"Hawkguy" Hawkeye Recaps: "Ronin" & "So This Is Christmas?"

 Hawkeye

It's time to wrap up another Disney+ MCU show. And overall, I enjoyed "Hawkeye" a lot more than I thought I would. Spoiler alert. They stick the landing. Let's get to it.

"Ronin"

Yelena: "Have you ever eaten reindeer?"

Kate Bishop: "I cannot say I've had the pleasure."

Yelena: "No, it is not a pleasure. No, it's, um, really tough. It's chewy. You have to braise it for a really long time."

After being told to leave this confrontation, Kate Bishop finds herself pulled right back in when Yelena Belova shows up at her old apartment. Over box macaroni and cheese, Yelena tells Kate she's going to kill Clint Barton and to stay out of it. Clint does some soul searching and then makes a date with Maya in his Ronin suit. Barton reveals that the reason he was there that night was because of an informant tip that was given by Maya's boss. Kate's world is rocked when she learns that not only did her mother hire Yelena to kill Clint, but Eleanor is working for Maya's boss as well... the Kingpin.

Where am I?

This is somewhat of a subdued penultimate episode for an MCU tv show, but that's not to say it's bad. No, this episode is very good. And a lot of the reason why it's so good is because it brings us the return of Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova. I was really not excited when I learned that they were introducing Yelena to the MCU. But that is mainly because I was such a fan of Natasha as the Black Widow. But in "Black Widow," Pugh really won me over and she's a welcome addition to any MCU movie going forward. Seriously, if they had put her in "Eternals," I bet it would have gotten rave reviews. 

The episode opens with Yelena doing what she had started at the end of "Black Widow." She and fellow Widow, Sonya, are trying to deprogram the Widows that are scattered around the world. They end up in the posh home of Ana, who doesn't have a great reaction to the deprogramming because she's fine. She's made a great life for herself doing what she knows how to do: killing people for money. Yelena excuses herself to the bathroom and at the moment the Snap happens. The sequence with Yelena turning to dust and then reappearing is so well done. It's so cool seeing this from her perspective as the walls in the bathroom shift and change seemingly before her eyes to show the passage of that five years. It's a great visual representation of what that must feel like for someone. And Pugh does a great job of capturing the disorientation that anyone would feel and I felt my heart break again when she talks about trying to find Natasha.

Seriously. They should have just renamed this episode "Yelena." For a penultimate episode, there's a lot of talking, but when the talking is as entertaining as the meeting between Kate and Yelena, I have zero complaints. Like, I don't want to be one of those queer people who immediately 'ship two same sex characters because of their off the wall chemistry. I completely acknowledge that same sex people ca be just friends. But like, can we please make Kate and Yelena a couple? And have them eat mac and cheese together with Kate's one plastic fork and even though they've been together for like years and years, Yelena still only calls her "Kate Bishop?" Doesn't that sound amazing? And is there a better meet cute than someone throwing a full bottle of sriracha at the person that broke into your apartment? Even when Yelena is threatening to Kate and talking about how she's going to kill Clint, it's still adorable! Ugh. I love these two.

And yeah, Clint is in this episode too. He is doing a lot of soul searching here and it's maybe some of the best acting that Jeremy Renner has done in the MCU so far. I really enjoyed his interactions with Grills and it's impressive that even over the phone Renner and Linda Cardellini have an easy chemistry. I may hate the decision to make Hawkeye a family man, but I can't deny that he and Cardellini feel like a long time married couple and that is difficult to convey. The Clint moment that hit me the hardest this episode was his visit to the NYC Avengers memorial and his heart to heart with Natasha. It warms my heart that Natasha may be gone but she's been an integral part of this series.

The action in this episode feels a little bit perfunctory. Clint shows up in the Ronin outfit which is cool. He quickly takes out the Tracksuits and he and Maya have a one on one battle. It does really showcase how much of a badass Maya is, but we already know that. This battle is just a delivery system for the revelation that Maya is being had by the people that she thinks she trusts and is a nice connection to Kate learning that her mother hired Yelena and is working for Wilson Fisk aka the Kingpin.

Grade: A-

"So This Is Christmas?"

Kate Bishop: "When I was younger, aliens invaded. And I was alone. And I was terrified. But then I saw you, fighting aliens with a stick and a string. I saw you jump from that building even though you can't fly, even though you don't have superpowers. And I thought, if he could do that, then I didn't have to be shoot lasers out of their hands, it's for anyone who's brave enough to do what's right, no matter the cost."

Clint Barton and Kate Bishop are officially partners and they are ready to take down the Tracksuits, the Kingpin and... Eleanor Bishop. After learning that her mother has been working with Wilson Fisk since her father died, Kate decides to confront her at the Bishop Security Holiday Party. That party becomes the battleground for Clint, the Tracksuits, Yelena, Kate and the Kingpin.

