Clint fell for her, so he wouldn’t see a similarity.The musical number wasn’t bad, it was cheesy, very, very cheesy. Which is why I did enjoy it.
I found it more weird that Kate’s mom didn’t have any objection to her hanging out with a middle-aged man other than the potential superhero danger.
But, he’s not a man, he’s Hawkeye! Everybody knows that Hawkeye isn’t… you know… I mean… I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but… well, the public probably think that young women (and young men) are very safe around him, that’s all…
[cut to Hawkeye glowering]
She did hire someone to kill him.
I’m glad they didn’t go the familiar, obvious route of having Clint’s wife be all suspicious. Another show might have; another crappier show.
Oh god, a show like season 2-era The Walking Dead would have devoted half its runtime to it. Even a much better show, like Breaking Bad, would have at least gone there for a scene or two.
Clint is clearly one of those guys who is capable of, and maybe even prefers, being friends with women. His closest friends are Natasha, now Kate, and I am sure that Laura was his work wife long before becoming his wife wife. He brought Scarlet Witch into the Avengers. He is clearly someone who can talk to women without trying to fuck them, and Laura knows that. Besides, Laura could kill Kate before she knew what hit her if she got up to shenanigans with Clint.
I swear this exact take was lifted from a review for this on here a week if not two weeks ago… I’m not going to call you a plagiarist but I have a very hard time believing this is your original opinion here.
I don’t live in a vacuum, and I’m not going to say that I didn’t pick up some of that up out of something I read somewhere , or here. I read a lot of stuff, and if some of it makes sense to me I might repeat some or all of it, perhaps without even remembering where the thought came from. Looking back, last weeks article said some similar things, but by no means the exact same thing.
The real question is what kind of fucking weirdo are you to say that? Are you the Original Ideas Police? Because if you are, I don’t know how the hell you get anything else done. You must be a thrill at parties, constantly checking people on the originality of their chit-chat.
Guys – (not just you, but nearly everyone replying to this after you) – the musical number was CLEARLY a joke, and presented as one. Good lord. If you didn’t like the joke, that’s fine, but it was a parody of bad broadway shows, or at least the excesses of them. They why they put it at the end as a gag. Some of the lines are even jokes! (They introduce all the hero’s powers and then for Clint it’s like “he’s probably a really nice guy”
I didn’t like it, either, but I watched the whole thing hoping that there would be some surprise. But, nope. Just an icky musical number.
I believe it’s the hair, they both have the same curled hairstyle.
To me the musical number was funny for how terrible it was, but that’s asking a lot of the viewer. And I sort of cringed that this is what people will think Broadway musicals are like (though the tourist shows might very well be.)And it’s not like Marvel can’t make good in-universe music well, like the Falcon & Winter Soldier drumline or the Wandavision theme songs.
The fact it was so terrible, made it brilliant. Like you say Marvel have had some great music bit in their previous shows.
This was a deliberately bad choice.I loved it.
What would have made the whole thing worthwhile would have been a single pan to Yelena’s baffled but fascinated face.
I was hoping we’d get this!
You are right, that would have been phenomenal and would have tied it to the first Kate/Yelena conversation. I thought it was hilariously, amazingly, terrible. I can 100% see why other people wouldn’t like it at all, but I loved it.
I thought for sure it was going to pan to someone’s face.
It was written by Marc Shaiman (he was the conductor they kept cutting to) who, among other things, won a Tony for Best Original Score for Hairspray, was Oscar nominated for “Blame Canada” from the South Park movie, and wrote another famous Broadway musical parody number, “Everyone Has AIDS,” from Team America.It was deliberate and it was absolutely brilliant.
I suspected that guy had to be someone musically famous, but I’m not a theatre geek and wasn’t sure.Cheers for the info.
I didn’t know this, but I’m surprised people don’t get that it’s a joke.
“A lot like me except for weird blue contact lenses!” Seriously, what was the point of those? Would anyone really be upset that Kate didn’t have comics cannon blue eyes?
Are you kidding? Laura has watched Clint go off on adventures with Natasha and allowed her youngest to be named after Clint’s female work friend and the brother of another female work friend.
No way she is threatened by a child. Plus, Hailee is a lovely young woman, but Linda Cardellini looks like she can teach you a thing or 12 in the bedroom. Sign me up.
Fair response.
I didn’t like the (complete) musical number. We should have gotten a teaser for the second season instead. Is Kingpin still alive? Is Kate’s superhero name Hawkeye? Anything but what we got.
The answers to those last two questions is so obviously “yes,” though…
i have so many questions about that musical. like… are the avengers and loki supposed to be the leads? why were they such minor characters and why were they so bad compared to the rando new yorkers who were at least proficient? is that weird middle aged suit supposed to be the lead? is this about a garbage man and an aging wall street bro trying not to get crushed by rubble? how did this garbage make it out of previews? i guess tourists will watch anything, but jesus christ
I think it’s a there’s a link from to the musical number to the failure of “West Side Story” at the box . No matter how ostensibly good a theater production may be, its goofy and weird af to most people.
He has been rich for generations. He can’t even imagine people like himself going to jail for something they did much less for something they didn’t. Of course he believed it’d be resolved quickly. And of course he was released the next day because his cousin bailed him out.
I was actually wondering what Clint’s daughter’s reaction was going to be to him bringing home a surrogate daughter who was better at archery than her!
It’s “Jacques”, by the way. Real captioning fail.
Dude the musical number was terrible, and I’d pay good money to go see Rogers the Musical!
The song was bad enough (intentionally, I’m sure) in the first episode. Showing us the entire thing added nothing. If they were going to return to the play, then they should’ve done a different scene or something.
I have been doing a Saul rewatch, and listened to an episode of The Ringer podcast where they interviewed Tony Dalton re Bad Choice Road.He is absolutely delightful. It was the same feeling I had when the actors who play the Cousins were interviewed on the BB podcast and were so funny. All three characters are terrifying, so to know they’re played by such joyous people makes me appreciate their talent even more.
Dammit THATS where I knew him from!
I yelled NOT LALO!!! I thought for sure he was the Big Bad of Hawkeye, but that would have been too on the nose. I am terrified of the last season of Saul. Except if Jimmy was a friend of the cartel, couldn’t the cartel have taken out the white power guys so he wouldn’t have to run? Did Gus’ hit on the Juan Bolsa kill all of those guys?
If Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould have the time after BCS to do a spinoff for Lalo, I think it would be another great show. I’m not one for people doing prequels/spinoffs willy nilly as is the trend these days, but Tony Dalton has the charisma to be the center of a show and there is a lot that could be explored with Lalo whether before or after the timeline of BCS. After the latest season finale of BCS, I found myself rooting for Lalo.
He’s not dead. He’s alive and will be blind after the gunshot to his head.
The use of Fisk was … underwhelming. While the ending was obviously vague enough that he can come back, Marvel Studios has a nasty habit of killing anyone who would be remotely interesting as a recurring villain. I liked the appearance of his cufflinks from Daredevil though.Nevertheless, I would still put this up as my favorite Marvel Studios Disney+ series, just over Loki. The relatively low stakes, the full use of New York in the MCU and the excellent patter all make this so much fun.There was so much Rockefeller Plaza in this ep that it technically qualifies as a Peacock original.
Yes, this is the guy who we saw pummel the Punisher and Bullseye into Intensive Care but here we see him … not do anything like that with Kate (you’d think his sneezing would be enough to snap her in half).
Well, that could just be the difference between being your 20s and your 30s? Not that I think it needs to be realistically explained.
I mean, maybe it’s because Fisk wasn’t business partners with either Frank Castle or Bullseye’s moms?
It’s because – just like Punisher and Bullseye – Fisk’s mother is *also* named Martha.
He was hit by a car right before that fight. Also he’s not dead.
It’s certainly weird how the ordinary Kingpin was terrifying and did serious damage to people, whereas this show has given him superpowers yet simultaneously made him harmless…!?
I mean, she clearly didn’t take as much damage as the aforementioned, but Kingpin had a clear physical power upgrade here. He ripped a car door off of it’s hinges like nothing and tossed and pounced Kate around like she was a sack of nothing.
Did we watch the same scene? Kate is unable to even hurt him and he tosses her around like a ragdoll. He kept smirking at her as a ridiculous annoyance not worth his time. It’s quite clear that if he wanted to kill her he could have.
Yes, he keeps telling her to just walk away. If anything, he seems a little impressed. It does feel like a “I’m going to kill your mom but continue to honor our arrangement concerning you” kind of situation, although as he starts getting angry the dynamic shifts.
He was clearly holding back from hurting Kate too much during that fight. Not sure why though, I don’t remember Fisk having a soft spot for young girls.
He held back because he saw Kate as annoyance at worst, not a serious problem like Bullseye and Punisher.
