‘Hawkeye’ Premiere Review: Kate Bishop brings tidings of youthful inexperienced joy to the MCU

The newest MCU series, Hawkeye, gets off to a nice start with the two-episode premiere.

These first two episodes serve as more of an introduction to Kate Bishop than a continuation of Clint Barton’s story. In just two episodes, Hailee Steinfeld has crafted one of the most interesting characters in the MCU. Kate Bishop is a talented martial artist and archer whose favorite Avenger is Hawkeye. Her talent, improvisation skills and heart shines through as does her privilege, lack of tact and inexperience. Steinfeld is neck-and-neck with Florence Pugh for the best under 30-years-old performance in the MCU.

Clint is just trying to enjoy the holidays with his children in New York City until a painful reminder of his past convinces him to get involved. The scenes between Jeremy Renner and Steinfeld are fun to watch. Bishop trying to contain her nervous excitement over meeting her idol is a blast. The curmudgeon, Clint, is just trying to fix her mistake as soon as possible so he can get back to his family by Christmas. The ever-reliable Vera Farmiga provides some support and intrigue as Kate’s mom, Eleanor. Linda Cardellini has a small appearance as Clint’s wife, Laura, and makes the most of her screentime.

Hawkeye is the most street-level MCU series to date. Setting the series on the streets of New York City provides a grittiness lacking in the other Disney Plus MCU shows. Hawkeye is nowhere near as dark as Netflix’s defunct Marvel universe. Head Writer Jonathan Igla adds just a little whimsy to the series by framing the events of the show around Christmas.

There are a couple of missteps in these two episodes. The performances by everyone who doesn’t have the last name of Barton or Bishop were pretty irritating. Unless there is a bait-and-switch coming, every line uttered by Jack Duquesne is met with an eye roll. There’s a larping scene that I could have done without. It provides a lighter side mission for Clint, but it separates him from Kate when we really need to dive into their dynamic more. However, there’s a crucial comic book character from the Hawkeye comics introduced in the larping scene. I understand why the scene is here, it just didn’t work for me.

Overall, this is about the best start you could hope for with a Hawkeye series.

With the overview out of the way, let’s dive deeper into the elements that stood out in these two episodes. There may be some minor spoilers. Hawkeye is available to stream on Disney Plus.

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Never meet your Heroes

The first episode takes a similar approach to The Falcon and The Winter Soldier premiere as it focuses on two characters in their respective worlds before bringing them together near the end of the episode.

In Hawkeye, the precredit sequence establishes during the Chitauri invasion in Avengers, Clint saved Kate’s life. The rescue inspires Kate to take up archery and martial arts at a young age. After hearing about her mother’s surprise engagement at a charity function, Kate does some snooping around. She infiltrates a black market auction where Ronin’s sword and consume are on the docket. During the auction, the Tracksuit Mafia interrupt the proceedings. Kate dons the costume and fights off the goons.

The fight scenes are well done. They do an excellent job of showcasing how talented Kate is as a fighter and archer. Due to her lack of experience, the fight scenes have a scrappy, figure it out as I go along quality that you don’t see in Natasha or Clint’s fight scenes.

Clint is simply trying to spend Christmas with his children. He’s relaxing at an NYC hotel when he sees a news report showing someone running around with the Ronin suit. After a street tussle, Clint confronts Kate to end the episode.

Overall, Never meet your Heroes is a necessary episode to start the series, but isn’t nearly as good as Hide and Seek. The episode works from the standpoint of understanding who Kate is and what drives her at this early stage. It’s clear Clint is still reeling from Natasha’s death in Endgame, struggling with his past as Ronin and now sports a hearing aid, which shows the battles have clearly taken their toll. Outside of wanting to be the best dad possible, the focus of this episode is on Kate. Clint is trying to put the pages of this story together.

Hide and Seek

The 2nd episode of the two-part premiere of Hawkeye is a much stronger episode than Never meet your Heroes. Hide and Seek forces Clint to help Kate, while Kate is so in awe of meeting her idol, she struggles to grasp the reality of the situation at first.

The aptly named episode refers to both of these characters’ predicaments. Clint is trying to find a way to hide Kate from the Tracksuit Mafia. He’s also seeking the Ronin suit, which goes missing after the Molotov cocktail sets Kate’s apartment ablaze. The dynamic between Steinfeld and Renner in these scenes is spot on. He starts off curmudgeonly, but slowly softens just a bit as the episode goes along. Clint teaches Kate how to clean her wound, gives her a burner phone and even listens to his advice on branding. He’s humoring her with the last bit, but it’s a sweet moment between them.

After Clint figures out where the Ronin suit is, Clint and Kate split up. This is the point at which the episode falters just a bit. She agrees to have dinner with her mother and Jack. The dinner is unsurprisingly contentious and ends with a fencing duel between Kate and Jack. Kate uses the duel to show Jack is lying but doesn’t seem to alter her Mom’s intentions in the slightest.

Meanwhile, Clint heads to a park for some good larping fun. He’s eventually coerced into allowing one of the combatants to kill him. The scene has some humorous moments and Gills, the combatant who kills him should have an important role to play in the series, but splitting Clint and Kate takes the episode down just a bit.

However, the final scene of Hide and Seek ends on a great cliffhanger.

Overall, Hide and Seek works better than Never meet your Heroes due to the rapport between Kate and Clint.

Hawkeye Final Thoughts

As a series, Hawkeye shines brightest when Kate and Clint are together. These first two episodes make the somewhat risky decision to focus the episode around Kate and the series feels fresh as a result. Whether Steinfield is trying to keep her inner fangirl down around Clint or trying to figure out Jack, she’s a perfect Kate Bishop.

The subplots when these two characters are split apart need to be better developed or don’t split them up at all. However, I really like the look and feel director Rhys Thomas gives this series. He makes great use out of the New York City setting and gives this film a more contained feel than the time trotting in Loki or globetrotting in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Christophe Beck‘s Christmas-infused score is awesome.

The cliffhanger at the end of Hide and Seek should kick things up a notch. There’s plenty to love of about this show and the problems shouldn’t be too difficult to remedy.

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