You don't quit the mob.

It's the final episode of a Disney+ MCU series, so I think we all know what to expect. It's going to be a knockdown drag out fight between the heroes and the villains. And that definitely happens in this episode, but it feels different. It feels a little more playful and a little more fun.

We have to start off talking about the return on Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk aka the Kingpin. This reveal wasn't a huge shock particularly if you are familiar with Maya Lopez's comics origin. But even if you aren't, it still felt pretty telegraphed. I mean, we heard D'Onofrio's voice a couple of episodes ago. If you've watched the Netflix "Daredevil" television show, you know D'Onofrio kills it as Wilson Fisk so it's great to see him bringing this more comics accurate version of the character to "Hawkeye" and the MCU proper. I know there is a faction of MCU fans out there that firmly believe that this Fisk is the same from "Daredevil." They don't seem to care that Kevin Feige has said that none of the non-Disney+ shows are canon. Plus, this is pretty clearly a different Fisk. I mean, he's ripping car doors off hinges. He's getting shot with arrows point blank. He's getting hit by a car and going through a wall and he's fine. He's in the blast radius of a number of trick arrows and he's walking away. All signs point to this being a new Fisk being introduced to the MCU for the first time and they chose D'Onofrio because why wouldn't they?

The action in this final episode is so great and the holiday setting really makes it feel different than most MCU final battles. We get more great Kate/Yelena scenes. There is the scene in the elevator with the incidental costume reveal. Kate slapping Yelena and hitting all the buttons on the elevator. And can we talk about how amazing Yelena looks in both these episodes. Like, the fashion game is top notch. I'm obsessed with that green peacoat that she just leaves in the elevator when she takes off.

The "fight" between Yelena and Kate is probably my favorite part of this finale. I love the camera work. It's almost like watching a side scrolling video game. The transitions between rooms. The random guy just doing some late night work as these two women go after one another. The flirting. Listen, you can call it friendly banter, I'm calling it flirting. It's fine. Yelena running down the side of the building and Kate jumping out the window. It's great.

This whole battle sequence is so freaking entertaining. We get more trick arrows. My favorites are probably the magnet arrow. It's awesome when it magnetizes all the flagpoles around Rockefeller Center and takes all the Tracksuits guns. We get a second Pym Particle arrow used on the "Trust a Bro" moving fan that miniaturizes not just the truck but the Tracksuits inside who get taken away by an owl. Man, that's a not great way to die. Because they are totally going to die. I love that they take real advantage of the setting for this showdown. I mean, I never thought I'd see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller center have an Avenger stuck in it and have it be a showpiece in a third act enemy face off in an MCU property. But it's those things that really elevate this over the usual paint by numbers action sequences we get a lot.

The finale doesn't skimp on emotion either. Kate has it out with her mother. After her intense confrontation with the Kingpin, Kate has her mother arrested for the murder of Armand III. Yelena finally catches up with Clint and he tells her the truth. This show needs to stop making me have respect for Clint Barton. I have to say that he handles this exactly the right way. He tells Yelena the truth about what happened to Nat. How she sacrificed herself to save the world and allows Yelena to work out her grief on Clint until she can accept that what he is saying is the truth. It feels like Clint is doing this in order to repay Nat in a way and it all really works for me. 

Maya confronts Kazi and Fisk. First off, damn. Maya looks smoking hot when she has her final showdowns. I just had to give her her props. Also, why does Kazi think he's such a badass? He gets his ass handed to him in every fight he's in, but somehow he still thinks he has a chance. Where does this confidence come from and can I borrow some? Maya tries to get Kazi to leave with her but he refuses her and she ends up killing him. When Wilson Fisk stumbles across her after his encounter with Kate at the toy store, it's implied that she shoots him, though we see no body and spoiler alert, he's confirmed to appear in the "Echo" Disney+ series that's premiering next year.

The episode really does a great job of wrapping up the series. Clint accepts Kate as his partner. They get snazzy new uniforms. We get confirmation that the watch is Laura's from when she was an agent, Agent 19 to be specific. Kate goes to spend Christmas with the Bartons and they burn the Ronin costume together.

I could honestly go on about this for a while, I enjoyed it that much. I didn't even really talk about the LARP'ers or Jack finally living his Swordmaster fantasy. The post credits scene is a full performance of "I Can Do This All Day" which you can watch below if you're so inclined.

Next up, in my MCU re-watch will be "Spider-Man: No Way Home," but that will be after I finish my re-watch of the Spider-Man and Venom films. 

"Hawkeye" is in the can. What did you all think? I really loved this show and if you had told me I'd be loving a Hawkeye focused series like three years ago, I would have laughed at you. Let me know your favorite moments and where "Hawkeye" ranks for you as a part of Phase Four in the comments.