I mean, if you want to ignore the whole getting hit by a car at full speed through a wall or getting hit with Tony Stark tech level bombs right afterward as somehow being weak…ok…
Fisk’s bad luck fighting Kate in an FAO Schwartz teddybear playland.
Don’t forget mashing Anatoly’s head into pulp with a car door. I just couldn’t buy that fight between him and Kate, the Kingpin from the Netflix series would have killed her in a heartbeat – brutally. It’s kinda like the writers of Hawkeye had maybe watched one or two episodes of DD, but that’s about the most they’ve seen.
Maya has her own show and I don’t think you shoot the Kingpin and just get away with it. Comics Fisk has been shot by Echo and he recovered, no reason MCU Fisk can’t, specially now that Marvel is leaning into the more ridiculous aspects of the comics a bit more.If anything I guarantee we see Kingpin in flashbacks in the Echo show.
He’s coming back. In the comics he loses his eyesight after Maya shoots him (for a while at least) but he’s still the Kingpin. But just blind.
Which led into Brian Michael Bendis’ incredibe Underboss/Out storylines in Daredevil 12-18 months later. Amazing comics.
Comic spoilers, but the scene between Echo/Maya and Kingpin plays out pretty much the same in Daredevil, where she shoots him at point blank range, and he survives (albeit, blinded).
I mean he’s 100% coming back. Anyone who has watched any TV whatsoever knows that someone who isn’t shown dead on-screen isn’t dead.
Except Stannis Baratheon, for some reason.
It’s pretty damn obvious they didn’t bring him back after all this time just to kill him off. Even if you didn’t know the comic book version of events…come on, man. Have you never TV showed before?
It’s literally shot for shot from the comic. Maya shoots his eyes off. He goes blind like Daredevil.
Don’t worry, he’ll be back.The bigger deal was the reveal that Laura Barton was Agent 19 – that was the comicbook code number for Mockingbird aka Bobbi Morse. However, it should also be noted that the MCU has already taken to sharing SHIELD agent code numbers – both Peggy and Sharon Carter were named out as Agent 13 in the MCU, with Sharon inheriting her aunt’s code number.
So it’s entirely plausible that Laura Morse gave her code name and code number over to her younger sister Bobbi when she married Clint and “retired.”
Why do people keep complaining about that?
He clearly got hit by a car through a wall followed by Stark tech explosions…where’s the underwhelming?
If they want him to pummel someone, they’re going to save it for it is important, not at a season finale of a show he only appeared in for five minutes.
Seriously, I’m actually stunned Comcast, a major industry rival, let Disney do so much around Rockefeller Center.
Look for the next Fast and Furious film to feature a sequence at Disneyland.
The director talks about Rockefeller Center in this Collider article:
https://collider.com/hawkeye-director-rhys-thomas-interview/also:
https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/hawkeye-clint-barton-kate-bishop-30-rockSome stuff was shot at night for a week but the bulk of it was a set, which is amazing. The full skating rink was also a set in Atlanta with blue screen set extensions.
If only they could have hit one of the Tucker or Hannity banners with an acid arrow.
Well Kabeletown is a family company
That very obvious NBC logo in one of the shots was probably part of the arrangement for letting them film there.
Turns out it was all a set.
That Fisk was obviously a Skrull. He simultaneously had more ridiculous physical prowess and far less skill. Obviously one of the less adept Skrulls among the infiltrators.
Given that he survived being stabbed by a fired arrow and a point blank explosion from another, I think it’s safe to say he’s super in some way.Echo will likely leave him thinking him dead, but he’ll survive due to whatever made him survive the other two things and he’ll be back to shadow ruling in no time I’m sure.
It didn’t explain it in the show, but the Daredevil TV series makes a big deal about him wearing stab proof clothing (or something, it’s been a while since I watched). That explains the arrow and probably reduced impact of the explosion.
I figured Kingpin was a way to say “hey, multiverse, everything is sort of canon,” in a way that Spider-Man and Dr. Strange will expand on. This Fisk seemed cartoony in a way that Defender-Verse Fisk was not, between the Hawaiian short and apparently no selling a not insignificant explosion.
I don’t know anything about Kingpin at all that wasn’t in “into the spiderverse” so I don’t understand his deal at all: like, does he have super powers or is he just a really big dude? It seemed like the way he just laughed off Kate’s arrows that maybe he can’t be injured easily and the way he was throwing her around he seemed to be super-strong (like not on a Hulk level but more in a Jessica Jones/Luke Cage sort of way). So I was thinking maybe Maya couldn’t just shoot him like that?
He doesn’t have superpowers; he’s like peak human condition type. Which means unofficially having a “superpower” when comics logic is translated to the real world.
A plot point in Daredevil was that he wears specially-made clothing that’s lined with a kind of super-Kevlar armour layer, so he can take physical hits that would incapacitate a normal person. And as per the comics, he’s in very good shape, his size is largely muscle and not fat. It gives him more or less unquantified generic survivability in action scenes.
So a SHIELD watch with a number 19 …..and who is Shield agent 19 ?
So Kate and Yelena are dating now, right?If there’s a season two it looks like Kate will be Hawkeye. I liked that Kate was having Christmas with the Bartons (she was
totally not in that car when Clint was pulling up), but I would have
also liked it if she had spent Christmas with Yelena doing a Sex and the
City thing.Agent 19 is Mockingbird, so that’s one more nail in the coffin of Agents of SHIELD being canon in the MCU
Not necessarily. We don’t know if Laura ever used the name Bobbi and Mockingbird as a code name could have been used by multiple people (not the first time for that to happen in a comics universe). There is still nothing here the precludes both from existing in the same universe.
No she’s into someone else…
Nobody’s that straight (or gay or asexual).
The America Chavez in the MCU looks way too young for Kate. She seemed to be into that LARPing fireman but I think it was an idea the show runners were playing with rather than a serious subplot.Yelena is certainly a more exciting option than either of those choices, but I would be happy if they just became close friends. I mean, that’s what the original Hawkeye and Black Widow were so there would be a symmetry in that. They have a good balance as friends: for all of Yelena’s free spirited confidence and bravado, she is still guarded with her emotions, where Kate is empathic and an open book, while still learning the ropes in a career that Yelena has mastered. My other reservation is the power dynamic. Yelena is very commanding, but I think it would be disappointing to see Kate, whom we’ve watched grow in this series, in any way subordinate herself in the relationship. It’s easier imo to have a friendship with an edge of competitiveness.Sam and Bucky would have made more sense to me as a romantic relationship, although that isn’t how it ended up. Bucky enjoys being the supportive partner and a part of Sam’s family. Their friendship can work as a romance.To cite another example, I never liked the idea of a T’Challa/Storm ‘ship. They are both strong leaders, with diverging goals and responsibilities that are very important to them. I think readers/viewers see two characters that pop and say they are both so cool, wouldn’t they be even cooler together. And certainly its often the case that two alpha individuals are attracted to each other in real life. I’m not sure that is a recipe for a sustainable relationship and I definitely question how entertaining it is.
There’s an old Hollywood axiom that goes back pre 1940’s – maybe it’s a theater acting trick too for that matter that goes back forever: No matter who your scene partner is, flirt with them a little.
the power dynamicTo be fair, Natasha was also much more skilled than Clint, and both were fully aware of it.
Natasha and Clint were equals temperamentally and in terms of experience — their bond was formed over the shared regret of being used as weapons. The power dynamic is not just about skill its also about maturity and experience, and there’s clearly a difference between Yelena and Kat in that regard.
maturity and experience, and there’s clearly a difference between Yelena and Kat in that regard.There is, for now. It might not take much for Kate to catch up, though. Yelena’s specific training gives her an edge within certain fields, like the criminal world, espionage and warfare. But I think we’re supposed to see Kate as an extraordinary individual who’s able to excel in a number of physical and mental disciplines, but just started to put those skills to use. We’ve seen her be able to quickly replicate tricks Clint had a life to master.So, to rectify what I wrote above, maybe there won’t even be a gap between them as marked as the one Natasha and Clint kept having till the end.Plus, we were able to see Thor and Iron Man as roughly equals at the time of the Battle of New York, and yet Thor was an ageless godlike being, while Tony had been doing superheroics for just a couple years.
I don’t doubt that Kate can grow to match Yelena in skills. And I think Yelena admires how tough and plucky Kate has already become without losing her innocence. But again, for me, its not just about skill, in fact imo the psychological aspect is more important. Yelena is more worldly and has a stronger sense of who she is as a person, while Kate is still discovering herself. That doesn’t mean Kate is insecure about her physical abilities, or that she is not as intelligent or brave as Yelena. She just doesn’t have the depth of experience that’s made Yelena the person that she is, in every aspect from combat skills to personal style. Kate’s still at an awkward stage and part of her charm is willingness to throw herself into situations even when she is in over her head. And watching her mature as a fighter, hero and person is what is going to make her character exciting. Imo Kate is going to become a leader that I don’t think its in Yelena’s nature to be, she’s just not there yet.Finally, I’ll note that both Thor and Iron Man deferred to Cap, as did Natasha and even T’Challa. All the Avengers did. That wasn’t about strength, prowess, or intelligence — they all saw in Cap a strength of character and integrity they were willing to follow. Yelena’s not Cap, her character is not strong in the same way, but Kate can tell Yelena is the stronger personality at this stage of their development.
