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Ten Thoughts on Hawkeye’s “Never Meet Your Heroes” and “Hide and Seek”

By | November 26th, 2021
Posted in Television | % Comments

Marvel fans have a lot to be thankful for this year, from Wandavision to What If…?, media juggernaut Disney+ has pumped a metric ton of MCU content into the atmosphere in 2021. The newest offering is Hawkeye, a miniseries seeing the return of Jeremy Renner to the role of Clint Barton aka Hawkeye, as well as introducing Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop. Set against the ever-charming backdrop of Christmastime in New York City, the pair engage in some fairly low-stakes but exciting action-comedy hijinks. Borrowing more than just a little from Matt Fraction and David Aja’s seminal Hawkeye comic run, but never straying far from the Feige Formula, the series looks to finally give Renner’s Hawkeye ample screentime to explore the character, as well as continue to load up the roster for this new age of The Avengers. But is it any good?

Well, I have some thoughts.

(This Review will cover Episodes 1 and 2 that dropped simultaneously this Thanksgiving weekend. Some spoilers ahead)

1. Welcome to the Party, Pal!

Jeremy Renner, now 10+ years into the role of Hawkeye, is finally getting a chance to put some flavor into the ultra-bland onscreen version of Clint Barton. Personally I never minded this version of Clint being a morose, guarded family-man that was more akin to the Ultimate Marvel version than the 616’s mouthy ex-carnie Clint that most know and love, but he was mostly a buzzkill, and antithetical to the Whedonesque quipsters that dominate the Marvel landscape.

In the first two episodes, Renner has dropped the edgelord persona he had adopted in the guise of Ronin (more on that in a minute), and now that he has his family back and his life of superheroing mostly in the rearview, he finally gets to be the jovial, fun-loving dad he’d been missing out on during “post-Snap” era. And while Renner mostly plays his Clint still very deadpan and the straight man next to his exuberant protege, he’s clearly injecting some fun into the role this time out, with all the aggrieved nonchalance of Die Hard’s John McClane. Wanting nothing more than spending a fun Christmas in New York with his family, he finds his dark past resurface just in time for the holidays, as the costume he wore during his turn as the murderous vigilante Ronin seems to have reappeared on streets of NYC. This brings us to….

2. All About Kate

The real star of this vehicle is, in actor and character, Hailee Steinfeld as the ever-plucky Kate Bishop. Steinfeld is no stranger to headstrong females, from her onscreen debut as Mattie Ross in the True Grit remake, to her winning turn as Emily Dickinson on Hulu’s Dickinson, the actor certainly revels in playing strong women, and Kate Bishop is most certainly that.

Kate’s story (and this miniseries) begins, really, during the Battle of New York, and the first Avengers film – when Kate gets saved by Hawkeye, but loses her father the same day. Developing a hero worship for Clint and desperately wanting to protect herself and her mother, she vows at her father’s graveside to do just that, and asks her mother for a bow and arrow. During a fantastic opening credit montage that is chock full of (frankly) stolen David Aja iconography, we see Kate train to become a world-class archer and martial artist in her own right. This first episode was heavy on exposition and giving Kate a proper introduction, which may have been the reason episodes one and two were released together, but it seems Feige & Co. know what they have in Hailee Steinfeld and Kate is special, and want to give both of them time to grow where Renner never got the opportunity.

3. That’s Comics, Baby!

One of the criticisms I’ve seen thrown at this series is that it mires everyone and everything in too much backstory – that the MCU at this point is a content behemoth that requires a person to watch hours and hours of material to understand the new. That certainly helps, I suppose, but it isn’t a requirement. The beauty of comics is in their longevity, their vast and myriad, interwoven and often contradicting origins and timelines, and now we’re at a similar (but nowhere near as convoluted) point in the MCU, where a decade’s worth of films and television are still following the same general storyline – people are beginning to balk at this idea. I’m not sure if it’s because, generally, all superhero stories are the same and this “saminess” is starting to wear thin, or if movies (and the production quality of premium television like this) were never designed to feel so fungible.

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I can’t say I disagree with this notion, but I still find that Marvel Studios’ brand of entertainment is typically smartly made and enjoyable, if ultimately mostly mediocre outings. This saminess is also present in Hawkeye, but the charisma of the leads and the wise decision to do a Marvel version of a Christmas movie, has the makings to turn this project into something special.

4. Lucky

The third major character in this series (and in Fraction’s comic run) is Lucky, homeless dog who loves pizza and is saved by Barton in the comics, but Bishop in the show, and particularly in this comic seems to have adopted the role/trope as avatar for the “Spirit of Christmas” and helps shape Kate’s destiny when footage of her helping save Lucky from getting hit in traffic finds its way on the evening news. Though not a huge presence in these first two episodes, he’s a warm welcome for fans of the comic run, which also featured Lucky’s previous owners, the Tracksuit Mafia. They, too, are well represented here.

5. “BRO.”

