Hawkeye (Disney +)

The beginning is our reminder that those weren't just empty buildings destroyed in the Battle of New York.

If I were Hawkeye, I wouldn't like getting free stuff either. It makes things weird.

I like Kate's mother. And while I do not have the instant dislike for the Armands Kate does, I do think they are rather ill-mannered. Them being up to shady stuff doesn't surprise me.

I totally forgot Hawkeye was Ronin. Can't believe he was never found out for it.

Clint is already deaf here, which is a good move.

Rogers: The Musical was simply awful. Maybe not as bad as Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, but bad for the same reasons. I shared Clint's distaste for it.

I would not like to live in the Marvel Universe. Because you'll invariably come upon a urinal with "Thanos was right" written on it. What an unasked-for bummer.

Kate is not JUST a good fighter. She's also an incredibly lucky one. A lot of her misses and close calls were due to random breaks in her favor, not skill.

I love Kate mind-screwing Gary by pretending to be offended he doesn't know her name and then "quitting". That confusing exit bought her enough time to slip away. She may be lucky, but she's also no dummy.

Promising opener. This is possible heresy and may not track with my earlier grade, but I think this might have been a more enjoyable series premiere than Loki. I THINK so, but I'm not sure. It's been awhile since I read my review of that show's Pilot. 4 1/2 stars.

The end of Kate dropping through the roof was fun. Nobody told her she was supposed to bring guns.

Track-suit mafia. A little on the nose.

The fencing scene was neat too. Jack may be shady, but I think he's hilarious.

I love Clint doing the Larp. And Grillz getting him to admit he liked it was great too.

I also like that Clint is keeping no secrets from his wife and that she is very much in the loop. I like that very much.

That was fun. Unlike almost every Marvel Television production. Good Marvel Studios is finally in charge of the TV stuff. 4 stars.

The fact that Ronin killed Maya's unbelievably sweet father makes me hate Clint. When he says he isn't a role model, he's not kidding.

I thought the scene of Clint trying to communicate on the phone with his son could have been nice but I remember he killed Maya's father and it suddenly isn't.

Kate was pretty fun this episode. She's a bit of a silly character.

I don't have much to say about this week other than it made me think less of Clint. The episode itself was just serviceable (although the car chase was admittedly impressive and obviously not cheap). 3 1/2 stars.

wow it took me a long time to figure out how to post spoilers…anyway, I really love this show. The whole episode just flew by. I liked how Jack immediately put on the “relieved” look when he realized it was Hawkeye. He certainly knows how to play the part of the helpless fiancé. The little impromptu Christmas party from Kate was fun until Hawkeye accidentally got too serious. The Echo/Yelena fight was fun too but also kind of hard to follow. I knew it was Yelena but the fight was so dark that it was hard to track people. And that watch….is that tied to Laura? Was she some kind of agent or something? I’m dying to know what she was and how she met Hawkeye now!

I was wondering if it might have been Howard Stark's Rolex since he said that he'd been out of the game for a long time.  A Rolex, in terms of the current heroes, would be out-of-place on anyone but Tony Stark, Hank Pym and Stephen Strange but it's "too old" for Tony (who just died) and Hank and Strange just became Avengers with Infinity War/Endgame.

Oh, man, I suspect I'm gonna court a little trouble with this review. Because I didn't like the ending. I liked (and loved) everything else. But I was unimpressed with the ending. And when you hear my reasoning you'll probably think "Oh, Matt is just complaining for the sake of complaining again and simply likes to hear / read his own voice / prose." And I don't have too much vanity to admit that's what a lot of my negative reviews actually boil down to, but I hope you'll indulge my disliking the ending here, because this review isn't actually a negative one. I thought the rest of the episode was great. But when Yelena showed up, I cringed. Because the story isn't about her, and I don't want it to turn into that, and it inevitably will.

And fanboys who love that surprise twist will be pissed at me for not digging it, because it was totally properly set up at the end of the Black Widow movie, and it would be weird if she didn't actually pop up here. And I know that, but because the rest of the series wasn't really about or dealing with the Black Widow tag, I feel like this bit of Marvel synergy is less properly set-up, and more tacked on. And I shouldn't feel that way, especially since a large part of Clint's arc on the series is about his guilt over his responsibility over Natasha's death. Yelena should fit in thematically like a glove. But because they did the cliched "surprise twist", she doesn't. I'm not saying Yelena doesn't belong on this show. She clearly does. I just don't like her showing up out of nowhere and turning the series in all about her. That's not fair to the solid Clint arc, that I'm already having a hard time processing and forgiving.

Also, Maya's grudge is real, Yelena's is fake. So they shouldn't be teaming up as the melodrama in their arcs with Clint is totally unequal. Maybe that's the point, and Yelena will come around eventually and team up with Clint. But, man, that's unnecessarily messy, and this kind of messiness is the precise reason I was not on-board with Clint killing Maya's sweet father. This is not the sort of issue that should be confused for the viewer. And speaking as a viewer, my feelings are very conflicted and confused.