That’s been a problem within fandoms going back to the original Star Trek. If two actors have chemistry, a certain very loud segment of fans (mostly white straight Cis-women, oddly enough) insist that they be fucking (especially if both male) and get super angry if it is made canonical that they aren’t. David Gerrold wrote about this almost 50 years ago, how nonplussed Nimoy and Shatner were (they eventually got over it) over the appearance of the original Kirk/Spock slash fiction, written almost exclusively by straight white women.It’s not just Science Fiction, either. Try telling a certain loud segment of SVU fans that Olivia and Alexis Cabot were never lovers, plus that Olivia’s dating history on SVU was exclusively male and their heads will fucking explode to this day…and it’s been almost 18 years since Cabot originally left the show.
I’m not inherently against ‘ships, whether they are planned or form organically. I also don’t think that fans are always wrong in their enthusiasm for a conceptual romance. But friendships are powerful, meaningful relationships too.
Yeah, my take is it goes where it goes. I’m not a shipper, I just like for relationships to make sense. That’s what bothers me about shippers, is that most of the time it patently makes no sense, and they are just mad because the show isn’t providing them the spank bank material they want.They should just admit that slash fiction is just the fan version of Penthouse Letters.
They should just admit that slash fiction is just the fan version of Penthouse Letters
they’re so fun together. mcu won’t have them date (i wish) but them being best friends like nat and clint still sounds super amazing.
Agent 19 is Mockingbird, so that’s one more nail in the coffin of Agents of SHIELD being canon in the MCU
Not necessarily, if there can be two Hawkeye’s then there can be two Mockingbird’s.It’s just the one who’s married to MCU Clint Barton isn’t called Bobbi Morse (as is the case with 616 Clint Barton).
Uh… The correct plural term is Mockingsbird.
I was actually thinking they were going to do a deep cut and have her be the rather obscure character Laura Brown. That aside AoS isn’t canon in the MCU. I don’t why people keep holding on to that hope.
But then why bring it in at all? If she’s not supposed to be a Bobbi Morse analog, then why make her Agent 19? She could have been any agent, or even not a SHIELD agent.
You raise a good point
The name “Mockingbird” is never used in either this show or in AoS.
Also, Bobbi is never called “Agent 19″ in AoS, or any other codename (unless you count the numerous rude nicknames Hunter uses for her).
Also also, codenames can be reused; Laura has clearly been retired for decades.
Maybe not decades. Probably more than one, less than two, otherwise her whole career would have come and gone by the time she was 25. She would have been 45 when they filmed Hawkeye. She would have been 39 when they filmed Age Of Ultron. Either she retired super young, or she continued working past the birth of her daughter, maybe administratively, like Melinda May at the beginning of AOS. It would explain her adeptness at information mining.
By the time she was 30. Laura blipped, remember.
Yeah, but that happened after she turned 40, when she already had a teenage kid.
Agents of SHIELD had Bobbi Morse, codename: Mockingbird. IIRC, she is never referred to as Agent 19.Hawkeye had Laura (maiden name unknown), codename: Agent 19. She is never referred to as Mockingbird.In the comics, Agent 19 and Mockingbird are one and the same, but there’s not (yet) a real reason to assume that’s also the case in the MCU. Agents of SHIELD is still probably not considered canon, but as it stands, this reveal isn’t a contradiction.
If there’s a season two it looks like Kate will be HawkeyeYeah, the review kept talking of a new partnership, but the show’s final line seemed pretty clear to me. Kate is trying out silly battle names. Clint says, “Actually, I have an idea”. Cue Hawkeye title card.Clint is retiring, Kate is the new Hawkeye.Natasha is dead, Yelena is the new Black Widow.Steve is (essentially) dead, Sam is the new Captain America.Do we detect a pattern here?
Beyond all of that, except for Clint, all of the OG Avengers are either retired or dead (Thor’s kind of iffy for what’s going on with him). This was Clint’s swan song. I expect him to stay on as a sort of mentor to Kate, but he’s now fully retired.
Out of the six originals, Hulk seems to be the one who’s more active still. The end of Shang-Chi basically establishes that if you “call the Avengers” right now, Banner is the only one to answer, except if you’re extra lucky and Captain Marvel happens to be around. Though I imagine the organization is still financed by Stark Industries via Pepper.Thor seems to have been repurposed as a spacefaring hero. I’m not sure Ant-Man was ever officially an Avenger, but he gravitates more around the Pym family anyway, which is its own separate group.
Vision is dead, White Vision is the new Vision.
I am hoping that Clint is retiring into a mentorship role, where he would make a couple of appearences to help Kate out, or maybe do a training montage with her out at the Barton farm.
With the multiverse now being a thing, it’s very possible that AoS is just another universe in the multiverse. Also there could be multiple Agent 19’s. Laura could just have retired from that job to raise her family with Clint.
I had heard that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a splinter shoot off of the MCU timeline. At the end of it Deke went back to the 80s and became the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and that sure ain’t canon.
-Why does every pair of female friends have to be dating now? You guys are like teenage boys lol.-Kate should DEFINITELY be Hawkeye. I don’t think they’ll be willing to pay Jeremy Renner for another 6 episodes… Would they?-Maybe they’re saving all the sexy New York stuff for the next season… or Avengers movie, maybe… Hopefully.-Maybe, or – OR – Laura WAS Agent 19,and Bobbi Morse BECAME Agent 19 when she got married and retired!
Because none of them are dating. None of them. Not one of them.Even if they could…why?I’ve seen the rumor that it’ll be Black Widow 2. (Take with a salt lick.)
But why? That seems like an extremely convoluted thing to do for no reason.https://geekositymag.com/black-widow-2-hailee-steinfeld-florence-pugh-to-team-up/
“she was totally not in that car when Clint was pulling up”Kate was obviously in the back with the dog, that’s why you didn’t see her in the passenger seat next to Clint.
There’s nobody in the back.
“It’s bad at plot and coherent morality.”Not really though…? Not even sure what being bad at ‘coherent morality’ would mean in a damn comic book show.
i mean moral guilt was a fairly overt part of the story here and ultimately i don’t really understand what their take on ronin/murder is, other than maybe it’s okay if you feel about it? that being said that’s not necessarily a problem i have with the show, but i get it.
It’s a comic book show, ‘coherent morality’ isn’t really a thing and expecting it to have a message is pretty damn foolish. I think a lot of people read too deeply into Wandavision and expect some kind of ‘message’ from these shows.
Also I’m pretty sure Clint says something about everyone doing crazy crap after the Blip. Not to mention that Clint was an assassin long before he became Ronin.
well…shows are about things right? this was just the actual text of the show. lots of talk about morality and not wanting to kill people and feeling really bad about it that didn’t really amount to much. if the show didn’t want me to think about it it shouldn’t have brought it up haha.
Things happen, sure, but they don’t necessarily have messages.Most of the text of the show is about Clint not wanting Kate to get killed for putting the Ronin suit on, not really much about morality as such.
well, see in my mind that decision to protect her from a dangerous situation was morally motivated, but clearly we watch things differently.
Well yes, that’s true: He’s doing a thing because of morality but the show itself doesn’t discuss morality too much or dive too deeply into it. It’s about the actions that come from Clint’s morality, not really the morality itself.
again i would just say we watched this very differently. to me they discussed it constantly!to me the entire narrative push of the show was clint not wanting to face his past but being forced to because of his morality, not wanting to kill anyone anyone else but being forced to because of his morality, and not being able to go home to his family despite desperately wanting to because of his sense of morality. it also directly contrasted and connected that with echo’s storyline, which was absolutely meant to be a counterpoint to kate’s upbringing. then they make things even murkier with kate’s mom and kingpin and include yelena’s revenge as another moral motivator and then…don’t really do anything else.which is fine, like i said ultimately it didn’t bother me, but i think it’s wild that you feel like this is some baffling opinion that noone should have.
You said they discussed it a lot and I pointed out that they didn’t, because they didn’t. Whatevs.Also the two of them killed a whole shitload of dudes in the episode so…?
