Hawkeye – Partners, Am I Right? review S1 E4

Hawkeye’s fourth chapter featured a big arrival while teasing another potentially major one. And that’s not even including the big reveal.

Chalk up fanboy excitement over the mild disappointment over last week’s cliffhanger. No, Jack didn’t recognize Clint and Clint wasn’t shocked to see his mentor as the guy Kate can’t stand. Admittedly, with Hawkeye being a SHIELD agent it was gonna require some significant backstory padding to link Hawkeye and Swordsman together in the MCU.

Instead, the show took the usual unexpected Marvel Studios approach and had Clint, Kate, Jack and Eleanor sat down for a civilized chat about Kate’s potential Avengers future. Eleanor walked Clint out and made sure he knew she was in no way supportive of her Avenging anything and mentioning  — respectfully — that even the best like Natasha, can get killed on the job.

This led to a very strong performance from Hailee Steinfeld as Kate watched Jack and Eleanor and begrudgingly enjoying seeing her mother so happy. And maybe trying to consider that Jack isn’t such a bad guy after all.

Clint also has some family time as Laura checks in some information for him on Jack. In the context of the MCU, Laura was the first wife and it’s refreshing to see her helping Clint instead of laying on a massive guilt trip over blowing this Christmas vacation with the family. Laura doesn’t get enough screen time to be the complaining wife and it makes her far more likeable.

Kate comes by to properly help Hawkeye celebrate some aspect of Christmas with a movie marathon, drinks and tricks. The irony of Clint drinking out of the Thanos Was Right mug is not lost on me.

A major element of the Disney+ shows has been exploring the various traumas of the early era Avengers characters. Clint’s is different as he lost his entire family and only got them back in large part thanks to the sacrifice of his best friend. That’s hardly an ideal trade-off and he’s dealing with double Survivor’s Guilt as a result.

This is important to spotlight as it pulls us further into Clint’s headspace when he went all Ronin on crime lords and gangs post-Blip. And Kate doesn’t react like she’s crushed and disappointed that her hero went full Frank Castle. The writing on Hawkeye has been superb in how characters are put in situations where mediocre writers would lean on superhero clichés as a crutch. Here, characters act more sensibly and it makes a major difference.

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Laura rings back and tells Clint that Rolex is missing. It’s a holdover from Avengers Compound with a way to contact Clint’s undercover pal. This would have made for an ideal Ant-Man appearance, but he’s a no go since Ant-Man and The Wasp Quantumania is still shooting. Who could it be?

After that completely unexpected cameo in Eternals there’s literally no rules on the identity of Clint’s friend, which is so much more fun. Kate recovers Clint’s trick arrows from the LRRP crew.

Steinfeld gives Kate so much more of a warm and friendly disposition compared to her comic book persona that it’s easy to see why people would want to help her. The LRRP gang, including Grills, are eager to help and whip up some costumes for them. This perfectly works in context with the series. Well played.

Kate and Clint track down the watch’s location. Naturally, Kate goes rogue and barges in herself instead of keeping watch for Clint. She realizes it’s Maya’s place a second too late, but Clint is busy dealing with a poser masked fighter. Maya and Kate eventually end up on the rooftop and we get a fun, layered three-way fight.

Clint gets nasty deja vu as the masked fighter sends Kate off the rooftop onto a string of Christmas lights. Instead of pulling her up, he cuts the string so she gets out of harm’s way. I appreciate the subtle call back to Endgame here and the use of the Natasha flashback earlier to not make this come off clumsy.

Maya finally has enough and bails when Kate returns, but the masked fighter and Clint keep going back and forth until she loses her mask. The reveal of Yelena isn’t going to mean anything for folks who skipped Black Widow, but this was a well-timed new arrival into the mix. This second reminder of Natasha is too much for Clint and after Yelena escapes, he tells Kate their partnership is over.

Hurt people hurt their sidekicks/partners or something like that. Anyway, another ridiculously fun episode and it’s a bummer we’re already at the home stretch. Next week’s episode is supposed to be major so get ready for some huge developments.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Photo Credit: Disney

Check out Avengers Epic Collection: A Traitor Stalks Within Us for more on Hawkeye at Amazon. 

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