Hawkeye S01E01 Review: Kate Bishop!

Hawkeye, Season 1, Episode 1: Never Meet Your Heroes

I suppose we'll mix things up a little and do some series in an episodic format? I feel like while the entire-series review format is a lot less demanding for me writing-wise, it also puts more pressure on me catching up and watching entire chunks of television at a time. So for Hawkeye, I'll do it episode by episode. I've always held a little torch for good ol' Hawkeye, and I always did think that Black Widow and Hawkeye would make for a kickass TV series. We're getting just the Hawkeye part of that equation, but I'm still pretty excited! Anyway, I'm already kinda late to the party anyway, so...

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And... this episode is mostly introductions. It's a lot more slower-paced compared to Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Loki's respective first episodes, and it most certainly didn't have the mind-fuckery of Wandavision's pilot episode. Perhaps even more so than Falcon, this one feels the most down-to-earth of the Disney+ MCU shows, and the first episode just deals with reintroducing how Clint Barton has been coping to a post-Endgame world, while the bulk of the episode does the job of introducing Kate Bishop (Bumblebee's Hailee Steinfeld) as her own character. Unless I'm missing someone, Kate is the first main character in a Disney+ show that didn't originate in a pre-existing movie, which means that a good first impression of her is necessary.

And Kate's fun! A good two-thirds of the episode is devoted on her, and both the casting and the writing for the character is pretty top-notch. These sort of 'legacy' characters can be a bit of a make-it-or-break-it facet of a show, but I do really like that Kate Bishop is not just 'Hawkeye, but younger', but feels like her own character trying to make it in this insane world of superheroics. It helps that Kate is also a fun deadpan snarker that fits the mould of the MCU protagonist without being a carbon copy of anyone. 

And since this show's unique appeal is having Kate Bishop come into her own as a younger protege of an older, established hero, we do spend a bit of time showing the reasons why she can be a superhero -- she's got the classic 'parent gets killed due to a supervillain' thing, even if it's just collateral damage during the Chitauri war. She's got an inspiration, having seen Hawkeye be her hero that saved her from suffering the same fate as her dad. She's got the typical superhero 'athletic prodigy' background that explains why she can bush out some karate moves during the fight with the Tracksuit Mafia. She's clearly enough of a maverick to run around getting into trouble with her archery, and quick-thinking enough to bullshit her way when sneaking into that ominous underground auction. 

...and yet, we also get to see that despite all this, Kate's still woefully inexperienced. The biggest threat in this game is just a bunch of sock-headed gang members called the Tracksuit Mafia, and while Kate doesn't actually get beaten too bad, her attempt to do the Black Widow thigh-neck-snap thing fails hilariosuly because she falls off the rusty pipe she's hanging on. When the Tracksuit Mafia corners her in the streets, she only manages to beat the first goon before Clint shows up.

In addition to just establishing Kate's character, the first episode does introduce Kate's super-rich mom Eleanor, and what initially seems to just be a rich people hobnob-party ends up becoming something else as Kate sneaks around to follow her mother's rich fiancé Jacques Duquesne and his uncle Armand the Third (who Kate eavesdropped basically threatening her mother) into an underground auction. Some fun comedic moments with Kate pretending to be a waiter, but the items being sold in the auction include Ronin's equipment, lost since Endgame and somehow recovered by these shady rich people. 

Jacques and his uncle Armand the Third are involved in the auction and the episode does most certainly try and build them up to be kinda shady... until the auction gets attacked by a gang of balaclava-wearing goons called the Tracksuit Mafia. Seeing bad guys attacking these people, Kate ends up stealing and donning the Ronin getup and gets to fighting. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, she's not the most experienced burgeoning superhero, and while she does beat up some of the gang members, they are still a whole mafia against one girl with athletic capabilities. 

Throwing a wrench into things are a bunch of smaller events that I'm sure will be explored later on in the series --- Jacques steals the Ronin sword; someone among the Tracksuit Mafia steals a mysterious watch that is identified to be from the Avengers compound; and, most importantly, Armand III is found murdered. Extremely importantly, Kate also saves a dog! And gives him a pizza! Welcome to the MCU, Lucky the Pizza Dog, clearly you're the most important cast member of this show.