I’ll agree that they kind of looked at the Ronin/guilt/PTSD stuff and realized they had bitten off too much with even trying that. And they don’t have the balls to have someone say, “OK, Thanos wasn’t right, but Ronin sure as fuck was” (You know that would be a fairly common sentiment)
Killing in comics is always a grey area: Bad when Phoenix kills a whole star system, ok when Wolverine slices up a bunch of bad guys.I watched AoU again over the weekend: The Avengers kill the hell out of a whole shitload of Hydra goons and nobody says boo about it. Things only get heated once Civil War rolls around and Wanda accidentally kills some civilians while saving a LOT more people than she killed.
Basically, if Hulk is ever involved, even if he pulls 99 percent of his punch, people die. One time in the comics, Spider-Man jumped over a gunshot blast and it killed someone in the crowd and it caused him to have a four-issue nervous breakdown. It’s a sliding scale.
If anything, the entire bit with Ronin/Barton seemed to be Nat and Rhodey saying, “Oh, poor Clint, he’s going to feel bad about killing all those mobsters.”
Meanwhile, the same week, Peter basically gets his aunt killed and quite a few other civilians killed or wounded (not to mention what looked to be at least $80 billion in property damage) to save a electrical grid terorrist, a eco-warrior terrorist, a lunatic serial killer, the guy who killed his uncle and an arrogant scientist who had a psychotic break.
Yeah it’s basically a sliding scale based on ‘what the story calls for’. These aren’t some kind of morality tales or something, they’re comic book movies/shows.
lmao you’re fucking illiterate. imagine thinking that a comic book story could never be a morality tale when that’s literally what they have always been for nearly a century
Hey, how about a fucking spoiler warning before that last bit?
First weekend gone. It’s on you now
This wasn’t even an article about ‘No Way Home’. It’s just chucked into the middle of an unrelated paragraph. And one weekend is a pretty short time for a movie that’s been selling out sessions.
I mean, unless the star system is solely inhabited by bad guys, there’s a bit of a difference between what Phoenix did & what Wolverine did. 😉
It’s still a bunch of dudes dying. Like in the Hawkeye finale, the two of them just killed a bunch of dudes right there and it seemed to be perfectly fine.Sure they shot them in the leg with arrows and smashed them over the head with bows, so now they’re brain damaged and bleeding out on the ice for like half an hour or more. That’s a bunch of dead dudes right there.
I loved this finale and this show. There are probably plenty of nitpicks and gripes I could make (were Maya and Kazi in love?), but I’m not going to let that stuff bother me. The whole thing was super fun, was a great exploration of Clint, a wonderful introduction of Kate Bishop and just an all-around good time. I especially enjoyed that full spectacle musical number at the end. Quite joyous!Also, if anyone is curious, Kingpin’s outfit is taken straight out of the comics. Talk about strict adherence to comic book accuracy.
“Six episodes in, Hawkeye has emerged as a show with very specific strengths and weaknesses. It’s good at character and comedy. It’s bad at plot and coherent morality.” Plot. A story’s basic building block.Let’s give this a ‘B’.
I share your ambivalence of having enjoyed the episode throughout while being acutely aware of each seam. The performances were good but off as you could see the dialogue doing breakneck delivery of resolution. The comedy was forced rather than feeling well-timed as in previous episodes making it feel out of place. And as excited as we were for Kingpin, his presence underscores how we’re in the world of the Mouse rather than Netflix as blood and gore is pegged at Level 1.
I enjoyed it but it could have been a cartoon for the amount of actual connection I had to what was transpiring. For my money, I would have preferred to see Kingpin not appear at all beyond the opening scene and have his underlings moving to communicate his displeasure. The mom should have died but maybe after a scene with Kate so Kate doesn’t know she’s died. Maybe at the hands of Kazi, who has pursued her escaping the building. Then Maya confronts, fights, and kills Kazi, which is enough to setup that she’s next hunting Kingpin.
I’d have left Jack out entirely. Honestly, the biggest issue is that this season needed eight episodes not six.
very complicated feelings about this one overall! part of my feelings are definitely marvel fatigue (this year was just sooo much stuff. too much stuff.) and the other part is how weirdly unsatisfying the big beats felt, but how satisfying all the small ones hit.renner and steinfeld (and pugh) were great, the christmas in new york theme was a lot of fun, and i liked a lot of the action…but man some of those bigger things (echo as a whole, kingpin, being a weird ptsd/morality narrative while also relishing in blowing dudes up) really do leave a bad aftertaste.i liked the journey, but i’m not crazy about the destination.
The too much stuff thing pisses me off with Star Wars and it does here.
OK, you were asked to:
Watch a 30-50 minute show once a week, basically, from January to June and then a 25-minute show for nine weeks in late summer and now this.
See four movies, one of which you could watch at home and another which let you watch at home very quicky.
Whatever shall you do under this strenuous workload?
the Clint/Yelena stuff was fantastic. Right in the feels.
At this point I think I’d prefer a Hawkeye + Black Widow’s Kid Sister series.
The use of Kingpin here was admittedly good in the run-up to the reveal, but then underbaked in retrospect. If they had revealed him in the Maya flashback, and clarified his involvement in everything, it might have made the end fight(s) more impactful. As is, though, I think Disney has played their “guess-whose-coming-back-wink-wink” card … and now it’s used up. This was the surprise that broke the surprise-seal (along with Spider-Man’s etc). From now on just have the Netflix Era folks show up as no big deal, because to draw out meta suspense from now on at the expense of plot is going to feel cheap.I was expecting Eleanor’s Christmas party to be a low-key Villainfest – with Kingpin as honored guest. It was a little muddled. If they had explained that Kazi was supposed to take out Eleanor and Kate and Clint so that KP could claim Bishop Security for himself and tie up his connection to Ronin in one go, that sorta makes sense. Like Caroline, though, I really enjoyed some of the component set pieces. Kate and Yelena together are a blast: future Avengers backbone right there.
I thought the series started great but ended really flat. Yelena is an entertaining character, but you could pull the entire Black Widow subplot and not lose anything from the Clint-Kate story. I also think bringing back Kingpin was mishandled. The show spent so much time trying to create a surprise reveal for the finale that they didn’t leave enough time to make it actually interesting.
It wouldn’t affect the Clint-Kate story, but Clint’s main through line for this series was coming to terms with his past. What he did as Ronin (Echo), the trauma of being a hired killer (Kate), and his role in Natasha’s death (Yelena). Removing Yelena would mean that he couldn’t get emotional resolution for that.
Just here for the comments from people who actually think Fisk is dead.As if there aren’t a million characters (including Fisk himself) who couldn’t have simply knocked the gun away as she fired.
Given how much the missing Rolex winds up being a “Laura Barton was part of S.H.I.E.L.D.!” Easter eggGiven the fact that Laura provided all of the intel to Clint and Kate (just instantly knowing that Sloan was a front for the Tracksuits), her being a part of SHIELD seemed kinda… obvious
-I wished that Yelena would have came with Clint and Kate to the Clint’s home for Christmas and meet his son’s who has her sister’s namesake. It would have been a poignant moment.-Why was the Rolex important enough for the Tracksuit mafia to raid an underground auction for it? In the beginning, I thought it was a leftover Tony Stark tech since he would be most likely to wear a Rolex. Maybe the explanation is for season two.-I was expecting the end credits scene to show the shrunken truck someplace.-Kingpin lives dammit!-The elevator fight/floor chase was terrific.
I was really expecting Kingpin to mostly sit this episode out, watching from the shadows as Kate and Clint took on Maya, Kazi, the tracksuits, and dealt with Kate’s mom and Yelena and leaving Kingpin for a future show or movie. Having him take a participant role so soon after his introduction just didn’t work, especially when the audience still has so many questions about his background which would normally have been filled in with other episodes if not for the surprise factor they went with here. It also had the effect of cluttering up a finale that already had a ton of moving pieces. They’d have been a lot better off doing the traditional cliche of ending on him doing a “I’ll get you next time, Hawkeye!”-type monologue.
I liked Kingping, good as ever and they made him a lot more stronger like in the comics. I was warried how he would translate from a more late teen/adult show to the MCU canon fodder. No way he is dead because COMIC SPOILER: He got (temporarily) blinded by the shot. Might be a fun way to spin in a new Daredevil season or show maybe?
In my fan canon, Laura was Mockingbird, then the designation was given to Bobbi when Laura retired.The way Kate’s face lit up when Clint called her his partner…Hailee Steinfeld is awesome. Between her and Florence Pugh, the next generation of Avengers is in good hands.
I was thinking along the same lines for Mockingbird. People are assuming that this automatically makes Shield non-canon, when there’s plenty of ways for it to be canon.
I was worrying/wondering about that recently because of all the Mockingbird talk… Then realized, ‘wtf? We’re already in the multiverse! That means *of course* AoS is canon! Everything is!’ But I’m still going to be super bummed if we don’t get Quake in “Secret Wars,” and mentoring the Young Avengers like in those dopey cartoon shorts:-P
This is good. Another way to do it is make SHIELD have a Mockingbird program, just as the Soviets had the Black Widows.
