Summary: Clint is dragged away from his family during the holidays when a young girl, Kate, wears the Ronin suit to fight off a robbery at a black market auction at her mother's charity event. This puts the Tracksuit Mafia after Kate, led by Maya, whose father was killed by the Ronin. Clint saves Kate from them and tries to resolve the problem himself, but Kate continues to stick around with him and they grow a bond with each other. Kate is suspicious that her mom's fiance Jack has ties with criminal activity and is responsible for the death of another man Armand and she investigates him with Clint. Clint's identity as the Ronin is discovered by Maya who fights him, but Clint defeats her and reveals that her boss is the one who hired him. Yelena arrives to kill Clint and talks with Kate. She informs Kate that she was hired by her mother, who is connected with Kingpin, who is the man behind the Tracksuit Mafia. Eleanor severs ties with Kingpin, and he responds by attacking her. Clint and Kate save her, and fight the Tracksuits. Clint encounters Yelena and tells her about Natasha's death. Yelena chooses not to kill him. Kate defeats Kingpin, who is seemingly killed by Maya, and then has her mother arrested. Kate goes with Clint to his family for the holidays.
The Good: I really admire how this show handles its main characters. The MCU isn't particularly adept at giving compelling character arcs to its charming cast of characters, but "Hawkeye" hit the nail on the head. The core of this show is the developing relationship between Clint and Kate which starts at the end of the first episode, and take significant steps with each ensuing episode as the characters learn more about each other. Kate appreciates spending time with her personal hero and is forced to learn about and accept the darker sides to him that she was unaware of, while Clint is slowly charmed into forming a mentor relationship with this girl who is eager to become a hero, while also cautioning her from the perils of this line of work. The growth that these characters undergo is remarkably satisfying to watch and it is paced to perfection. It's helped by the fact that "Hawkeye" places emphasis on the growth of the characters over the development of the plot. In numerous episodes we get to see scenes where the two characters simply spend time with each other and learn about each other, which is integral in developing this relationship. We understand why Kate wants to spend more time with Clint, and we also understand why Clint chooses to take Kate under his wing. The story develops organically and ultimately ends with a lovely scene as Clint invites Kate to his house, likely planning to give her the Hawkeye name and to go into retirement. "Hawkeye" did a remarkable job of making me care about the relationship between these two characters. And of course, it helps that the acting and writing is really solid, allowing these two to have excellent chemistry. Their interactions are a lot of fun, and it's always a joy to see them on screen. For a relationship to be effective, I have to be invested in the characters individually first. This is why it is so important that "Hawkeye" has effective characterization and development, because without it, the relationship would be dead in the water. I'll start with Clint, who continues to be one of the most relatable characters in the entire MCU. He brings to the table a level of humanity that you don't get from the other superheroes in the show. Unlike everybody else, Clint is quite literally just a guy. He has no powers, he has to rely on his intelligence because there is a very real risk of death for him, and at his core, he's just a simple man trying to live out his days with his family. This makes him far more effective than most superheroes in the MCU. Thankfully, his potential is not squandered and Clint is given some lovely conflicts to contend with in this show. Of course we get to see him introducing Kate into the hero world, but on a more personal level, he is still contending with the grief of losing Natasha, which is introduced early in the season as Clint is uncomfortable during a musical, and it culminates with a nice moment of acceptance as he talks Yelena out of killing him. Furthermore, we get some nice smaller scale conflicts for him, such as accepting who he is and what he has done as the Ronin, and contending with being deaf, which is highlighted especially well during an emotional scene as Kate has to transcribe a conversation with his own son because Clint can't even hear him. Clint is handled superbly all season. I had an interesting experience with Kate throughout the show. During the first few episodes, I honestly did not like her at all. She was bratty, annoying, unrealistically talented, and it was hard for me to connect with her in any meaningful way. This put a block in my initial interest in my show. As said above, it is important to care about the characters involved when you see them have a relationship together, but I just did not care about Kate at all. Ordinarily that would be a problem, but I think that the show came up with a clever way to turn this flaw into a strength. Because Kate actually is a compelling character; the show specifically misleads you early on to disprove of what we see from her. Instead what happens is that we learn of Kate's virtues while Clint learns of Kate's virtues, allowing us to go through the same experience that Clint does, turning the development of their relationship into a more personal experience. The way that we connect with Kate is by seeing how she handles the problems that she is faced with, and it's through her choices that aspects of her character shine through. Initially, she seemed bratty (destroying a clock tower), irresponsible (investigating Jack with no real plan), and stupid (continually provoking Jack). Looking