She's a chipper rookie, he's a sourpuss veteran, can they get along?
Last time on Hawkeye, we were
introduced to Kate Bishop. The young woman was saved by Hawkeye during the
attack on New York and spent the next decade training to be like Hawkeye. She
mastered several martial arts, archery, and gymnastics to meet that end. She
gets in trouble as she sort of accidentally destroyed a clock tower at her school
and comes back to New York to get read the riot act by her mother. At the same
time, Hawkeye aka Clint Barton, is in New York seeing a show with his three
kids. He seems to be doing okay but is having difficulty adjusting to people
recognizing him on the street, and the PTSD of Natasha’s death. Meanwhile, Kate
goes to a fundraiser with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. She spies her
mother fighting with an old family acquaintance named Armand, whom she follows
into the wine cellar. The wine cellar is hosting an underground auction which
Armand and the mom’s boyfriend Jack is attending. The auction is broken up by a
bunch of goons in tracksuits who rob it looking for a watch. Kate finds an auction
item, Ronin’s costume, puts it on and fights off the goons. Jack also is shown
nabbing Ronin’s sword and pocketing it. She escapes the tracksuits, saving a one-eyed
dog on the way. She drops the dog off at her apartment and goes to investigate
Armand. She finds him dead, a slash in his side. She’s jumped by more tracksuits,
but is saved by Clint, who saw the news report that the “Ronin” was sighted in
the area. The episode ends with them meeting. Enough recap; let’s get to it.
We open with Clint and Kate meeting;
Clint being somewhat annoyed a kid stole his suit. Sirens blare in the distance,
which keep Clint from investigating, the two of them head for Kate’s apartment.
As they walk, Kate clearly is geeking out over Hawkeye, but trying to hold it
in, badly. They make it to the apartment, with Clint taking a moment to just
rest his head on a window and sigh defeated. Clint wants to just get the suit
and go, which disappoints Kate but she’s still excited to have him in her
apartment. She explains how she got the suit and some of the… crimes she committed
in it. She hands the suit over to Clint and asks him to sign her bow. He lets
her know that this isn’t over yet, and that the guys chasing her are the Tracksuit
mafia. She asks if they’re involved in Armand’s death, but Clint isn’t sure. He
warns her about how dangerous the suit is, and how people she loved could be hurt
if she was seen wearing it because of the enemies the last guy that wore it
made. Yeah, he’s acting like he’s not the Ronin while making it super clear to
anyone with a lick of sense that he is the Ronin. Thankfully, Kate doesn’t, so she
buys it. Clint reasons that the Tracksuits must have followed Kate from the
auction to the brownstone and asks if she went anywhere else. Kate reveals that
she just dropped off the dog, right before a Tracksuit shouts her name and they
start throwing Molotov cocktails at her apartment. Damn.
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| I so hope Kate or her mom has renters insurance. |
Clint tells Kate to take cover and
grabs a Molotov out of the air and hurls it back at them, just before Kate shoots
another. The fire starts consuming the apartment, separating them from the
suit. Kate tries to put it out by shooting a fire extinguisher, but that just launches
it into the air and at the Tracksuits. Clint has them run off, saying they’ll
get the suit later.
Kate, Clint, and the dog escape to
the subway, and then go to get supplies. Kate was hoping for Avenger’s
supplies, but it’s just to get a bunch of medical supplies from a pharmacy. When
she asks if they’re going to Avenger’s Tower, Clint reveals that Tony sold it a
few years ago, to which she replies, “That is so sad on so many levels.” They
head to Kate’s aunt’s apartment, said aunt is a snowbird so the place is currently
vacant.
Clint leaves her with the medical supplies
and tells her to take care of her cuts, and that he’s going to get the suit and
then go back to his kids. Kate is obviously disappointed at being ditched but
sets to work. Clint returns to the apartment, which has been put out by the
fire department. He steals a fire coat and sneaks inside. He looks around the apartment,
but the suit is gone. If it was anything besides a superhero costume, I’d think
he’d think it was burned, but obviously Ronin’s gear is fire resistant. He returns
the coat and notices a sticker for the NYC Larpers club on the firetruck
window. He slips away.