Bobbi’s first appearance on AOS was only a year before Age of Ultron, and Laura was certainly retired long before then.Also, while looking up when she was on AOS I found out Adrienne Palicki was Lady Jaye in the second GI Joe movie, I was watching it in the background the other day and never noticed.
Exactly
Bobbi had also been an agent for quite some time by her first appearance though. For example, she was already an agent before her divorce with Lance (and I think before they were even married).
I am so damn pumped for more Kate and Yelena. It doesn’t look like they’re on the slate for any of the upcoming films, but I hope there’s something ahead for them.
Exactly. In-universe, Laura has been retired for over 2 decades (based on her oldest child’s age & the fact that he was snapped). Surely her agent number was reassigned in that time…& surely she wasn’t the 19th SHIELD agent ever.
There is also the fact that Bobbi is never called Agent 19 in AoS. They can be two different people in MCU.
In my fan canon the watch still belongs to Bobbi Morse but Laura Barton has a long-running and massively petty beef with her and wanted it purely out of spite. Clint’s gone along with it because it’s well established in-universe that he’s hen-pecked. Also Rolex’ are really expensive. Who wouldn’t go out of their way to acquire one for free?
The parts with Yelena and Clint were great. The end with Clint’s family was good. The Avengers musical was funny. The rest was very disappointing. I’m tempted to call it a disaster. Instead of Die Hard, we got Die Hard 5.There’s just way too much silly nonsense. There’s no sense of urgency. There’s no threat. Characters stop to crack jokes when people’s lives are supposedly in danger. The show already had a lack of logic like with cosplayers stealing stuff, no consequences to the chase and the Pym arrow, Eleanor being the head of a security company but having zero security, etc. But it’s even worse in this episode.Why couldn’t Kate have told Yelena that Clint was there to protect Eleanor from being assassinated by Kingpin? Kate just stops to talk to that Tracksuit guy about his girlfriend while people are trying to kill her mother? They sacrifice everything, tension, suspense, drama, for jokes.The Tracksuit Mafia are terrible villains. They’re the worst aspects of the Marvel films, the faceless goons that are just there to get their butts kicked. It even made all the trick arrows disappointing because there was barely any reason to use them. The way Kingpin was treated was just embarrassing. He was not a powerful crime lord. He was not a mastermind pulling everyone’s strings. He was a loan shark with a bunch of incompetent underlings. Using him as just a brute was terrible writing. Vincent D’Onofrio did his best but this Kingpin is a Simpsons parody of the Netflix Kingpin.There’s also just a bunch of pointless stuff. Why was Jack Duquesne even in the show? What was the point of the cosplayers?
Maybe the show was just meant to be lighter and fun like the comic books that inspired it? Not everything has to be serious and dark.
How often has the MCU been dark and serious?And just because something is light and fun doesn’t excuse bad writing, lack of character/plot development, and having no tension.
Never because it’s not what they’re going for. There are plenty of entertainment options outside of the MCU which are dark and serious.
Darkness,
No parents,Super rich,Kind of makes it better
But how does a show being light and fun prevent it from having any sense of consequence or tension? Would the show no longer be fun if the villains were competent? The show can have characters murdered and be light and fun but it wouldn’t be fun if the characters started using some common sense?
There can be some balance but what you wrote up originally is a criticism of every aspect of the show. You talk about Yelena and Kate’s banter – yes those scenes would have been markedly worse if they hadn’t had humor. Not to mention it made perfect sense why Kate didn’t bother trying to justify why Clint was there given Yelena didn’t listen to her one bit when they had mac and cheese in the previous episode.The Tracksuit mafia? They’re a bunch of henchmen wearing tracksuits while they commit crime. Making them somewhat silly and the victims of endless trick arrows was a better choice than trying to make them serious henchmen who still fail (like you might see in John Wick).The actual villain of the series was Eleanor IMO and she is shown to be competent – murdering Armand and framing Jack while not really drawing any suspicion until Yelena revealed her. And she does get justice served to her with some drama. Unfortunately it is underdeveloped because of Kingpin.And I do agree the Kingpin felt out of place but IMO it was more because the show waited to reveal him and it felt really strange to make so much of the final plot hinge on confronting a guy who just showed up. I think if they had taken him out and made him a post-credit cameo and left all the rest largely the same, episode would have been better overall.
The situation was different when Kate and Yelena talked the first time. In their first meeting, they were just sitting at table talking. In the second meeting, criminals were actively endangering people’s lives and there were people trying to assassinate Kate’s mom.As for the Tracksuit Mafia, how is it better for them to be incompetent? Villains are challenges for the protagonists to overcome. Do you prefer stories where the heroes meet little or no challenge and easily get what they want? Or do you prefer stories where the heroes have to work, put in effort, and be clever to overcome difficult challenges?
you have had 47 movies and 2,780 hours of television that are “light and fun like the comic books that inspired them,” maybe it’s okay that some people are starting to find them all a bit interchangeable
Not. Everything. Has. To. Be. Tied. In. A. Bow.
This is just like when the Internet threw a fit because it wasn’t shown on screen that Sansa knew Ramsays dogs were hungry. Jesus, it’s humilaiting. I’m embarrassed for you and your family.
What are you talking about? What does the show having no tension, consequences, or logic have anything to do with that?
Eleanor being the head of a security company but having zero securitylol, good point.
I don’t even complain about Marvel jokes undercutting the tension anymore because that’s never going to change. But to be fair about the faceless goons, they gave them jokes to make them less faceless. I think it kinda worked.
“Characters stop to crack jokes when people’s lives are supposedly in danger.”
Come on, man, this is either the 31st or 32nd (if What If? counts) MCU thing and this has been a complete constant since the very first one.
There’s a difference between cracking jokes during action and stopping the action to crack jokes.
Yeah I think this series was going for a looser shaggier feel than other MCU Disney Plus shows have done so far for better or for worse. That meant that a lot of plot elements didn’t really pay off in a clean way or at all and led to a lot of the plot goofiness which you’ve largely accurately described. I didn’t think this was actually bad but it was probably the weakest of the Disney Plus series for that reason.
I watched part of the episode again, and I noticed some strangely paced/edited/shot scenes that were reminiscent of Falcon & the Winter Soldier. That show had some significant plotlines altered and it may have been the case here too. For example, in the scenes where Maya fights Kazi, some of Kazi’s lines were definitely ADR’d. A few of Kazi’s more important lines were spoken with his back to the camera where you don’t see his face or mouth.
I was sure Jack was going to be revealed as a skrull, what with all of his expression-mangling and all.
i hope someone got Clint a new BBQ for Christmas. No one is going to want ribs roasted in melted kevlar & heavy metals.
It’s a magic Stark barbecue. That stuff cleans right off LOL.
I was hoping that they’d stare at it for a bit before he remembered that it was a totally fireproof material.
I thought the same thing! Or that it would cut to them still watching it burn hours later because it’s made out of some fancy ballistic material that just takes forever to burn up.
While I enjoyed the episode more than the reviewer, my overall complaint is that only six episodes left me wanting more. More time to let the stories and relationships build and play out. More resolution with Yelena. And above all more Kate Bishop! It felt like we barely got to experience her.You don’t even need FX or fight scenes. Just put Hailee and Florence on camera together.
*slap*“What was that?”
that elevator scene was just awesome!
It was a good clip while it lasted.
I dunno about it being weird what they did with the “LARPers” they’re all cops and firefighters so not like they have no training…LARPing is just their hobby
As cops and firefighters I thought it was weird that they decided to change into their costumes to direct fleeing guests instead of their uniforms. Who would listen to someone dressed up as a viking?
Anybody else see the easter egg URL next to the Rogers marquee?
No, please share
I really don’t understand how people can be like “Clint’s a murderer for killing people as Ronin and the show isn’t interested in exorciating him for it” and just not give a shit about the fact that Yelena, Natasha, and Tony all killed boatloads of people. Yelena literally comes back into the show looking to commit murder for money. If you’re like “Natasha’s death was a reasonable price for her to pay for being a murderer and Clint should die too”, sure, that tracks; if you’re like “Clint’s the devil and Natasha was a pure hero whose sacrifice didn’t get the attention it deserved”, I’m like, what the hell?
There’s a line in this review that’s essentially “Murders forgiven because you feel bad about it, I guess?” Natasha’s WHOLE THING is that she murdered a bunch of people and feels bad about it. And given the context and the fact that she’s fictional, shit yeah, I forgive her, and I forgive Clint. I don’t give a shit about the fact that either of them killed people, and I really like both characters. I just don’t understand how anyone who’s hung up on the murder thing can see them so differently.
I imagine it is relatively easy to forgive Natasha because we mostly don’t see any murders she committed.Then again, I also see people giving Wanda a pass despite being even less forgivable than Clint.