Seriously, bro. The silly Russian (?) mob stereotypes of the Fraction/Aja run seem to also be a major player in this series, the “Tracksuit Draculas” and their lieutenant, Ivan, are old enemies of Ronin, and would like nothing more than to take revenge on the vigilante for past losses when the hero returns. Toning down the volume of the utterance of “Bro” goes a long way to dimensionalize what Fraction wrote as decidedly cartoonish and silly goons for Hawkeyes Clint and Kate to tangle with, and the series does just that, giving them a bit more personality and menace, if also the same low intelligence. The fight choreography is often pretty brutal (by Marvel standards), and they make sure not to pull any punches when landing blows against Kate, so the danger still feels intense. But what do they even want with Kate?!

6. A Murder-Mystery-Crime-Caper

This Hawkeye series follows the same fun formula the Fraction comic did – that of “low-stakes adventuring when the superheroes aren’t being superheroes,” and Fraction and Aja borrowed heavily from the crime films and detective shows of the 70’s, where street crime was often an indication of some further, more nefarious governmental, institutional, or societal decay. It’s the kind of gray-area politics you know Marvel has no interest really wading into, but will certainly toy with. In Hawkeye, we are given a strong indication at the outset that Kate’s parents are in over their heads on something, and that tension never goes away even once Derek Bishop (Kate’s father) dies, with actor Vera Farmiga adeptly playing Kate’s mother Eleanor with an air aloof charm that seems to be hiding something. This is only further hinted at when we’re introduced to her fiance.

Comic fans will likely recognize the name of Jacques Duquesne, the infamous Swordsman, a charlatan who trained Clint Barton in the ways of weaponry, fighting, and crime. Actor Tony Dalton plays Duquesne with the perfect amount of smarminess, and the typical “meeting the new step-father” trope is heightened by Kate’s suspicions about him thanks to Armand Duquesne, uncle of Jacques but also a gossipy socialite, and very loose-lipped about the pending nuptials. After confronting her mother about the marriage, and then eavesdropping on Armand and Eleanor having an argument, she tails Armand to a secret wine-cellar auction hosting some very illegal (and highly coveted) goods.

7. The Ronin Costume

Discovered in the wreckage of the Avengers Compound post-Thanos fight, the Ronin costume was pilfered and has found its way to the black market. Jacques, joining Armand at the auction, both bid on the retractable blade formerly belonging to the masked vigilante, but Armand is not to be outbid, and finally wins the prize. Before the costume can be sold, however, the wine cellar is raided by the Tracksuit Mafia. In the excitement of the siege, Kate finds herself in possession of the costume, and dons it for the first big action sequence of the show, an engaging close-quarters combat scene that deftly utilizes her acrobatics and wits to out-maneuver the gang. Taking the fight outside, she mixes it up with the Mafia long enough to be saved by Lucky and then save him, in turn. Saving Lucky ends up on the news, and enter Clint Barton.

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8. Rogers: The Musical

Barton is in NYC to catch a musical with his kids, a lively and funny (at least to us at home) take on the life of Steve Rogers. The bizarre re-enactment of the Battle of New York, now a silly song-and-dance number, is too much for Clint (but is generally a treat for us – a winking parody of Hamilton-esque musicals). The trauma he experienced that day, and others, and losing Nat, having to watch all of it sung back to him feels too surreal, and not just a little bit painful. He and his family quickly duck out and grab some Chinese food. There are times when Clint is noticed as Hawkeye, but one of the more endearing aspects of Hawkeye was always his everyman quality, and so he is also afforded some bit of anonymity.

The plot recognizes when to play both sides up, as Clint can often move through crowds unnoticed, but then there are times when his meals are paid for, or when he’s awkwardly accosted at a urinal for a selfie. Seeing Kate in Ronin’s costume on the TV in the hotel drags Hawkeye away from his family, knowing he needs to tie up these loose ends, lest someone else get in danger for his misdeeds. One convenient plot hole later he’s already tracked Kate down, just as she’s being accosted by the Tracksuit Mafia, also right on Kate’s heels. Helping her back to her place, they aren’t there long before the Tracksuit Mafia again shows up, and sets Kate’s apartment on fire. Before Clint can retrieve the Ronin costume from Kate’s table, they have to evacuate.

9. A Cold MacGuffin

Without giving too much more of the plot away – the Ronin costume was focused on pretty heavily for as little as it ever played into the MCUniverse, or even in Endgame. It’s a device that keeps Clint around long enough for him to develop the necessary attachment to Kate to keep the two of them together, which is fine, but strains believability. There is an entertaining scene at a LARP where an exasperated Clint tries leveraging his celebrity to only minimal success, but that scene in particular also felt wildly tangential to an already tangled plot. Two episodes in, and the show is wobbling a tad, and it mostly involves when Kate is not on the screen.

10. Hawkeyes

The show has found a winning formula in the repartee between mentor Clint and mentee Kate. Steinfeld wears Kate’s hero worship for Clint on her sleeve, but is not afraid to push Clint’s buttons. It’s a dynamic that is, again, aped from Fraction’s run on the book, but is a fun and refreshing dynamic that is a welcome presence in the MCU. As this series, and the MCU as a whole, moves forward, I’m curious to see how one generation of Marvel heroes accepts a new generation into the fold. Steinfeld’s star is clearly on the rise, and Kate Bishop is the perfect vehicle to launch her into superstardom.


//TAGS | hawkeye

Johnny Hall

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