The following article contains spoilers for Hawkeye.
One week before signing off, Hawkeye copies the blueprint laid out by its Marvel predecessors on Disney Plus, setting up an action-packed finale with a deeper dive inside each of its characters’ minds with everyone getting their fair share of screen time. In this sense, it’s a stark departure from the two previous Hawkeye episodes, which mostly focused on delivering the series’ biggest action sequences.
However, the change is definitely welcome as Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova continues to be just as funny and charming as she was in Black Widow, in this case helping Clint Barton’s story move forward with the show’s biggest reveal being courtesy of her flawless spy work.
Although this episode may be titled “Ronin,” there’s actually very little footage of Clint’s masked vigilante persona in it. Instead, like all things MCU, Hawkeye now starts off by reminding everyone that it is truly all connected with Yelena getting one of the best pre and post-Blip scenes so far, one that will surely remind many of WandaVision’s own piece for Monica Rambeau, but done perhaps with a bit more flair and personal touch tailor-made for Yelena.
The key difference here is that this Hawkeye episode actually makes the lukewarm Black Widow movie a must-watch by expanding on everything Yelena was in that film. By taking the audience back to the MCU’s 2018, Yelena is shown cleaning up the Black Widow mess left by the program only to find herself being blipped inside one of her old sisters’ luxurious homes to really give that movie some proper payoff.
In any case, Hawkeye is supposed to be about Kate Bishop and Clint Barton, so the next scene cuts to the former, especially showing her more vulnerable side opening up to her mother about what kind of a week she’s had. Overall, the moment helps drive the notion that Kate’s just a kid, still a Young Avenger at best, as well as the type of relationship she had with her mom before it gets turned upside down.
That is because Eleanor and Jack Duquesne were tipped to be minor villains in Hawkeye and Vera Farmiga’s performance is just what the viewer needs to solve that puzzle on their own. Later on, Jack takes the fall though he leaves the scene completely in character, meaning that Kate’s suspicions about his unusually high levels of optimism, charm, and amazing fencing skills were perhaps unfounded.
This episode's best scene, and possibly the entire show’s, is Yelena and Kate’s girls night over at the latter’s apartment, where Natasha’s sister lays out her motives and plans, finally taking off her Black Widow assassin mask to reveal she’s as funny as she was in that movie, though just as deadly nonetheless. The dialogue here is excellent and it’s quite convincing to define Yelena as someone who’s now incapable or unwilling to do unnecessary harm to uninvolved parties like Kate happens to be.
Since the show is called Hawkeye, Clint naturally sees his story progress too, with him crashing at Grills’ place, who’s officially forked from Marvel Comics story by officially becoming Clint’s friend, the type you can leave your one-eyed dog with. Before moving on to fixing his Ronin problem, Clint does consult with the wife about how he’ll handle things, further enhancing Laura Barton’s importance prior to Hawkeye’s potentially wholesome or heartbreaking finale.
The Ronin meetup with Maya Lopez and the rest of the Tracksuits is where the episode’s dose of action lies, however, in this scene Hawkeye borrows a few tricks from Daredevil or even Batman’s playbook to depict the Ronin as a different type of superhero, one that lurks in the shadows to hunt his enemies down. Though brief, the scene perhaps marks the closing chapter of Maya’s thirst for revenge not because of the way Clint’s words will probably be echoing in her head until the Echo spinoff comes out, but quite literally due to Hawkeye now having bigger things to attend to, like the big guy everyone's been talking about.
When Kate and Clint do meet up again, the pair get back to their usual on-screen banter, with the former’s getaway ride further drawing the generational barrier between the two that also makes their chemistry more special. The moment is interrupted by Yelena, who provides the new intel every Marvel fan has been waiting for these past months, Vincent D’Onofrio’s return as the Kingpin, and his connection to Kate’s mother.
Episode five leaves enough loose ends (like Yelena still wanting to kill Clint) so that the series' Rockefeller Center showdown will continue to develop its more dramatic plot points. What Kate has just learned about her mom will surely be a defining moment in her character’s origin story, but most importantly it may all lead to seeing D’Onofrio’s towering presence enter the battlefield once more.
With the Tracksuits and Maya seemingly now off Clint’s trail, plus Kingpin’s potential betrayal, Wilson Fisk should be the finale’s big star since it’s unlikely Marvel Studios would leave fans hanging on just a blurred out picture for months.
Overall, Hawkeye remains possibly Disney Plus’ most consistent Marvel show, because of how few ups and downs it’s really had over this past month. Whether that’s a good thing or not depends on each fan's tastes and if they've succumbed to Marvel fatigue with so much content being out there, but even that could be just about to change next week when Hawkeye goes all out now that the Kingpin has come into play and Spider-Man: No Way Home gets people hyped about the MCU once more.