If there’s one criticism that can be levied against the slate of Disney+ MCU television shows it’s that they have trouble with endings. WandaVision, which was one of the best MCU offerings to date, stumbled at the close. Loki packed a punch, but also needed to introduce a villain for a future MCU project, so that muddled what was a story about Loki finding him (and her) self into a launch pad for greater Marvel properties.* And the less said about Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the better. So, how would Marvel’s least showy series handle its big send-off? Well, in a rather unshowy way, wrapping up arcs and seeming to set things up for . . . well, not all that much. After five episodes filled with humor and a mystery as to just who was behind the death of Armand III (yeah, I forgot about him, too), everything felt pretty perfunctory in the end.
*Before people get mad, I did enjoy the hell out of Loki – and I even liked the finale. But it certainly had the feel of needing to set things up for other properties down the line in addition to setting things up for the promised second season – notable because, as of this writing, it’s the only live-action series to get a second season. Also of note – there was no “Hawkeye will return” tag at the end of the credits, which leaves things up in the air as to when we’ll see these characters again – barring Maya, who has her own announced spin-off.
Going into the finale, we knew there were two key confrontations that needed to occur: Kate had to confront her mother and Yelena had to confront Clint. We ended up getting a bonus confrontation between Maya, Kazi, and Kingpin – more on that later – which I wasn’t expecting in light of Maya’s upcoming series. How satisfying were those tete-a-tetes? Well, not all that satisfying in the grand scheme of things.
Eleanor turned out to just be a woman clinging to power and financial security because she didn’t think her daughter could handle a life outside the lap of luxury (and because, really, Eleanor didn’t want to give up the life she had gotten when she married into a wealthy family after growing up without). She wasn’t a super villain, didn’t have a secret identity, and was just a savvy businesswoman who pushed her daughter to become a well-rounded badass fighter. Yes, sometimes people are just people – even in the MCU – but this felt more like the origin story for how Eleanor becomes an enemy to Kate in the end, albeit a truncated story here. Kate sending her to prison for her role in Armand’s death should have felt more monumental than it ended up feeling – Kate is sending her mother to jail!! – but all we got was some stilted dialogue about how annoyed Eleanor was at Kate for trying to be a hero. Down the line, when we next see Kate Bishop in the MCU, do I think Eleanor will emerge as a bitter adversary? Sure. But the groundwork was shoddily laid here because there ended up – just as I feared – being too much story for six episodes, which meant we didn’t get enough time with Eleanor to set-up her point of view outside of annoyed mom who doesn’t think her adult kid is ready for the world. I would have loved less time spent on the Jack mystery red herring and more on establishing a character that presumably will have more to do down the line.*
*Another one of my qualms with the MCU is the ability to write off bad character development in individual projects as “they’ll have more to do in the future.” I’ve written about it before in my various recaps, but this is something that a non-MCU series would be lambasted for. When you have the out of knowing that a character or story beat can or will pay-off in a future project, it allows writers to shortchange characters and arcs in the here and now. Eleanor’s arc is the perfect example of this: I have faith that it will pay-off in a future project (you don’t cast Vera Farmiga for six episodes of a TV show and not bring her back in the future), so I’m willing to let slide something that would have annoyed the hell out of me in a normal show.
