Disney Plus
The latest episode of Hawkeye is called ‘Partners, Am I Right?’ and it goes through the complete arc of ‘amused acceptance’ to ‘horrified fear’ for Mister CB1 (as Kate calls Clint in an attempt to create a better branded superhero name). The cliffhanger of the last episode is immediately resolved with Eleanor and Jack recognizing Hawkeye, making it indeed a pretty pointless one.
Jack is unusually pleasant in this episode which, coupled with Clint revealing to Kate (which he found out from Laura) that Jack is the CEO of a money laundering front, now makes it all a bit more ‘tricky’. And when we also see Eleanor attempt (and fail) to convince Clint to drop the case, and then drop Natasha’s name to Clint, and then have a mysterious call with someone, it certainly seems to be pushing us toward ‘actually it’s the Mom who’s the bad guy’. Or maybe they both are and one is more evil than the other or maybe they’re working together.
Either way, Kate finds herself charmed by Eleanor’s seeming actual joy dancing, which is the first of a few ‘Hailee Steinfeld drops a heartbreaking face on us’ moments. And she chooses to join Clint for a sort of ‘new family’ holiday experience, which is another sort of heartwarming and heartbreaking series of moments. It’s quite meaningful when Clint discusses the ‘shot I didn’t take’ to not kill Natasha when you consider the final (albeit predictable) moments of the episode when Yelena finally reveals herself.
A few interesting little notes in those scenes, including Clint drinking from a ‘Thanos is Right’ mug while a menorah is in the background. Who’s supposed to be Jewish here? And it was ‘cute’ in the scenes with the LARPers, although a lot of that was more about building the rapport further and pushing forward Kate’s ongoing ‘branding’ theme.
Disney Plus
It was also charming that Laura continued to support Clint in even more ways, this time with secret German phrases and somehow looking up the mysterious Sloane Limited company and its connection to the Tracksuits. Clint is later shown to be quite a badass when easily passing along a message to Kazi, and we also get a lot of competency (slow but growth) from Kate as she has to break into an apartment and trade blows with Maya, who actually flees after Kate hits her with an actual arrow (the realism of her snapping it off and running away is … well let’s just say minimal at best).
Anyone that saw Black Widow was expecting to see Yelena show up here eventually, and there are only two episodes left of the show so how long could we really expect to wait? There are still a few things to resolve, Eleanor’s actual role, Jack’s actual role, whoever Eleanor is talking to on the phone, Maya’s Uncle and the ‘boss’, the point of this mysterious watch, the resolution of Clint’s guilt in regards to how he hurt people like Maya, whatever Yelena needs to learn, and of course, giving Pizza Dog a part in the finale.
I was a bit confused about Kate’s final interaction with Yelena in terms of why she didn’t shoot her, but maybe a rewatch or next episode will clean that up. But overall it was a pretty strong ‘character’ episode with a high octane, mostly legible fight scene at the end. It’s a different sort of show in some ways than the other Disney Plus shows, but I’m really enjoying it, if not quite loving it. Definitely feel that they have a great sense of Clint and Kate as characters, a lot better than The Avengers really did back in the day.
New episodes of Hawkeye stream Wednesdays on Disney Plus.
Share this post
