It looks like Hawkeye entered its second act with this episode. And who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned car chase?
MAJOR POINTS
- Echo wants revenge for Ronin killing her father
- The Tracksuit Mafia seems to have a link to Sloan Limited
- Echo hinted that she believes Clint is Ronin after all
This episode began with a flashback to a young Maya/Echo trying to learn in a public school, despite being deaf. She still manages to do well, but still wants to attend a school meant for deaf children so she doesn’t stand out in the class. She bonds with her father when he says that he believes she will be stronger as a result of her attending school with normal kids.
Years later, Echo sees an assassin massacring a bunch of people. She sees that the assailant is The Ronin. Her father dies in her arms after Ronin shoved his sword straight through him.
In the present time, Echo interrogates Hawkeye and Kate. The Tracksuit Mafia believes Kate to be The Ronin. Hawkeye claims that she cannot be The Ronin because he saw Black Widow kill Ronin. Echo doesn’t buy this and asks why Kate wore the suit if The Ronin is dead. Kate explains that she didn’t want people to know that she was at the underground auction.
Hawkeye manages to free himself and runs off. He gets into a fight with Echo where she manages to destroy his hearing aid. However, he is able to pin her against a wall with a pair of arrows. He then manages to free Kate as well and the two make their escape. Clint hotwires a Chrysler New Yorker and drives off while Kate uses his quiver of trick arrows to fend off their pursuers. Maya chases them herself in a red Dodge Challenger but crashes when Kate uses a gas-tipped arrow on her.
Back at Kate’s hideout, Clint gets a call from one of his sons. Kate helps him get through the call since he doesn’t want his family to know he lost his hearing aid. After getting the hearing aid repaired, they stop at a diner. Kate pitches the idea of Clint wearing a better costume that would be more recognizable. Clint refuses and states his whole job is to be unrecognizable. He is adamant that he is not a role model and never was, despite Kate’s opinion otherwise. It really came across like Clint and other heroes do what they do because they feel it’s the right thing to do, not because of adventure or excitement. Like Jedi, a hero craves not these things.
Kate tells Clint about her suspicions of Jack. She persuades him to help her sneak into her mother’s penthouse to find dirt on Jack. She also finds data on Echo’s right-hand man Kazi. Unfortunately for Clint, he finds himself at the wrong end of his own Ronin sword held by Jack.
EASTER EGGS
- Clint himself drives a red Challenger in the comics. The car chase mirrors a similar chase from the comics as well.
- When Hawkeye and Kate jump off the bridge, they do so in the same way Hawkeye leapt off a building in the first Avengers movie.
- Kate wears a purple suit, which matches the color Hawkeye traditionally wore in the comics.
MAJOR QUESTIONS
- Kate seriously hasn’t figured out that Clint is Ronin?
- Is Sloan Limited a connection to Kingpin?
- Will we actually see Hawkeye in a comic accurate costume?
FINAL GRADE: A
This series is exceeding my expectations so far. We may already be halfway through but there still seems to be a lot of plot left to go. People have been speculating for years that Kingpin, aka Wilson Fisk, will be re-introduced into the MCU proper and this episode seemed to further that speculation. We never saw who Echo’s “uncle” is, but the chuckle heard off-camera when we see his hand sounded an awful lot like Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin from the Netflix Daredevil series.
That said, it does seem a bit odd that Kate hasn’t figured out that Clint was The Ronin. Maybe she’s too starstruck to believe a hero could be that dark and bloodthirsty. But why else would Clint want the Ronin suit so badly?
We’ll have to wait until next week to get any further clues, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Plus, there are several logical directions the show could go.