Hawkeye: Ronin review S1 E5
It’s been an immensely satisfying week for this Marvel Studios fan. Spider-Man: No Way Home over delivered and Hawkeye’s penultimate episode, Ronin, has me convinced there’s way too much left on the table not to have a second season.
Like Loki, Clint Barton’s adventures work so well in this series format that it’s easy to see Hawkeye being a regular staple among the Marvel Disney+ lineup.
We’ve seen this a bit now but it never stops being fascinated seeing how people were impacted by The Blip. Yelena and a fellow freed Black Widow were tracking down one of their former Widows when Yelena got blipped. She might have had the creepiest one as she popped right back in the now made over bathroom completely discombobulated saying she needed to tell Natasha she’s OK.
Death in comic books have been rendered impotent now thanks to the revolving door of resurrections. Marvel Studios has avoided that by doubling down on the impact of death and making it stick — Endgame’s Reverse Blip notwithstanding.
Kate heads back home and breaks the news to Eleanor that Clint doesn’t want to be partners anymore. Her crushed statement that “I really thought I could be one of them” wonderfully conveyed the sense of a dashed dream squashed by reality. Eleanor’s reaction when Kate told her about Jack and the shell company Sloan Limited seemed a little off seemingly confirming a fan theory that’s been going around online in recent weeks.
Kazi patches up Maya and offers to help her kill Ronin, but states her reckless behavior has to stop afterwards.
Back at her burned out place, Kate has an uninvited guest — Yelena who wants to chat about New York’s sights, the superpowered reindeer Rudolph and Clint’s whereabouts. Of all the Phase 4 newly introduced characters it’s hard to imagine a scenario where Florence Pugh’s Yelena isn’t going to be the breakout fan favorite.
She’s been terrific in every setting so far. Pugh is making Yelena stand out with this mix of deadly assassin and disarming charisma.
Yelena explains she’s here to kill Clint Barton and asks Kate if her sister is collateral damage. Kate questions why Yelena would be taking an assignment from anyone who thinks it’s cool to kill an Avenger. Fair question. While Yelena ponders it, she warns Kate not to get in her way again.
I’m loving that Grills has become a regular supporting cast member this season. Clint crashes with him while he prepares for the next phase of his mission. And Missy dropped off the new outfits for Clint and Kate. This definitely has a feel of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier where we have to wait until the season finale to see the updated costume.
Eleanor doesn’t seem too horribly broken up that the feds are arresting Jack. Again, this twist kinda borrows from a development with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and might have been too soon to revisit it again.
Clint stops by the Battle of New York Memorial to ‘chat’ with Natasha. I know New Yorkers can be somewhat oblivious, but it seems like Clint would have been swarmed by paparazzi and random folks actually standing at the Avengers memorial. He apologizes for what he’s got to do next then sends an arrow-gram for the Trust a Bros. The Bros have good taste rocking to Run DMC’s Christmas in Hollis.
This is serious business though as Clint calls Laura and says if he doesn’t take care of things tonight the Big Guy is going to get involved. Since Clint is clearly not talking about Hulk or Iron Man, there’s only one character that really fits that description…
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Maya got the message and is ready to face-off with her father’s killer. This fight was laid out well with Clint as Ronin taking out Maya’s Bros’ backup from behind. That approach takes advantage of her not using a hearing aid and not noticing Ronin taking them out.
The Ronin/Maya fight doesn’t disappoint with both getting in some good shots before Clint holds her at bay with his sword to chat. He explains someone in her crew’s organization tipped him off and they wanted her father dead. So really Clint wasn’t the bad guy here, but the dudes that set up her father. Interesting bit of logic there.
Maya isn’t about that tidbit and gets the drop on Clint. Before she can land the killing blow, Kate arrives and makes the save. That accomplished a few things. In a fair one on one fight, Clint can beat Maya. Maya isn’t that far behind in terms of a fighter and this validates the need for Clint to have Kate as a partner.
After the battle, Maya confronts Kazi about why he wasn’t at the garage the night her dad was killed. Maybe Clint’s talk got through after all? Kazi has a lame excuse, and it seems like Maya peeped that too.
In their getaway Lyft, Kate tells Clint the woman that was trying to kill him was Yelena. Thankfully, Clint and Natasha were close enough that he knew about Yelena even if he didn’t know what she looked like. Since he and Nat were so tight it would have been lame for him to not know that aspect of her past.
Kate’s talk with Yelena also had her thinking things over. She decided to follow the person who hired her to kill Clint and sends Kate a picture of her employer — Eleanor. And she’s with the guy Clint’s been worried about all this time — The Kingpin.
Does it seem like we’re in a completely new and exciting period in the MCU or is it just me? The future seems wide open and pulling in a character from the Marvel Netflix universe makes this even more compelling. I worried Marvel Studios was going to have an Endgame hangover that could last a few years, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.
It’s crazy to think next week is the season finale of Hawkeye already. Hopefully this is just the end of this season and we get a second season announcement in the credits like we did with Loki.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Photo Credit: Disney
Check out Hawkeye: The Saga of Barton and Bishop by Fraction and Aja at Amazon.
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