As someone who never read comics growing up and is over 40 now, I’ve always found it very difficult to give a shit about MCU characters or their feelings or motivations. At the end of Infinity War, in the theater, people around me my own age were deeply affected. Like, fighting tears if not openly sobbing. And I could NOT understand. I’d seen literally all of the movies up to then, and I enjoyed pretty much all of them! But I never felt remotely invested in the characters themselves.After wandavision (I literally didn’t remember they were supposed to have feelings for each other until the end of Infinity War fwiw; I kinda forgot who Vision even was) I thought “ok, I can see why people really care about, and get invested in, these characters” although I still didn’t quite feel it personally. Hawkeye is actually the first thing I’ve encountered in the MCU that got me this way. Jeremy Renner essentially played this weird combo of Logan, Rocky Balboa (from the one of that title) and sitcom dad that felt, to me, like the realest person the MCU has ever bothered to create. I never knew the weirdo had it in him.I do wish the writing could have matched that level of characterization.
A very generous ‘B’
So the show ended up diverging a lot from the Fraction/Aja comic book run it took a lot of it’s cues from, which is a shame because it would have translated well as an irreverent, pulpy kind of super-hero show, but it wouldn’t have been as bright/chipper/made for Disney+, I guess. Kingpin, even with a power upgrade, felt somehow small-time here, and even Kazi was neutered by the character change from his comic counterpart, though I guess made him more of an emoting character, doing stuff for -reasons-.
But it did manage to make me do a complete turnaround on Laura as a character, having revealed her to be the MCU’s Mockingbird (or one of them, if you’re a sticker about Agents of SHIELD).
Maybe next season they can pick up some of the threads they didn’t pull from the comic book run, like throwing Clint’s brother into the mix.
Renner and Steinfeld are fun, but you know who’s really fun to watch as a Hawkeye/Black Widow pairing? Steinfeld and Pugh. Much more entertaining and a higher ceiling than Renner and Johannson.
I enjoyed this romp. It felt like the most MCU cinematic style than the other ones so far. I love them all to be fair.There are always so many loose threads that it feels plot is never really finished so they can carry on over many different shows/movies. It is a little frustrating but I lived through the painful year between Infinity War and Endgame so… Also if Spider-man: You can never go home again has taught us nothing, at least we know they are keeping a close eye on all loose threads over all Marvel history. So in the end I am never not expectant.
pretty horrendous episode start to finish. TV is a writer’s medium – Marvels best disney+ show to date let their lead writer cook (Loki). Seems like they took all the wrong lessons from that series.
can’t believe how dumb and cheesy Fisk came off in this…just butchered the character. totally unearned and horrendous. Reminds me of the worst aspects of the new star wars stuff – hey look, a famous character from yesteryear!
the pan-up when Maya has Fisk at gunpoint and all we hear is a gunshot is way too clear a mislead, especially since she’s supposed to get her own show. My bet is it opens with Kingpin using some of his new skills (if i’m not mistaken, that hawaiian shirt/hat number is from when he was leading the Hand) to get out of whatever. No way he’s dead.
Liked the series overall. The reason Kingpin was disappointing was because they wanted to keep him a surprise so his role in the show never got developed out as it should have been. If they had revealed him a few episodes before the finale and showed him pulling strings, would have worked better here. As-is, felt like he just got thrown in.
No boomerang arrow?
The end of the penultimate episode had me worried there was too much to
resolve in one episode. I was surprised, however, that the finale
dropped its ball the least of the Disney+ series. Some of the narratives
could’ve benefited from an extra episode or two, but the quick pacing
was preferable to a Netflix slog.
https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2021/12/22/does-hawkeye-hit-its-target/
I love how Yelena twirl-tore off Kate’s dress to unveil Kate’s costume.
Their subsequent compliment battle was so adorable. I don’t care whether
Kate & Yelena become besties or an item; I just want this dynamic
duo to interact as much as possible. (Marvel’s not going to make Hawkeye II & Black Widow II a power couple. Sorry, shippers.)
Fret not, Kingpin stans! There’s no body & he survived this in the comics. I’m more worried about how they’ll fill out Echo
since they basically wrapped up her arc minus Matt Murdock. I don’t
think they’ll do an introspective followup without action guest starring
Wolverine. Maybe they can use her to port over more Netflix characters
like Bullseye, Typhoid Mary, Colleen Wing, & Misty Knight?
Although WandaVision remains my favorite of the inaugural quintet (“What If…?” counts!), Hawkeye is arguably the better series. Although it wasn’t quite a bull’s eye, it’s a Christmas miracle that Hawkeye turned out this good!
I loved every second of it, but maybe I wasn’t thinking about it very hard xD and I will not believe Wilson Fisk is dead until I see it with my own eyes. The fact that Hawkeye very deliberately did not show it is a pretty good indicator if you ask me. My guesses: Maya chickened out and only shot him non-fatally; or he disarmed her somehow and the gun went off harmlessly in the struggle. Given how pissed off Maya was, I’m inclined to think the latter.
There is 0% chance that Kingpin is dead.
Because it’s Christmas is why we got that mid-credits extra scene, which I didn’t care for. I wanted a “coming soon/next” kind of teaser instead.And… the baby owl did eat those tracksuits, right? Right?
I think the assumption that Maya killed the Kingpin when it occurred offscreen and after they went through all the trouble to bring D’Onofrio back is jumping to a major conclusion that really isn’t supported. These are basically comic books brought to life and the one overwhelming truism of comic books for nearly the entire century they’ve been a medium is if there is no body, the character is not dead.
Hell, even if there is a body they’re at most temporarily dead.
This first year of shows show a lot of growing pains for Marvel Studios trying to transition some things over to TV. The shows have so much stuff stuffed in them they have the opposite problem that the Netflix shows did; too much time, too short a season, vs not enough stuff, too long a season. There has to be some middle ground they hopefully find, as each show felt like they could have used at least 1 or 2 more episodes to really flesh some things out or give other things time to breathe. Overall I think Loki worked the best for me. It didn’t feel as though the story was on a ticking clock, so it could feel more relaxed and focused. It didn’t have like 3 different side plots.Then maybe WandaVision, but the SWORD stuff in that feels really half-baked, especially Monica, who starts off strong then just gets pushed through an origin story and mostly forgotten at the edges of the show. Hawkeye was fun, but again, could have probably used an episode before the finale that featured more Kingpin and Maya interactions, instead of speeding through that plot in this episode. Falcon & Winter Soldier, sadly, is probably the worst. Mackie and Stan are fantastic, but the Flag Smashers are complete nothings, and even the thing they’re fighting against, the governments displacing people so the Bliped can get back to their lives, is barely a thing at all in the show. Zemo felt kind of wasted, especially when it came to trying to move him more towards his comics version. He puts on the purple mask for like 30 seconds to kill a couple guys and then takes it off and never wears it again. What was the point of putting it on in the first place? Then they add Sharon back in, who kind of felt sloppily added in, and the Wakandans, and Isaiah, and Walker and it just becomes too much for just 6 episodes.What If? is hard to rank with the rest, due to it’s more anthology nature, even with the overall serialzed Watcher stuff. It had ups and downs but I think mostly ended up with more ups.Let’s see how Ms Marvel, She-Hulk and Moon Knight fare, if they had time to learn from these or if they’ll have the same issues.
Don’t forget Secret Invasion, with (hello!) Emilia Clarke, Olivia Colman, Cobie Smulders, Ben Mendelsohn, Carmen Ojogo, Kingsley Ben Adir, Christopher McDonald and Samuel L. Jackson.
Growing pains or having to film and produce all of this in weird covid interruption times?
Yeah, no Covid and these shows each go up a half grade.
I’m guessing especially FatWS
Probably both, but there have been story issues that don’t have to do with “we couldn’t have as many people in this scene” or “we had to shoot this separately”
I want to Rant so bad….But its Christmas.Its annoying sometimes how ‘fun’ makes something critic proof.. Marvel has been coasting on that. I found alot of this episode hugely disappointing but at the same time it was fun so whatever.
Kingpin was so lazily and pathetically used. Kate and Yelena are so good together.Yelena should have been invited to Christmas where Clint returns her jacket.
I really appreciate that many, many years on the internet taught me what
Сука
means. It was a perfect capper to that scene. And that was a perfect, like, vaudeville scene to cap.
I get the dissatisfaction with the plot whatevers, but emotionally, for an Excelsior-level Marvel fanboy, this was pretty good. A “B+,” if you will.As to what comes next, who knows, but this team of writers and director need a bigger plot to play with.