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| Clint is so jealous of Cap, what with his accelerated healing. |
Back at the apartment, Kate lies to
her mom about what happened at the auction as Clint walks in. He’s obviously
pissed that the suit went missing again. His heart shrank because a “girl in a
ninja costume stole his Christmas” as he puts, angrily. She reveals that she
dubbed the dog Pizza Dog as they kind of bond over stitches. Clint has her redo
some of hers as she didn’t stitch them right. She tries to smooth things out
between them, but doesn’t do a very good job, so she says good night and leave
him to do his thing. Clint googles NYCL and almost immediately finds a Tic-Tock
video of a firefighter named Grills showing off the fact he stole the Ronin
suit. I’m not sure Firefighters do that but moving on. He texts Lila to get
their stuff packed and ready to go in the morning and heads out to see them.
The next day, he sends his kids to
the airport. He tells them that Cooper is in charge at the airport and that
they must not lose Nate. Nate signs he loves his dad as he puts him in the car.
Lila notices the cut on his head, but Clint plays it off as no big deal. He
sends them off, promising to make it home for Christmas. They drive off and he starts
tearing up.
Back at Kate’s apartment, they see
that Armand’s death made the news and news is speculating if the Ronin is connected
to both cases. Witness saw her in costume at both places, but obviously there
really isn’t a straight line of reasoning from ‘foiling black-market auction
robbery’ to “murder.” Kate wants to do
something, but Clint tells her to stay put while he gets his suit. Kate wants
to go to see her mother, who owns a security company and whom she works for.
Clint realizes that she’ll just go even if he insists that she stay at the apartment,
so escorts her. There’s a funny bit where Kate notices that Clint is walking
street side, thinking he’s “being a gentleman” but he reveals that it’s so he
can hear her and that he has a hearing aid. She asks what happened, and we get
a smash cut of every explosion, hard hit, blast, and other method of hearing
damage that Clint has suffered as an Avenger. He says, “too hard to tell.” They
see some street performers dressed as Avengers, with Katniss Everdeen instead
of a Hawkeye. Kate tells him his problem is branding, to which he says his
problem is her. She tries to convince him to embrace branding, but he refuses.
Clint is hoping that this is the last time he’ll see her as he wants to grab the
suit and run, much to Kate’s disappointment. He gets her cell number, for
emergencies only, and then walks off.
Kate goes to Bishop Securities and
to see her mom, and Jack, who is also there. Kate tries to pump Jack for information
but is bad at it. Eleanor asks about the gawdy suit Kate is wearing and about
the fire she heard happened at Kate’s apartment. She asks Jack to leave, where
he reveals that he understands because he read a pop-psych book on being a stepparent.
Eleanor wants Kate to have dinner with them to figure all this stuff out, which
she agrees to, begrudgingly.
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| Suit recovered! Wait, we have four more episodes? Oh no. |
Clint goes to the NYC Larpers,
where he’s roadblocked by security. He just wants to talk to Grills and get his
suit back, but the guard won’t let him through. The LARP goes until Midnight, which
obviously doesn’t work for Clint’s schedule, so he insists on being able to
talk to Grills. She reveals that she knows he’s Hawkeye and warns that if he
breaks the rules with a bunch of firefighters and cops, things will get messy. Clint
agrees to “follow the rules” to move this along. Sort of, he gives them no
information about him, gets the gear and the warning that as a newbie he gets
one free hit. He puts on the “armaments” and heads out. There’s a funny scene
where Clint, a professional assassin, martial artists and one of the greatest
weapons fighters in Marvel comics kind of just walks through these LARPers to
get to Grills. He wants the suit, he’ll either pretend hit him and take the
suit, or real hit him and take the suit. Grills agrees to just give him the
suit, if he’s allowed to “Kill” Clint, for the story. Clint is obviously annoyed,
muttering “I fought Thanos” but agrees, but they must do a whole trial by combat
thing.
Back at Bishop Securities, Kate is
texting Clint to try to get his attention when she gets a call from the police.
The detective wants her to come in for a “quick chat” about the fire in her
apartment. They set an appointment for tomorrow.
