Warning: Review contains spoilers
By Jack Deegan
Staff Writer
Marvel Studios’ newest show “Hawkeye” has come to a close with the season finale, which aired on Dec. 23. The series centers around the titular Hawkeye aka Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), who is drawn out of retirement and therefore must go away from his family during Christmas. Clint is forced to partner with his biggest fan, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), after she is caught in a criminal conspiracy regarding his dark past as the assassin Ronin. There’s also a dog that eats pizza, and what more could you want?
Originally, I didn’t have the most interest in this series. When it was announced, it was easily my least anticipated series that Marvel was working on. However, as we found out more information about the show, I got really excited. “Hawkeye” seemed to be something new and different, and that’s exactly what it was. I liked it even more than I thought that I would, falling in love with the characters and the story.
“Hawkeye” manages to be both a tense murder mystery and a fun Christmas show. The story is exciting and the small stakes really ground it to give us a fresh experience that we haven’t seen yet in the Marvel Universe. It works with Clint’s strengths as a character and builds on everything we have already seen. The series is a great continuation of his story, as we see him struggle with his past as the Ronin assassin and the loss of his best friend, Natasha Romanoff, in “Avengers: Endgame.” Once Kate accidentally gets involved, Clint understandably steps out of retirement to put this last issue to bed so that he can comfortably rest with his family. It’s also cool to see Clint training Kate and putting her under his wing; they make a great team. The show does really well with its tone, seamlessly transitioning from fun comedy to heart wrenching emotion. One of the standout qualities of the show is the action, as they fully leaned into Hawkeye’s archery style to give us a lot of fresh and interesting action scenes.
The characters serve as the series’ biggest strength. Marvel fleshes out each character, giving everyone an interesting backstory so that we can sympathize with them. It’s exciting to finally be able to spend some dedicated time with Clint after 10 years of seeing him on screen; we get to learn more about him as a character, and it makes him that much more fascinating. He gets some hearing aids in this show after all of the battles he’s gone through, making him much more like his comic counterpart and giving us some great representation in the MCU. His struggles with his past and his survivor’s guilt make him a tragic character, but the inclusion of Kate Bishop has her helping Clint just as much as he’s helping her.
Kate is the highlight of this entire show for me. Hailee Steinfeld gives an incredible performance and breathes lots of life into Kate as a character, immediately making her one of my favorites in the entire MCU. Her relationship with Clint is the core of this series, and they really make this show something special. Together they are a fun duo with great chemistry, and I hope to see more of them soon.
Alaqua Cox makes her acting debut in this series as Maya Lopez who is the antagonist for the majority of the series, as she and the Tracksuit Mafia look to end Barton once and for all. Cox gives a great performance; it shocked me to learn that this was her first acting role ever. She is deaf just like her character Maya, and the emotion she’s able to get out without being able to say a single word is amazing to see. Her grudge against Clint is very justified and makes her that much more of an imposing antagonist. She even helps to bring us a surprise returning Marvel villain who I won’t spoil, but is a welcome addition.
The other main antagonist is the returning Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) who steals every single scene she’s in. Her gripe with Barton was teased at the end of “Black Widow” as she was tasked to kill him after being told that he killed her sister, Natasha Romanoff. Her inclusion in this show is done perfectly and gives us some of the show’s best moments. Her dynamic with Kate and Clint is very interesting, and she really helps to bring out the show’s themes of self-forgiveness and being a role model.
Going into the finale, Marvel had a big challenge to wrap up every story in a satisfying way. There is the murder mystery, troubles with the Tracksuit Mafia and Echo, and Yelena’s hunt for Clint — and it all had to be wrapped up in one episode. Thankfully, the finale is satisfying, wrapping everything up with a neat bow. The strongest part of it was the conclusion to Clint and Yelena’s story, which is incredibly emotional and handled perfectly. I wish that we could have had more time with Maya, but she is getting her own series soon, which will be very exciting. The finale isn’t perfect and had some characterization issues with that secret villain I don’t want to spoil, but overall it wrapped up this show in a great way, and I hope that there’s a second season to follow up on these characters.