Clint telling Kate, “You’re my partner,” wasn’t earned. That’s something that would have made sense when he was recruiting Natasha in Budapest, but Kate is a sidekick, not an equal. Plus, they’ve been so hot and cold, it seems a bit out of character that he would choose to team up with a fan wannabe (albeit an expert marksman he’s grown to respect and appreciate) instead of calling SHIELD friends in for back up.But that’s the theme with this season, a set of many stories and not enough time to properly tell and pay any of them off. I heard Lucky was being tortured by the Tracksuit Mafia and Kate rescued him in the comics, but here, the dog is a stray and randomly attacked a guy who was just minding his own business. Lucky is such an afterthought that is rarely acknowledged, usually left in one of many apartments, sometimes with some guy Kate met a day a prior.Tony Dalton was kind of wasted as an obvious red herring, but he was pretty fun to have around, especially in this last episode where he finally got to sword a bunch of guys. If there’s a season 2, I want him on the team, especially if he gets to take the piss out of that Armand kid again.
The bigger waste was Vera Farmiga, who was too good for this role consisting of underreacting to everything, from witnessing her daughter trying to stab her fiance in the face, to finding out that she knows her darkest secrets. Nothing about the character makes any sense. Her fiance seems to truly make her happy, but she coldly threw him under the bus. Her actions stem from being owned by the Kingpin, but she dismisses it as “how the world works.” She’s someone who should feel overwhelmed, conflicted, and tortured, but the show never allows us to empathize with her.Speaking of cold, holy shit, Kate, you called the cops to arrest your mom at FAO Schwarz right after Fisk tried to murder her, and you tell her you love her as she’s being cuffed? But if Hawkeye does it, it’s fine. There’s such a disconnect between the fluffy tone and the heavy themes the show is trying to convey. The former completely undermines the latter. I wish the Yelena story was resolved in the previous episode so they could team up in the finale instead of her just leaving. Of all the stories set up by a post-credits scene, Black Widow’s was the shortest and least consequential. Florence Pugh is always welcome, even if she doesn’t have much to do.How they ended Maya’s “arc” with the toothless, fake execution of Fisk is a perfect example of the show pretending it has balls. There were a lot of interesting ideas, and some of them aren’t executed as badly as others, but the show just lacks a clear vision and competent writing to give these stories their proper due. I hear the comic this was based on was so good, Clint Barton became a lot of people’s favorite superhero because of it. It’s a shame this never had a chance of living up to it.
Overall, I enjoyed the finale in spite of its underwhelming stories reaching their obvious conclusions. It was a fun romp and I cracked up when the owl carried off some shrunken bros. Kate’s monologue about how anyone could be a hero was heartfelt. I’m looking forward to seeing Maya in her own show, but I really, really hope it has some better quality control in the writers room. For that to happen, Disney/Feige needs to start using showrunners. Showrunners understand how a story is told in episodic format instead of trying to copy the success of the films, which so far has looked like a lower tier MCU film with a padded run time that’s often wasted on indulgences like that excruciating musical number. You can’t turn a movie into a TV show by just leaving in all the deleted scenes.
The owl was the funniest moment for sure (and maybe the season’s darkest beat?)
The owl thing doesn’t have to be that dark though. I’m just saying I would watch the hell out of Honey, I Shrunk Some Bros.
This episode suffers from the same thing as the Netflix Daredevil show. D’Onofrio’s Kingpin is so much more interesting and compelling than anything the heroes have to offer.
This episode also gave us the MCU’s all-time “Where the hell are the cops?” scenes.
I loved how late the sirens came in at the very end of Clint’s scene, almost as a joke of tacked on sound fx.Of course, when they had to arrest Kate’s mom, they somehow popped right up.
Sone random thoughts:1) I assume the offscreen death of Wilson Fisk is because Marvel doesn’t know where they’re going with Kingpin yet so they need to keep the dead/alive options open? Or they don’t have him signed to a contract yet?2) I know they’re planning an Echo series, but the character didn’t really pop very much in this series. I hope they get another hero to share the series with her cuz I don’t think she can anchor a show. (Matt Murdock?)3) All I want is a Kate Bishop/ Yelena Bulova team up trilogy. Maybe season 2 of Hawkeye will pair them up. Yelena needs a sister figure and Kate needs some more fighting skills. Their scenes together are among my favorite scenes in the entire MCU. That elevator scene when Kate spins out of her dress… just hilarious.
re: 3) I also hope Yelena never ever stops calling her “Kate Bishop.” Every single time, “Kate Bishop.”
It will be interesting to see if audiences connect with a completely unknown—and mute–protagonist.
1) I think comic book logic says that Kingpin is dead. Until he isn’t. 2) I agree that the character didn’t pop much for me, but at least they did a lot of work establishing who she is. Guess we will see how things work out in Echo. 3) The chemistry is quite good between those two.
A genuine C grade mess like the daredevil season one finale. The show missed the landing, being a smoothie with everything inside your fridge.
The moment where Clint and Kate realise they have no idea what’s going to happen to the shrunken Tracksuits was beautifully played. And then the owl was the cherry on top.
My biggest issue with Hawkeye is the same as WandaVision: You introduced this darkside to a superhero and pretended like it’d have consequences. In the end it’s all forgiven or worse, just forgotten, because you’re a Marvel character.
I want Kate Bishop and Yelena in more of the films. Their interplay is fantastic.I think maybe the stuff with Echo/Yuri didn’t really develop too well, but I really enjoyed this series. That crazy arrow fight on the ice was so danged cool.
* Amy March realized her anger, spite and jealousy were wrong while on a frozen pond. * Yes, a definite B for humor, fun action and holiday warmth. C- to D on satisfying exposition.* Whomever put Wilson Fisk in that shirt should be shot with a shrinking arrow. I’m sure D’onofrio had to agree (he’s definitely the type of actor that takes these choices seriously), but it made look like the bad guy in an ‘80s action comedy trying to recoup his treasure from some meddlesome teenagers, not the Kingpin.* It was still good to see D’onofrio back. He nailed his performance, of course, and his action scenes were actually great, demonstrating Kingpin is a formidable physical threat. I doubt Maya killed him. I’m guessing the unseen shooting was a way to give Maya closure so her show can start her on a fresh path. But it wasn’t necessary to diminish Fisk imo to do so. The Kingpin in 3 Seasons of Daredevil would have had a car waiting and a couple of henchmen standing by. I know parking in Rockefeller Center is tough but its ridiculous that he would be out there completely alone.* I think covid forced the show to sacrifice development of the Maya/Kazi relationship as well as Kazi as a character. His skill as a sharpshooter was supposed to make him a credible challenge to Clint’s bow skills. He needed more scenes beforehand showing him being dangerous to create any suspense around his confrontations with Clint and Maya. I get the feeling those (if they were planned) were cut from the schedule, along with any scenes that made his connection (and tension) with Maya more obvious. As it was, it was really strange that Maya seemed ready to forgive, as he registered as a flunkee that was just a little smarter than the other bros.* Pugh and Steinfeld are so good together that I think reuniting them is definite — hopefully for brunch.* Those bros in the truck Kate shrunk with the Pym arrow are dead, aren’t they?* I also hope I am right that there are plans to keep Jack a thoroughly annoying part Kate’s life too.
* Those bros in the truck Kate shrunk with the Pym arrow are dead, aren’t they?If not from the bird, then definitely from the affect of Pym particles; the suits (and the shrinking vehicles) are designed to protect themselves from the chemicals damaging their brains or something. Without those things, they’re gonna be messed up.
RE Fisk’s fashion-
I had no doubt it was D’onofrio’s choice, he’s the kind of actor that likes to make strong choices, that’s part of what’s admirable about him. Not every one of those strong choices work out, as Nicholas Cage’s career can attest to.
* Those bros in the truck Kate shrunk with the Pym arrow are dead, aren’t they?Yep. And what a horrible Jurassic Park-style death it would be.
Honey, I Shrunk The Bros.
If any of you have to reconcile the musical number from Rogers: The Musical, all you have to do is put it in the context of any musical numbers from The Simpsons. Guaranteed that the same in-universe playwright wrote both Troy McClure’s epic Planet of the Apes musical and this one.That’s why I loved it so, so, so, so, so, so much.
Side note / story. I’ve been rewatching Spider-Man TAS and one of the little plot points that cracks me up involves Kingpin. For the bulk of the first two seasons, Kingpin employs Alistair Smythe (and briefly his dad) to help build these crazy robots to hunt down and kill Spider-Man. The robots are increasingly impressive but always foiled and Kingpin nonstop chastises Smythe. At one point, he chooses to try to choke Smythe out over letting him continue to pursue Spider-Man with a robot. He also inexplicably is always right around his henchmen when they’re committing crimes instead of actively trying to shield his identity.Then in early S3, Kingpin teams up with Doc Ock who shows him his latest invention – a relatively small robot that the good doctor controls with his mind somehow that has four of Ock’s arms. Kingpin, in front of Smythe, calls the robot impressive and nods in approval.That’s the sort of Kingpin I think we saw here.