Did I mention the rest of the episode was great? I'll tell you what confusion I liked and appreciated feeling: When Jack is goofily dancing around Kate's mother and sweeping her off her feet. Kate actually LIKES him in that moment, even after everything else because she's never seen her mother that happy and charmed, even with her father. I thought it was an interesting choice that Kate didn't feel resentment or jealousy over that. She kind of likes him now, and now feels regret and guilt that he's the target of the investigation. If he's as guilty as she thinks he is, she'll be forced to take away the person who has made her mother happier than she has ever seen her. THAT is the specific right kind of character conflict I like seeing. None of this Clint feeling bad for doing an unforgivable thing and the show being crazy enough to ask me to forgive it anyways.

For the record, it's equally likely Mrs. Bishop herself is dirty and actually calling the shots. Also that Jack is really an innocent patsy. That would be totally on-brand for this franchise.

I love the Larp party. It's the little things about dealing with real people that the MCU gets that no other superhero franchise does. Frankly, the MCU is NOT my favorite superhero franchise. That's the DC Animated Universe. But only Kevin Feige would have a scene where the Larp woman is reluctant to give up the bag carrying the trick arrows because it was a gift from her wife, and it means something to her. Clint didn't think to bring a bag? It's the little realities of how real people would react to superheroes which is why I value the MCU so much. I also love that they can't simply make new trick arrows. Tony Stark ain't here. They have to retrieve the ones that were left behind. That is another thing that puts a level of reality in this show that Arrow lacks. It's really cool.

I enjoyed Kate's Christmas dinner with Clint, and them getting to know each other. And I'm appreciating more and more what a wonderful and amazing wife and partner Laura Barton actually is. It doesn't excuse Clint's actions as Ronin. But I sort of get how a person would go totally nuts if they lost that and believed it was gone forever.

Clint confronting the dude in the car was a well-written scene, especially him throwing away the gun in the distance. If Clint were a bigger hardass, he would have stolen it. But he's not gonna make it easy for the guy to retrieve it either.

And you'll notice very little of that review was actually negative. But it's the negative thing that will piss people off because Yelena is the crowdpleasing moment, and the part of the episode everyone else but me will unreservedly love. But be gentle with me, readers. I really wish I didn't feel uncomfortable with that last scene. ***1/2.

Totally felt tacked on.  I had other expectations at this point so that may have had more to do with it.  For me, as long as it was taking to get Yelena into the story I was expecting her to be the cliffhanger for a season 2 and not take over the final two episodes.  Then again, maybe it's needed...  Maybe she's going to be a major player in Echo's series and we need that set up between the two of them now...  Mind you, I don't really have any idea how that can make any sense but...

Kingpin! Loved that long scene between Kate and Yelena also

As a rule, fandom frustrates me. Mostly because I tend to want different things from a franchise's storytelling than they do. And out of all the fans I've brushed up against, nobody pisses me off more than the Producer Apologist. What pisses me off about this certain type fan is they are impossible to argue against. I'm always right when I do, but I only learn that in hindsight.

How it works is that a promising show does a plot turn that always destroys every previous show that has ever tried it. Without fail. I point it out and say this show in question that just did that has jumped the shark and will not recover, and the writer of that episode just destroyed the show, and everything we like about it. The Producer Apologist immediately pipes up and says "I trust _______ knows what they are doing." And they are always wrong and you can't actually argue against it because even if 80 years of TV history is on my side regarding a damaging trope, it's still unproven as long as I and the person I'm arguing with haven't seen how it's played out. I'm always right in hindsight. But that's why it's so frustrating.

Let me put a new spin on that. I'm going to be a producer apologist for once, after this episode. I trust Kevin Feige knows what he's doing. One of the reasons a person should never say that is because no producer anywhere ever deserves that specific level of benefit of the doubt. But even if the stuff with Ronin and Maya's father was not a dealbreaker to whether or not this show would be narratively successful, it was the metric on which I enjoyed it. Learning that Kingpin framed Clint for that actually make narrative sense, and it makes it so I don't have to hate Clint. Some of the arguments I got against not hating Clint for that was that no matter how sweet Papa Lopez appeared, he worked for Kingpin, and could have been up to some truly heinous stuff. And I was like, "If that's true it's a narrative failing because making him such a sweetheart confuses an issue that shouldn't be confused." Having Clint tell Maya he was framed by her boss basically cleared the board with every real reservation about the series I had left.

With one exception. I was not crazy about the Yelena reveal last episode. But she actually stole this episode. Her conversation with Kate was delightfully quirky, and extended far beyond any other superhero franchise but the MCU would extend it. Us hearing all of Yelena's excited ideas about visiting New York and eating tough reindeer meat also shows why the TV shows have a selling point the movies don't. The extended runtimes of the shows lets them breathe in a way movies are never allowed to.

As for Eleanor being dirty, it was not a surprise. She was TOO great and supportive of a mom here. Learning she's with Kingpin and ordered the hit on Clint was less predictable, but also narratively satisfying.

Finally, Vincent D'Offrio has a great agent. He gets billed in the main cast credits at the end for showing up in a blurry black and white photograph. Like Mark Hamill after The Force Awakens, I hope D'Offrio sent his agent a nice gift basket.

Kevin Feige has earned a little trust with me for that. *****.

I watched this a second time, at home this time, after I woke up today and that line “Can you help me find Natasha? I need to tell her I’m okay” just wrecks me. It’s so sad and so relatable.