Hawkeye S01E06 Review: The Kingpin of Crime

Hawkeye, Season 1, Episode 6: So This Is Christmas

And so Hawkeye ends its six-episode run, and... it's a fun enough finale! Not everything is wrapped up, and the show does struggle a bit in juggling its many, many characters. It also suffers a bit from not knowing what it wants to do with some of them (Maya, for example, is obviously being saved for her own TV series) but all and all, it's a pretty fun end that fits the show. I do agree that Hawkeye could have very much used an extra episode or made this one slightly longer. It wasn't quite as bad as Kang's introduction at the end of Loki, but Kingpin and his dynamics with Maya and Eleanor does feel kind of rushed. Especially if the audience members in question haven't actually seen Daredevil -- a distinct possibility considering how oddly the MCU has been handling their Netflix IP's. 

There's a conclusion and all the characters involved do get a bit of a shine, but ripping off the band-aid first... a lot of the emotional thoroughlines don't really work quite as well. Clint and Yelena's scene are... it isn't weak by any means. Renner and Pugh deliver pretty great performances and it's not like the scripting is weak, but I really did feel like they simultaneously drag that scene a bit too long and also resolve it without too much satisfaction. Likewise, while we're lost in all the action scenes, I guess last episode of 'deal with it' is the show's answer to Clint and his Ronin persona. Sure, he burns the suit at the end, but we never really got any kind of discussion on Clint's stint as a mass-murdering vigilante. 

Another one that didn't really work as well is Kingpin and Maya. We are told that Kingpin's relationship with Maya is like an adoptive father, and as always, Vincent D'Onofrio brings his A-game when he interacts with Maya and shows the tenderness of a father early in the episode, but it really does feel too little, too late. Again, it's not as bad as Loki or Falcon and the Winter Soldier's respective messy final episodes, but I really did feel like introducing Kingpin to us an episode earlier to establish the Kingpin/Maya/Kazi dynamic would've worked so much better. 

Eleanor Bishop is also... she's kind of stifled, easily the least interesting character next to the antagonists that are Kingpin, Yelena and Maya. The only reason we really care about her is just her relationship to Kate, and while we do get a confrontation, I felt like it wasn't quite as dramatic as it could've been. Again, none of these complains are enough to ruin what's otherwise a pretty solid action-packed finale, but all together it's kind of noticeable that this probably could've done with either an extra episode or a bit more polish.

Oh, and Jack Duquesne really is just a dork with sword skills, and there's absolutely nothing to do with his comic-book Swordsman alter-ego. Kind of annoying considering how long they dragged Jack as a red herring, but okay. 

But! But but but! With those out of the way, the rest of the episode is genuinely fun. Kingpin's entrance to the story is absolutely threatening and amazing. We do admittedly just throw the entire thing about the mystery story out the window in favour of an action-packed episode -- Kingpin's behind everything; Eleanor's been working as Kingpin's minion because her husband owed Kingpin money*, Jack was framed, and Eleanor now wants out, causing Kingpin to, predictably, get super-duper angry. At least he didn't bash her skull in with a car door. 

(*Her dad being a criminal is an angst-source for Kate that really didn't get touched upon)

And that ends up being the setup for the final fight in a party. Yelena wants to come in to murder Clint. Kingpin's men wants to murder Eleanor. Clint and Kate have to stop them both, and tossed into all of this is Maya and her realization that Kingpin was the one who set her dad up to die. Actually, let's talk about Maya first -- introduced as a sympathetic antagonist who seems to be there to hold Clint accountable for his actions as Ronin, all of that just sort of petered out and that's kind of felt like we got a rushed version of what would be the first arc in her TV show here. It doesn't help that her screentime with Kingpin, while powerful, was also very short -- while her relationship with Kazi is so on the sidelines that it barely registered. 

And as much as I adored the return of one of my favourite live-action supervillains ever, Kingpin is... well, his performances are as amazing as ever, but he really doesn't quite have the same amount of personal enmity towards the Hawkeyes as Maya, Yelena or Kazi had. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely enjoyed him taking his way through Kate's trick arrows, and we're definitely working by comic-book rules and there's no way Kingpin is dead, but the audience members who haven't watched Daredevil are probably confused at who this random big guy is that's stealing the show in the final episode; while those that watched Daredevil probably wouldn't have any sort of satisfaction seeing the character apparently-killed by Maya. 

Still... the action scenes are amazing and fun in this episode. Let's be honest and I'll just state flat-out that I really didn't give two shits about the LARPers and the episode would've worked so much better without them, but there's so many good stuff here. My fanboy soul definitely got excited about Kingpin and Yelena being involved so heavily! Hell, Kate-vs-Yelena's friendly superhero fighting more than fills in the quota for comedy for me -- and they are actually fun! From Kate pressing all the buttons on the elevator, to their oner fight through the office rooms, to Kate trying to follow Yelena's rappel down... it's pretty great! Other standouts also include Kate's fight against Kingpin in the toy store; Clint actually making good on his boast of splitting an arrow with a second arrow; and the two Hawkeyes standing back to back and unleashing holy hell with their trick arrows. 

The episode ends with a couple of questions -- Maya/Kingpin will undoubtedly be the focus of the 'Echo' TV show coming soon. Kazi's dead, Yelena's forgiven Clint and Eleanor's arrested. Oh, and that weird watch that was the focus of the earlier episodes belonged to Laura Barton, apparently... because the episode closes off with, well, the happy ending that Clint manages to get home in time for Christmas -- bringing along two 'strays' as Kate Bishop and Lucky the Pizza Dog to their family. And... and the review might show that I'm complaining a lot, but I really am not -- this has been a really, really fun finale. The show as a whole isn't perfect, but with the more flippant and fun-loving tone that it has, I feel like it does strike a great enough balance. It most certainly delivered at introducing Kate Bishop and making her likable, but most of all, I can't get enough of tired-old-dad Clint Barton. 

Good stuff! Hopefully sometime in the upcoming year I'll have the energy to slowly review the Phase 3 MCU movies (I've watched all the Phase 4 movies to date, but I kind of want to release them in chronological order), but you guys can expect me back with episodic Disney+ reviews. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In addition to receiving his comic-book counterpart's iconic diamond-capped cane, Kingpin later dons the red-and-white hawaiian shirt taken from Spider-Man: Family Business.
  
• Kingpin and Maya having a conversation about seeing 'eye to eye' before she shoots him is also taken from the comics, although there (and I suspect here), Kingpin is merely shot in the eyes and blinded. 
• Hawkeye's new costume is based on how his modern counterpart is often portrayed, most notably in the Ultimate comics. 
• The cufflinks that Kate steals to use to activate her trick arrows are specifically the ones from Daredevil's first season, which are the ones that Fisk took from his abusive father. 
• Another Pym arrow shows up, this one the shrinking one instead of the enlarging one. Clint name-drops Scott (Ant-Man) when wondering what to do with the shrunken van.
• It slipped my mind a couple episodes ago, but Hawkeye using Pym tech is probably a reference to how Clint used to be Giant-Man/Goliath for a while in the comics...
• Laura's SHIELD watch has the number '19' inscribed on it, referring to Agent 19, the codename of Hawkeye's comic-book wife Mockingbird/Bobbi Morse. While Mockingbird's already adapted into the MCU in Agents of SHIELD, I guess the 'wife of Hawkeye' part goes to the MCU-original Laura Barton.
• Clint knows the secret bird-whistle between Natasha and Yelena from Black Widow, and briefly recaps their childhood escape from Ohio in the beginning of the movie.