But the most disappointing confrontation had to be the one between Yelena and Clint. Now, this wasn’t the fault of either Florence Pugh or Jeremy Renner, both of whom did a great job in the scene (Pugh is the MVP of the whole series, in my opinion, and I cannot wait to see what Yelena gets up to next). But what a letdown after such a great set-up. Clint tells Yelena Nat sacrificed herself. Yelena doesn’t believe it. Lather, rinse, repeat, until Clint does the secret bird call? It felt so hokey and forced. Now, it’s possible that Nat did the bird call with Clint at some point in one of her MCU appearances (I’m sure someone out there is checking all the footage and will figure it out), but I can’t remember it. So, it’s awfully convenient that suddenly it’s a thing Clint and Nat did, too. They had a clear link right there: Nat always protected Yelena. This sacrifice was her final act of doing so, by saving her sister. I guess you could say it was implied, but this is the MCU, they tend to hit us over the head with these key points. Instead of the bird call being the link, how about appealing to the deep love between Yelena and Nat one more time? Pugh could have sold the hell out of it. After setting up this showdown for so long (at least in MCU release time), it ended up being meh when it could have been an emotional lynch-pin in sending Yelena out into the wider MCU (and hopefully headed for more team-ups with Kate Bishop, as their scenes were the best part of the finale).
As for the Maya/Kazi/Kingpin piece of the puzzle, well, I don’t believe for a second that Kingpin is really dead. Shot and left for dead? Sure. But why bring back a key New York City Marvel villain (and announce an upcoming series starring his protégé who was wielding the gun that shot him) just to kill him off screen? When it comes to Kazi, oof. What a waste of a character, just to have him go out fighting like that. I don’t quite understand why Maya gave him that second chance to run with her – he was obviously in on the murder of her father, and their relationship was noticeably undefined in a way that is rare for Marvel – but why the writers opted not to take that out and allow someone to deepen that relationship and hash out the issues between the pair in the Echo spin-off is beyond me. That triangle was perfectly set for a deeper dive and instead we were given a rushed job that didn’t get us much of anywhere.
All of these complaints, yet I still have to say I enjoyed the episode and the series overall. Its strengths were as strong as any entry into the MCU – the banter between Hailee Steinfeld and pretty much anyone could smooth over any number of plot cracks along the way – and its weaknesses – developing any character not named Kate or Clint, keeping the emotional stakes resonating throughout the series, and having enough time to devote to telling three arcs that needed much more time than they were given – weren’t all that much of a shock when compared to past MCU Disney+ outings (seriously – there’s a problem with overstuffing the narrative across the board here that needs to get looked at by Kevin Feige before the next round of shows drops). But the best part of the series? It never ventured into the realm of “MCU Homework.” Sure, watching the series will deepen your understanding of the next time Yelena, Clint, Kate, or Maya pops up in the MCU. But you don’t need it to understand the next set of films. It was what it was and stands on its own merit. And most importantly, it made me excited to see where these characters might pop up next. This is a fun group to see interact, and while Hawkeye didn’t always work, it was always fun.
Hawkeye Easter Eggs/Theories
— So, Jack turned out to be not a villain? Just a pompous gold digger with a love of swords? That was an awful lot of time to waste for that payoff – even if Tony Dalton sold the hell out of it. I would like to know just how much Jack was aware of Eleanor’s schemes, since it was clear his uncle was pretty on top of things.
— The Laura Barton reveal was simply that she worked for SHIELD at some time in the past, and somehow her watch – with unknown information within it – ended up in Avengers Tower? Ok, that’s all well and good, but I was hoping for a bit more to that. I guess we’ll get some more breadcrumbs at some point down the line, but I’m not going to hold my breath on it.
— One thing I hope – but don’t expect – to continue to play out is Clint’s guilt over his actions as Ronin. Burning the suit and telling Maya that Kingpin ordered the hit on her dad doesn’t absolve Clint from anything. Yes, he was a weapon, but he also made the conscious choice to go that route to excise his own grief. If this series was meant to force him to reckon with that side of himself, it didn’t get where it needed to.
— Just how is Val connected to everything? Did Eleanor call her? Kingpin? Or is Yelena freelancing now and just got an offer from one of them? Some unanswered questions there that I suspect will be answered down the line.
— No real post-credit scene, but we did get that full musical number from Rogers: The Musical, a show that looks better than Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, but only by the smallest of margins. And yes, I did see Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark when it was playing on Broadway, and no, no one was injured at the performance I saw. It was, in fact, as bad as you have heard.
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