Created by Jonathan Igla
Starring Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Vera Farmiga
All 6 episodes now streaming on Disney+

by Whitley Albury, Staff Writer

The premise of Disney+/Marvel’s Hawkeye was pretty simple: introduce a key new character in Kate Bishop, (wonderfully portrayed by Hailee Steinfeld), give more depth to arguably the most intriguing but woefully underutilized Avenger, Clint Barton, (still played by Jeremy Renner), and give us all a festive take on the MCU.

It succeeded on at least one count.

I truly loved the Matt Fraction/David Aja take on Hawkeye, which is what this series draws heavy inspiration from. But I feel like a lot of the grit and love in that run was lost in translation when adapting the story for a small screen.

The series starts with a young Kate Bishop overhearing her parents arguing. What about? It doesn’t matter, because the Battle of New York goes down mid-fight. Kate watches as Hawkeye shoots down a Chitauri cruiser as it flies toward the hole in Kate’s penthouse, and at that exact moment, you can hear the choir as Kate finds her lifelong hyperfixation. She wants to be just like this badass archer who just saved her life.

Fast forward to “present” day (because the post-Blip life is like, two years ahead of our own), and Kate’s a senior in college who just can’t say no to a dare right before going home for Christmas break. Of course she gets in trouble, that’s the entire catalyst for the series! But things aren’t all rosy for Clint, either. I can truly say there is nothing I dislike more about this series than Rogers: The Musical, a Broadway-version of the Battle of New York that just made me cringe so hard. Clint and his three kiddos feel the exact same way, until a fictional version of Natasha appears on stage. Clint’s trauma is hitting him hard. And that’s probably one of my favorite scenes of his in the entire series. When Clint’s in the quiet throes of grief and loss, we can kind of forget that he’s been rushed through so many versions of comic!Hawkeye. We do at least get a bit of Deaf Hawkeye, though. Which, more on that later.

Kate returns home to her mother, Eleanor (Vera Farmiga), who is understandably pissed off about having to pay for a new clock tower at Kate’s school. But we really get the sense that something is off about Eleanor. It does take all six episodes for the explanation to come to fruition, so that’s fun, but it’s not like…a great explanation. We just have the distinct feeling that something sketchy is afoot. But, thanks to general sketchiness, we get the best character in the entire series: Lucky the Pizza Dog. I truly did squeak when I saw this good boy on screen.

Kate and Clint’s meeting stems from Kate stealing Clint’s old Ronin suit from the Blip days. Clint wants to know how exactly this ball of energy obtained his biggest secret, and Kate wants to become the next superhero. “I’m not a role model. Not to anyone. Never have been.” Arguably the best line from the series.

Of course, the How and Why are explained by the introduction of possibly my new favorite character: Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), a deaf Native American woman who heads up the Tracksuit Mafia, a gang that Clint fought when he was in Ronin-mode. She’s been out for Ronin’s blood ever since she saw him kill her father. Clint was truly just…going through it during that five year span. And then we get a nice surprise visit from none other than Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), who wants nothing more than to kill Clint because she has been told he’s the reason for her sister’s death.

I think if the show had gone more in the get-in-loser-we’re-collectively-healing-our-trauma direction, it would have worked a little better for me, personally. It felt like they were trying to fit in a lot of nods to other stories (graffiti reading “Thanos was Right,” alluding to “Magneto was Right” from the X-Men comics) without sticking to the core story. There’s also an introduction of a mystery pertaining to Laura (Linda Cardellini) that truly felt like it didn’t belong at all. Plus the whole holiday-special thing wasn’t exactly my vibe.

That isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the series and its implications down the road. It was fun for me, but it’s more due to characters that aren’t Clint. I appreciate that Marvel is trying to introduce more disabled characters as part of the MCU/MTVU canon. I’m excited to see what happens with Kate and Maya next, but also I’m just glad that the introduction of Kate means maybe we can let Clint retire.