back at it after seeing the way she handled scenarios throughout the season, I can now see that she is actually righteous (she commits to her mother's arrest), honest (she doesn't opt to lie even though it would benefit her), empathetic (she connects with Yelena), and brave (she is willing to take risks to do what needs to be done). Without fundamentally changing the character, "Hawkeye" gives us a new perspective of her by showing the positive side of her personality through her actions. Outside of the strength of its main characters. "Hawkeye" is still pretty solid. The action is excellent in thsi show. It is directed in a really flashy way, and it contains a good deal of tension because the characters aren't ultra powerful heroes that have no risk of death. These are just two people holding a bow. The fight scenes are pretty dramatic, with a nice mix of creative silliness. Which brings me to the comedy in the show, which is mostly effective. Sure, it is still corny at times (see: The Bad), but it is almost always a welcome bit of levity. The mystery is another strong aspect of the show. It doesn't end up playing a particularly important role in the show, but it definitely makes the earlier episodes more interesting and intriguing than they would have been without it. With how formulaic the MCU is, I always appreciate the injection of a different genre like mystery to make the stories more engaging. The Bad: Of course, with this being an MCU product there is inevitably going to be a feeling of flat emptiness in the show. What do I mean by that? Well we have seen so many MCU superhero movies and TV shows over the years, and they all have a very similar tone and style. Even with some bursts of inspiration in this show, I am still burned out on the campy tone, formulaic storytelling, and shallow exploration of themes that always feel tacked on rather than being the centerpiece of the show. These problems persist with "Hawkeye", and while I am happy to see some innovation, I can't help but wish for more radical changes in the MCU universe so that the same flaws can stop persisting over and over again. I'm going to discuss the campy tone further because I think that this is a major problem. The constant comic-book lines and jokes in places where they don't belong always destroys my immersion in these stories. It's a problem because there are genuinely serious emotional moments in this show, but they are undercut when the very next scene has these unnecessary moments of levity that only serve to destroy the tension and make me question the realism of the world and its characters. I would like to see the MCU changing its tone more often, as I think that the stories can become far better as a result. While I still enjoyed May and Yelena's roles in the show, I can't help but feel that there could have been more done with these characters and their storylines. Their development was rushed and they never had enough focus to make their stories feel like more than simplistic, 2-dimensional stories. And that's a shame because there was very real potential with these characters, especially Maya who occupies such a unique role as an aggressive mob leader with a sympathetic past. I wish that we had seen more from her. Kingpin as the main villain was a total disappointment. I'm starting to wonder if the MCU would be better without any villains at all, because this show, as well as "WandaVision" are two shows that were hurt by the surprise villain reveal coming at the end of the season. I think that with Maya, Yelena, and Eleanor playing significant villainous roles, there was no need for Kingpin to be shoved into this finale. Best Episodes: E03 Echoes: This episode began with an outstanding action setpiece that was the very best of the show. This was also where I finally started to connect with Kate and appreciate her relationship with Clint. E05 Ronin: Even though the episode doesn't quite feel cohesive, there are some wonderful scenes here like Clint's showdown with Maya, the Eleanor twist, and Kate's talk with Yelena. Worst Episodes: E01 Never Meet Your Heroes: This first episode was painfully slow-paced at times, and everything involving Kate was uninteresting at this point. E02 Hide and Seek: The characters not taking things seriously, and Clint failing to give any real support to Kate after what happened were major problems that hurt this episode. Character of the Season: Clint. Conclusion: "Hawkeye" surprised me. Going into this show, I was thoroughly uninterested. I hadn't watched any of the trailers and I honestly forgot that the show was even happening until the first two episodes dropped. I was expecting the standard MCU fare and nothing more, but this show rose up to become something more. The directing, acting, editing, and writing had extra effort put into it, and the emotional core of the Clint/Kate relationship worked tremendously well, making what I think is one of the most compelling character pairings in the MCU so far. By the finale, I was surprised by how invested I was in this show, since I fully expected to not really care about what was going on. This show is mostly dumb fun, and it does that well, but the emotional core helps elevate it to be better than I was anticipating. My scores may seem a bit low for this first season, and that's because as positive as I am being, this is still an MCU show that suffers from the many problems that the MCU has. As a TV show overall, this is still just decent, but for an MCU product, it is quite good. However, I believe that the show as a whole is better than each individual episode. This was a solid, and fun, 6 episode experience. I would not mind at all if there was a second season, as long as it has as much passion as the first.
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
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