Clint and Grills have their trial
by combat, though Clint isn’t enthused. They have a few exchanges before Clint
can get Grills to “kill” him. Grills is declared the winner and Clint gets the
suit back. Grills thanks Clint for doing this for him, and while Clint pretends
to be grumpy, does admit he had fun. He runs off. He calls home, telling Laura
he’s not going to make his flight and he’ll be stuck in New York for one more
day. He tells her he has the suit and that he’s dealing with the Tracksuit mafia.
He locks the suit in a locker. He plans a “catch and release” play, a Nat
special, and says goodbye. Oh, and he missed Gingerbread house construction.
At the Bishops, they have dinner
and Kate again badly tries to grill Jack. They get into fencing talk, and somehow
end up doing a fencing match. Considering who Jack is based on… this is a bad
idea, but more on that later. They suit up in those fencing suits and sword
fight. Kate gets two touches on Jack, but he’s clearly sandbagging. Kate wants
to know what he’s hiding, but Jack plays it off. She lunges at him, and Jack
easily parries, revealing that he’s way better at swordplay than he acted. Jack
walks off. Kate tries to convince Eleanor that Jack is involved in Armand’s
death, but she won’t listen. Eleanor thinks this is all young adult rebellion
stuff. Kate plays nice with Jack, but that ends when it seems like he’s taunting
her with a butterscotch. Those were in Armand’s house. Kate leaves, claiming it’s
a work thing. Her mom points out that, as her boss, she could probably get Kate
out of it, but Kate insists she has to handle something and will explain later.
Clint gets picked up by the Tracksuit
mafia. “Guys, I can see through the bag,” made me snicker. Kate tries to call
Clint, but obviously he can’t answer. She tries calling again, but this time
someone besides Clint answers, saying he can’t answer right now. Kate uses her Bishop
Security access to track Clint’s phone and tells her taxi driver to speed up.
Went about as well as I expected.
The Tracksuits have Clint tied to a
chair. He tries to convince them to not go after Kate Bishop, but they aren’t
listening. He insists that they take him to their boss, revealing he got his
slip-ties off to show that they can’t hold him. They pull guns on him and
demand to know where Kate Bishop is. He tries to act like he doesn’t know who
Kate Bishop is, only for her to literally fall into their crowd. Kate and Clint
are taped to two of those coin ride things. We’re shown a woman putting her
hand on a speaker in a creepy way. One of the Tracksuits tells this woman that they
have them both, and she waves him off. Oh, hey Echo.
It's funny, a couple years ago, I wrote
up a rough outline for a potential Black Widow story that introduced Kate
Bishop and had the similar buddy cop dynamic, just with Natasha in for Clint. I
enjoy him being grumpy about missing out on Christmas activities with his
family, something that he’s been desperate for since they were blipped, I’d
wager, but still also begrudgingly mentoring Kate. She’s chipper and he’s a sourpuss.
I enjoy Tony Dalton as Jack Duquesne, even if he’s a blatantly obvious red herring.
What, Kate’s soon-to-be stepdad is weird and mildly threatening at times? I
guess he must be involved in his uncle’s death, right? … Even though her mom
was the one fighting with Armond. Huh. Oh, and that identity I mentioned, Jack
Duquesne is better known as Jacques Duquesne and even better known as the
Swordman. He’s an on-again, off-again villain of Hawkeye and the Avengers.
Hence his fascination with swords, and why I think the red herring status is
obvious. In two episodes, if he was the villain, we’d have seen a crazy person
with a sword attack Hawkeye at some point. Just saying. Oh, and I loved the LARPing
scene. Just a bizarre twist in Clint’s over worked schedule. And I also liked that
Laura is 100% in the loop about what is going on. In most other stories like
this, Clint would be lying and making excuses to his non-superhero wife to, I
don’t know, spare her feelings now but upset her more if he dies? Clint doesn’t
do that, as he’s been married for… judging from Cooper’s age… 20 years or more,
so he knows that lies lead to pain. Ha. I also enjoyed the fact that Clint
tried to do a similar “get captured, beat up captors” plan that Natasha did in
Avengers 1, but screwed it up royally as he’s not the one to normally do the in-person
stuff. It made me laugh. And, final thought, I love that the Tracksuits refer
to everyone as Bro. It’s just a funny verbal tick. Have a good night!
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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