Again, a good chunk of this episode doesn't really delve too much into these mysteries just yet, because we're just setting Kate up as this younger hero that's both impressive enough compared to us 'normals', while still clearly fallible and a bit over her head. It's most certainly not an easy balance to do, and I look forward to see whether they can manage to keep this balance until Kate comes into her own as Hawkeye at the end of the show.

The stakes is also immediately much lower compared to... honestly, every single other MCU project so far? Hell, Clint's involvement in this show so far extends to him bringing his three kids to watch a musical in New York for Christmas times (and this is a Christmas-heavy episode) and essentially living life as a celebrity. His daughter Lila is quick enoguh on the update to realize that Clint is still hurting over his best friend Black Widow's death in Endgame, and while the people who walk up to Clint to thank him for being a superhero are nowhere as obnoxious as that one 'Blip reparations' dude from Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but it's still clear that Clint is still kind of bothered by it. 

(A little bit of an understatement, but they went all-out for the Broadway parody. It's glorious!)

I do really love the little character moments showing how... how overwhelmed Clint is with everything, but he's not really the kind of man to lash out and freak out. And anytime his children come into the scene you can just see the switch go on in Clint's personality where he's back to the 'jokey happy dad' mode. It's pretty well-done acting by Jeremy Renner that I really don't think would be possible in the cinematic format. 

But then Clint takes mostly the backseat, hanging out with his family until news of the Ronin shows up in the news. It's a bit slower, but honestly, considering how much the MCU version of Hawkeye is shown to be a family man almost above all else, it's appropriate that he basically did manage to get his best reward, which is being a dad to his growing children. He has been essentially growing too old for this shit, and after getting into a terrible headspace in Endgame when he dons the Ronin identity, you can totally see how Clint is just done with the world and just wants to be a dad. Which, of course, leads to the ending of the episode, where, in an attempt to stop the return of Ronin from causing any escalation of hostilities, he ends up hunting down his 'impersonator', which, of course, ends up being Kate. 

The episode itself also runs on heavy Christmas holiday-season vibes, with even the background instruments playing parts of famous Christmas songs. Which, I suppose, fits a lot with how both Clint and Kate's story seem to be geared to be wrapped around their families. Ultimately this is a bit of a slower-paced first episode, but still equally fun and the right one for this show, I feel. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Just like the other Disney+/MCU shows, I'm not going to do any 'in the comics' origin stories, because the show's going to explore Kate Bishop's origin story and stuff.
• Past Movies Continuity:
• Obviously, the prologue with Kate and her parents takes place during the events of The Avengers. The Chitauri-ship-dissolving arrow was actually seen as a close-up among one of Hawkeye's many trick arrows during that movie.
• Clint's tenure as Ronin happened in Avengers: Endgame, and we actually got some shots taken verbatim from that movie. 
• Hawkeye is shown to have a hearing aid -- the comic book version of Hawkeye is deaf, and this is the first acknowledgement that the MCU version also shares this trait. 
• The belltower that Kate accidentally demolishes is on 'Stane Tower', a reference to Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger, the main villain of Iron Man.
• The urinal that Hawkeye pisses in has "Thanos was right" grafitti on it, which is a bit of a meme among the MCU fandom. 
• Rogers: the Musical in-universe dramatizes the events of The Avengers, although it adds Ant-Man into the cast of the 2012-era Avengers. It's a bit of a meta-joke because Ant-Man was one of the founding members of the Avengers in the comics, and various versions of the planning for phase 1 of the MCU included Ant-Man as a member of the Avengers.
• The lyrics of Rogers: The Musical adds in a bunch of little winks to some MCU running jokes, like Captain America's "I can do this all day" catchphrase, or Hulk being "Incredible", and the Shawarma scene from Avengers.
• The font and opening credits of the show takes heavy inspirations from the excellent 2012 Hawkeye series by Matt Fraction and David Aja.