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Hawkeye: Hide and Seek

“You’re not a superhero...”

How does someone become a superhero? We’ve seen that question answered in a number of ways in movie after movie. Most have a defining moment, usually some trauma that forces them to become something greater. Kate’s moment happened when she was just a little girl, the day her father died.

The first episode was all about origin. Kate, who has trained almost her entire life to follow in the footsteps of her literal hero, has stumbled into his path again. It was interesting to see their initial interactions. He is clearly tired, fed up with his role as the most human Avenger, and now he has to protect someone he feels should just be living a normal life. Except that’s the rub, Clint doesn’t realize who Kate is yet. He doesn’t understand that not only is she a fan, she is the product of his heroism.

Kate has been waiting for this moment her entire life. While probably not what she imagined, she has wanted to train at Clint’s side since the Chitauri attack on New York that took her father. That would be good enough for most origin stories, a compelling passing-the-torch storytelling gimmick with a lot of potential for good comedy and drama. But at the moment we don’t know what story we are watching. Is this a comedy? Or a drama? I just hope this isn’t a tragedy, although the hints that it might be are certainly thick on the ground.

What works the best here is Kate’s interactions with Clint, which were tentative and mildly antagonistic, but also sweet and funny. They have a nice chemistry, and while she clearly idolizes him and he isn’t being snotty about it, I just want her to tell him why. He needs that lift, to know that he genuinely helped someone. Perhaps that will be a reveal later on that will pack a stronger emotional punch when he really needs it.

I wasn’t quite as keen on Kate’s quest to find out what is going on with Jack, her mother’s boyfriend and soon to be step-father. It seems a bit less serious, perhaps even a bit comical, given the supposed stakes. However, it is clear this smarmy bastard is not what he seems. Whether he killed his uncle or is just very creepy, I’m not entirely sure. Although his armchair psychology, misogyny and general sliminess gives me the impression that he is at least bad, if not the big bad of the series. Whether it is the ascot or the very Disney villain hair, he is being painted as someone we cannot trust. Plus, who steals butterscotch from the scene of a crime?

Clint’s story was almost as silly, with the whole LARPing in the park with a bunch of cops and firefighters pretending to be Vikings. It was deeply absurd, but played for laughs. I did like the way Grills was genuinely thrilled by getting to spend time with Clint. What was telling was how gracious he was with Grills at the end, giving the guy a fist bump when he could've easily been standoffish.


What’s also true is Kate’s assessment that he hasn’t sold his brand very well. He is this good guy who has consistently thrown himself into danger to help his friends and the world, armed with only a bow and arrow. That short montage of his exploits and injuries to his ear was telling. He is starting to fall apart, holding himself and his family together with whatever he has left. He still feels this need to go out and fight, even to protect a relative stranger from his own misdeeds.

Thankfully he isn’t alone, because Laura is freaking amazing. I loved the fact that she knew everything, even the fact that the tracksuit thugs were involved. She also knew about the suit, and I wonder if that means he told her the truth about his actions while the family was snapped away. I love how Laura has been a grounding presence for Clint as a character ever since she was introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron (although this is technically only her fourth appearance).

But it was the interactions with Lila that really got to me. He loves his sons, but he trusts his daughter. If she were a bit older I know he would’ve let her in like he does Laura, perhaps not to the same degree, but it’s clear she is his favorite. It is also an easy shorthand to frame the burgeoning relationship that is forming with Kate. She doesn’t have a father in her life, and Clint has been shown wanting to be a mentor, but he cannot risk putting his own daughter into this life.

Bits:

Way back when Hunger Games was a big cultural phenomenon, Hailee Steinfeld was in the running to play Katniss Everdeen in the movie adaptation.

There were several references to the film Leon: The Professional centering around Kate’s aunt’s place. That's another property about an aging assassin taking a young woman under his tutelage.

The woman at the end of the episode is apparently someone important, but I won’t spoil that here since she wasn’t identified by name. I will say that her touching the speaker was a big clue.

Quotes:

Clint: “What are you, 18?”
Kate: “I'm 22.”
Clint: “Yeah, same thing.”

Kate: “Hey, look, I think that one's you.”
Clint: “No, that's Katniss Everdeen.”

Kate: “Your problem's branding.”
Clint: “No, my problem is you. And this ninja suit, and the people trying to kill you because of this ninja suit. The whole thing's a problem that I'm going to solve today, so I can go home to my family.”
Kate: “No, it's branding.”

It's hard to give a rating to something so serialized, but I enjoyed this one. It set up a lot of stuff, and set the groundwork very well for the primary relationship of the series, Clint and Kate.

3 out of 4 Thugs in Tract Suits

Samantha M. Quinn spends most of her time in front of a computer typing away at one thing or another; when she has free time, she enjoys pretty much anything science fiction or fantasy-related.

11 comments:

  1. Really loving Hawkeye. It reminds me a lot of Marvel's Netflix series but with less gore (no complaints there). "And I fought Thanos" lol.

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  2. I have a theory!

    The butterscotch was a trick. Jack was trying to see if Kate recognized it, thereby revealing she had been in Arnaud's house.

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  3. Okay, so Kate's 22 and Armund was an uncle and not a dad. But otherwise I was pretty spot on!

