Hawkeye S01E02 Review: Hawkeye's LARP Adventure

Hawkeye, Season 1, Episodes 2: Hide and Seek

Another pretty slow episode, although the first two episodes of Hawkeye were admittedly released back-to-back in November. The first episode focuses a lot on introducing Kate Bishop and her periphery cast, while this one sets up the dynamic between Clint and Kate now that they've met each other. It's basically the thing that's going to make or break the series, and I'm pleased to say that they play off each other very well. Clint's not a trope that we haven't seen before -- an old semi-retired hero who has the responsibility and desire to do what's right, but he's just so tired about it. Meanwhile, Kate is equal parts bubbly in fangirling over her favourite superhero while also trying to prove that she's competent.

And... and it's pretty fun to see the two play off of each other. Clint's character being the tired, serious everyman is kind of drowned out when he's on-screen with five to twenty-two other co-stars, but when it's just him and another co-star, it works well. Things also go relatively more or less how you expect it to with Clint treating the opening battle scene with the Tracksuit Mafia as a huge annoyance, but something he wants to get over with.

It did admittedly end with Kate's apartment burned up by the bro-mafia's Molotov cocktails, but it more or less ended out well. Kate's safe and alive, and she's clearly connected to the big Bishop Security company... but everything's nice. Kate even got some neat little mentoring from Clint despite his eye-rolling attitude. That moment where Clint shows Kate how to properly clean and bandage wounds isn't particularly groundbreaking as far as a superhero mentor/mentee relationship goes, but between that moment and the fun banter between the two it's still pretty sweet. The bit about Hawkeye's branding, them shopping for ibuprofen, Kate asking Clint to sign her bow... lots of fun moments between the two. Clint definitely sees a lot of his own daughter Lila in Kate, and I feel like the show manages to get that across without being too obvious about it.

All that's left for Clint, of course, is to recover the suit. Which leads to the admittedly slightly too-long sequence where Clint has to infiltrate the LARP community, and... I do appreciate just how much Clint is just "I'm trying to be nice, but I just want to get everything done with". The poor, poor man. 

While Hawkeye is off literally doing his subplot, Kate is dealing with more investigation stuff. While she might've given the Tracksuit Mafia the shake, every vibe that Jack (instead of Jacques in this show, I guess) Duquesne radiates strikes Kate the wrong way. She all but states that she suspects that Jack is behind Armand's killing, but Kate can't really tell her mother how or why she knows about the suspicious aspects of her fiance. The barb-trading between Kate and Jack is particularly fun to watch. Tony Dalton plays Jack as such an ass! This ultimately leads to Kate's attempt to stab Jack in the face, forcing him to reveal that he's actually a badass swordsman... which really proves nothing to Mama Eleanor other than that Jack lied about his sword skills and is taking it easy on a teenage girl, and Kate ends up sounding pissy and histrionic instead of revealing something suspicious about Jack. Ultimately Kate finds a clue (admittedly a flimsy one) in the butterscotch candy wrapping that Jack is eating and heads off to inform Clint. 

Clint, meanwhile, is trying to figure out the whole Tracksuit Mafia thing and plans to re-enact Black Widow's "catch and release" plan. And he has to do so to get home before Christmas, otherwise he'll disappoint Lila! Which... which doesn't work as well because the members of the Tracksuit Mafia are complete goobers. And then it's compounded by Kate Bishop being a goober herself, falling down from the ceiling and honestly being kind of lucky that she didn't break her legs with that maneuver. The episode ends with them captured by the Tracksuit Mafia and we zoom in to their deaf/mute leader Echo. It's pretty fun, honestly, with Clint, Kate and Ivan all getting pretty good lines throughout this sequence.

I've thought that the release schedule was more because of them pushing Hawkeye a week earlier because of The Book of Boba Fett, but this is definitely a show that works beset if you watch these two slower opening episodes back-to-back. The slowness is definitely in the show's favour and it fits the whole 'smaller-scale conflict' vibe. The show in general is pretty mellow and slow, but the Clint/Kate dynamic is easily its strongest asset and it does make for a fun opening act. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Hawkeye plans to do a 'catch and release', which Clint and Laura recognize as a Natasha thing to do -- this is a reference to how Black Widow is introduced in The Avengers, where she is captured by a group of criminals when she could've gotten out anytime. The shot of Clint's head-bag being removed is even framed almost identically to Black Widow's equivalent scene in Avengers.
• Tony Stark is mentioned to have sold Avengers Tower. While not explicitly 'sold', the plot of Spider-Man: Homecoming does involve clearing out a bunch of Avengers-related objects out of Stark/Avengers Tower. 
• Clint and Kate go off to buy some ibuprofen, which is kind of a hilarious roundabout joke to Yelena and Natasha's joke in Black Widow about Avengers that need an ibuprofen after a fight. 
• Among the names in Kate's aunt's apartment is 'Moira Brandon', a supporting character for the West Coast Avengers.
• Grills, the LARPer that found the Ronin suit, is Clint's neighbour from the 2012 Hawkeye comic run.
• The montage of the explosions Clint has been in are all taken from previous MCU movies -- Avengers; Age of Ultron; Civil War and Endgame. It's also perfectly synched to "Little Drummer Boy", which is hilarious.