Not-Paul-F.-Tompkins was a delight. Not-Kit-Harrington was just kinda…there.This was actually my favorite of the D+ MCU shows thus far. There were a few odd plot holes, but the fun level stayed high throughout, rather than dipping at the end (WandaVision) or the middle & the end (FalconSoldier) or both ends (Loki) or randomly throughout the season (What If).
Not-Paul-F.-Tompkins was a delight. Not-Kit-Harrington was just kinda…there.This was actually my favorite of the D+ MCU shows thus far. There were a few odd plot holes, but the fun level stayed high throughout, rather than dipping at the end (WandaVision) or the middle & the end (FalconSoldier) or both ends (Loki) or randomly throughout the season (What If).
Finale was pretty good, but felt a little rushed. Maybe could have used another episode or at the very least, some of the previous episodes could have been a little longer. But I thought this series was very well done. Maybe its because I went in with little expectation (I neither hated or nor loved the character Hawkeye) but I came away very impressed and entertained. I definitely look forward to seeing more from these characters in future movies and/or shows.
Of the shows so far, I’d slot it in slightly behind Loki so my list would go Loki, Hawkeye, Wandavision…a sizeable gap, Falcon&Winter Soldier.
Maya would look so much cooler with the palm facepaint she’s known for. The MCU is getting lazy again about distinct character designs, especially on TV, where they don’t even try because everything has to be “grounded”. It’s all too basic. Even when they revealed Clint’s long -awaited costume, I couldn’t help but meh. Anyway, I’m learning that the kill fakeout between Echo and Kingpin is a thing,
so I guess that alleviates some of my gripes with how that ended.
Despite it’s flaws, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy Hawkeye the most out of Disney+’s first year of shows. Sure this was clunky in spots, but they all have been. These really need more episodes to develop their ideas stronger. But Hawkeye is the one I want a season 2 of the most. I really love Kate and Clint as a pair. I also loved the music. The finale’s score straight up evokes Mission: Impossible. The sneaky, spy-like atmosphere of this show jives with me well.
Tony Dalton is amazing. He’s classically charming, almost an Errol Flynn vibe, with a glimmer of evil just under the surface. I felt like he should have had a bigger presence in the show since they were alluding to him being a big bad. His turn to be actually a good guy was clumsy as well…only to leave him swashbuckling with Tracksuit goons and ushered off to safety.
I thoroughly enjoyed the series.I wish the focus had been on Clint/Kate/Yelena. The Maya (Echo) and Fisk story should have been reserved for something else, or the next series. All of the emotional heft of the show were those central characters. Clint and Yelena’s relationships with Natasha and how they managed their grief, Clint and Kate’s partnership, and Kate and Yelena’s budding friendship as future Avengers. I wanted more of all three of those, particularly Kate and Yelena (Florence and Hailee are great in these roles largely because they shouldn’t be).Maya could have been an interesting character, but she wasn’t given enough room to develop, and honestly felt like an annoyance whenever she showed up. I do think a show about the vigilante Echo, maybe crossing paths with some of the other Marvel sociopaths who have a bone to pick with Fisk, like Punisher, could be really cool.Jack was great. More Jack.The LARPers were dumb. They’re already firefighters, is that not enough?Anyone who thinks Fisk is dead hasn’t read enough comics (especially the one where this exact plot unfolds).
1- They really should have kept Kingpin for another show, or limited him to a cameo. It was not a good use of d’Onofrio and it was just one villain too many in a crowded show.2- The “Laura used to be a SHIELD agent” plot will only pay off if there is a second season to expand on this. I don’t think it was useful this season.2b- The reveal that she was Agent 19 (which, in the comics, is Mockingbird) is unnecessary. Her name isn’t Bobbi Morse, and the character was already played by Adrianne Palicki in a way that felt more faithful. Laura was cool the way she was. We don’t need this.It was an entertaining show, with two leads that did wonder together, but it feels like the creators had to make some important choices about what to keep in and they didn’t do it.
Kate and Yelena through this show has been so much fun. I hope if there is a Season 2 focused on Kate, that they get Florence Pugh back not for any action scenes, just a couple times where she and Kate are doing touristy or “Sex and the City” girl bonding.
Wasn’t there only like 2 scenes with young Maya and her dad?
I enjoyed this series, flaws and all. And there were SO many flaws but for me the biggest WTF was the character of Eleanor. All she seemed to do was wander around the series being concerned yet coldly enigmatic. At one moment it looks like she’s being played by Jack then it seems like they’re partners when he’s arrested. Then we find out she works for Kingpin and killed Armand because Kingpin told her too (?), she really did frame Jack and now she thinks she can blackmail her way out of the mob? Honestly, what was the point of Eleanor other than to give someone to disappoint Kate?
A spin-off series for Maya is already in development.But why? With all the properties they could give a series to, what makes this an intriguing project? They certainly didn’t make a good case for it with her appearance here, which felt completely forced and unnecessary. (Also, I didn’t get Kazi’s “I’m not like you, I can walk the path you walk”. Weren’t they both Kingpin’s enforcers? Isn’t she just a criminal who went on a vengeance spree?)I’d totally watch Jacques Duquesne and the LARPers, though. I mean, he’s even a character, no? Swordman?
“Hawkeye’s finale occasionally hits the mark”Ah, I see what you did there.
I was expecting Jack Duquesne to end up in a scene at the end as a cut scene where he’s in his comics Swordsman outfit, with the LARP folks.I knew Clint wasn’t going to die, but it seems that Yelena was surprisingly off- with taking a shot at him during her strafing run down the building.I appreciate seeing Fisk again, but it’s an odd dynamic to introduce him to the MCU proper via Hawkeye/Kate, rather than a show or film involving Spider-Man, Daredevil, Punisher, Cage, or the traditional street-crime characters. He has now been chastised in a confrontation with KB, and now the ambiguously ending confrontation with Echo.I would bet anything that he’s not dead. It just doesn’t make creative sense. Maybe Maya shot him in the foot (to possibly grievously wound it— her own prosthetic foot/lower leg is never explained), even though that doesn’t make any revenge sense.
There were a BUNCH of obvious choices that the writers didn’t take, but the two that most spring to mind.
-You had these firemen and police officers that LARPed, and I know there’s a lot to be underwhelmed by in the NYPD right now, but for fuck’s sake, let these folks actually do their jobs in their goddamned work uniforms. It would have been SO much more impactful if they “suited up”, and instead of being LARPers, they were actually officers and firefighters doing the jobs they trained for. Literally the ONE job they should be great at compared to Avengers is crowd control. What a waste to have these folks “pretend” to be heroes as LARPers and never learn that what they did everyday actually still matters in a world of superheroes, and instead just be a sight gag with diminishing returns.
-The fucking CLEAR response to “Is this what heroes do? Arrest their mothers on Christmas?”
“Is this what mothers do? Get arrested on Christmas?”
Boy did this show drop the ball on any sort of development between Kate and her mom. Or for THAT matter, between Kate and Jack. Certainly on managing Fisk as a menace beyond his out-of-nowhere Tick-like “nigh invulnerability”.
Bizarrely for these Marvel shows, it was a unique case of trying to cram too much into too little time. Instead of stretching 3 episodes of plot over 10 episodes of wheel spinning, this felt like there could have been one or two more episodes to give each plotline a bit more consideration, or at least 10 more minutes in each of the six episodes we got.
Though, again, like the reviewer, it was still a fun ride buoyed by pretty fantastic performances, most of its downsides fairly forgivable. It at least wasn’t trying to say anything uber important beyond telling a fun yarn. Mediocrity is more forgivable in slight amiable popcorn shows like this than it is in, say, oh, blue skying here, a commentary on race relations in America, America’s position as world police, and the general treatment of outsiders and refugees worldwide. McDonalds is a lot more palatable when you’re expecting McDonalds and not a good steak.
Yeah, that’s sort of my take. The stuff that was good was so good, you can kinda gloss over the plots that make no sense/weren’t developed enough.
How the hell does a wafer-thin character like Maya get her own show!???
“And as someone who’s deeply invested in Black Widow as a character”She’s a fictional character, not a financial transaction, FFS.
Solid show indeed. “Kingpin will return”
I liked it more than I expected. The LARPer payoff was better than I expected, but I wish they’d leant into the parody of the CA/policeman encounter from the original Avengers film, and had an orc-costumed LARPer beaten up to sell it.That said, yeah, too many damn plots.
Kazi and tracksuits were entirely too much of a challenge for the guy who has handled 2 alien attacks, a robot uprising, and fights with superhumans and human tanks.
“who has handled 2 alien attacks, a robot uprising, and fights with superhumans and human tanks”During all of those he had a team of superpowered individuals helping him out.
I full-on SOBBED when Clint whistled.