    Josie, I love your theory about the butterscotch. Was that Jack sitting over there in the shadows at the end? The guy who Clint called out as the boss? It kinda looked like him, although maybe the hair was a bit messy. I guess I'm revising my idea over whether or not he's evil. He FEELS evil. Between his interactions with Kate, the butterscotch, and the fencing ability, he feels like not a good guy. Maybe it's a red herring since we're seeing him through Kate's POV? I don't know.

    Also loved how supportive Laura is. Usually, the spouse is annoyed or combative or kept in the dark when their superhero partner needs to go off and superhero, but she is not only aware of everything, she is encouraging. I also liked what she said about how the catch and release was what Nat used to do. Clint in the chair reminded me a lot of Nat's opening scene in the first Avengers movie. Really, I saw a bunch of signs that Clint wasn't just an archer. He was a spy, an agent of SHIELD. They're skills that we didn't really get the chance to see before.

    Continuing to adore Kate and Clint's interactions. (Even if they didn't have any last episode it felt like they did.) He's gruff and frustrated, but the moment when he not only re-cleaned her wound but explained what he was doing and why was wonderful. It would have been very easy for him to just do it silently or for them to talk about other, plot-related things instead.

    Momma Bishop runs a security company. I get that it's been over a while since the cold open where Papa Bishop died (not to mention the Snap and the Blip happened which probably did ridiculous things to the business world as a whole), but it was implied that there was some serious money issues there. Eleanor doesn't come from money either. More evidence that something is shady going on with her empire. Where did all that financial security come from?

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  4. Really great review, and I enjoyed this episode a lot!

    I normally try to avoid being 'that guy', but I'm not going to be able to rest until I mention this

    It is beyond looked down on to steal items from fire scenes. Not only is it massively illegal, it's like Klingon Eternal Dishonor level frowned upon. Like, no one in his crew would ever speak to him again even if he did manage to avoid jail and keep his job. The fire service has to maintain trust from the public, because we're in your homes and interacting with all of your personal stuff. Anybody who jeapordizes that is dealt with pretty harshly.

    Also, there's no way he'd be allowed to put his LARPing group sticker on an engine, Please, under no circumstances try to pierce a charged fire extinguisher because that is absolutely not what would happen, and LARPing isn't a huge interest for Police or Fire service generally, as spending more time in uniform on your time off isn't a huge draw.

    Whew.

    I'm glad I got that off my chest. My apologies for being that guy.

    I'll add that other than the stealing the uniform from the fire scene, none of that dimmed my enjoyment of the episode.

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  5. It is beyond looked down on to steal items from fire scenes. Not only is it massively illegal, it's like Klingon Eternal Dishonor level frowned upon

    Mikey, thank you for explaining that! I assumed it was fairly verboten, but it's nice to know that it's just as horrible as it sounds.

    I do feel like the show implied it was bad with Hawkeye's utter disrespect for the firefighter. I mean, if a firefighter said to me "I just want to be a hero!" I'd be like, "Dude, you're a FIREFIGHTER!" But Hawkeye didn't do that, perhaps because he was judging him for stealing?

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  6. While not well versed in firefighter etiquette, I did find the LARP sticker on the fire truck strange. Like...I've never seen a bumper sticker on an official government vehicle, have you?

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  7. Yeah, that would never be allowed.

    Also, as long as I continue to pick nits, it's just about possible that there would happen to be a spare set of bunker gear on the engine for Clint to grab, maybe. But it would be stashed in a compartment, there almost certainly wouldn't be a spare pair of boots with it, and if there was a helmet (there wouldn't be) it wouldn't have a shield attached to it. (That's the plate attached to the front with the firefighter's badge number on it.)

    The only explanation for what we see is that a guy on the previous shift left his gear on the engine, and for some unimaginable reason the current crew just left it there when they went on the call.

    I can only imagine that this is what Billie felt like all those times that Giles complained about computers.

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  8. Mikey, what really drove me nuts was the scenes in the library where the call number labels on the books were all over the place. :)

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  9. Billie, I totally get it now.

    Spoiler for the current review of Legends that hopefully will be up today, I work in a foundry for the day job these days, and there were a number of claims made about injection molding that were just wildly wrong.

    What I'm saying is that having a job ruins television, and we should all quit having them.

    And I feel like I need to apologize to Samantha for totally derailing the comments on her review, which was really great.

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  10. I didn't have any real comment one way or the other. On one end, it is a bit egregious to insinuate that a NYC fire fighter would commit petty theft for a LARP. That casts shade on an entire organization for no other reason than to set up a plot point that doesn't really need to be in the show.

    I can see how this happens, despite the many, many eyes on a product like this. How many of those eyes Fire Fighters? Likely none. That doesn't excuse the oversight and sloppy writing, but it can explain how a plot point like this slips through the cracks. As a writer I can see how it seemed like a lot of fun in the abstract. Although I doubt they delved into actual LARPing (which generally does not allow for weapons of any sort) and is more like improvised acting without a stage, rather than the utterly absurd Viking combat BS we got in this episode.

    I find it more troublesome that this was also a person of color, who beyond the fact that he stole something from what is clearly a crime scene (arson is a big deal), he is otherwise is treated as a relatively nice guy. His interactions with Clint, while intentionally silly, were also informative and important to Clint as a character.

    So... yeah good point Mikey. You can derail my comments section anytime!

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  11. Some of our best comment threads are derailments. :)

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