Hawkeye/Clint Barton and Kate Bishop are pictured.
Mary Cybulski is a Disney employee.
I think it is safe to say that I had a burn-out on the MCU this year.
WandaVision was one of my favorite shows of the year. The Winter Soldier felt like a letdown.
I have been keeping up with the comic book company, but I have been less consistent after that.
It makes me happy to say that Hawkeye is great. The first two episodes of Hawkeye are great. I have faith in the show, thanks to the performances of Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye and Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop.
It is an odd couple setup that works. The grizzled old veteran and the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed rookies fighting crime together and getting in various predicaments is often thanks to Kate's naivete. She is just young and inexperienced outside of tournaments.
I was going to review the first two episodes as though they were a single episode, but it is too much. I will split it into two. I will review and recap episode 3 on December 1st and every subsequent episode on this website. Stay up to date with the reviews by following me on Facebook or on the social media platforms.
Let's get down to business, as Li Shang would say.
Never meet your heroes
Rogers the Musical is a musical.
Chuck Zlotnick is a Disney employee.
The groundwork is laid for what to come in the first episode. Kate Bishop is a young girl who lost her father in the alien attack on New York City which Tony Stark, Captain America, Black Widow, the Hulk and Hawkeye saved the city from.
Young Kate sees Hawkeye leap off a building with his bow and arrow after he saves her from an alien attack. It is a formative moment for her. Eleanor asked her what she needed at her father's funeral. Kate says she has a bow and arrow.
She learns a lot of combat techniques as a result of trauma. She wants to be able to protect herself and her loved ones, something she was unable to do with her father, who promised he would always protect her just moments before being killed.
She got her black belt at 15 and has won numerous archery contests and other sporting events. She pushes her luck by the end of the episode when she is confronted with dangerous criminals, even when outnumbered.
Rich, young and insufferable.
Vera Farmiga was Eleanor Bishop and Tony Dalton was Jack Duquesne.
Chuck Zlotnick is a Disney employee.
Adult Kate is introduced at a fancy private college where she made a bet that she could ring the giant bell with an arrow. She ends up destroying the tower because things go badly wrong.
She gets to leave college and go back to NYC to see her parents' restored Manhattan apartment. It is a really nice place. The Bishop family has a lot of money.
Her mom asks her to attend a charity ball with her to start making up for the enormous amount of money she's been forced to replace the clocktower, and then in walks Jack Duquesne, who we've seen before in Better Call Saul. Kate was asked to go put on a dress and meet Eleanor at the charity where he and Eleanor were going.
She puts on a black suit, which makes her blend in with the waitstaff later on.
She ran into Armond III at the ball, who she used to know as a child, played by Simon Callow. Jack and her mother are getting married. When he learns that Kate doesn't know, he feigns surprise. He says something very strange. He is trying to get Jack out of the marriage. He doesn't like Eleanor. He excuses himself and says, "I think you need to have a little talk with that prize of a mother of yours." He doesn't think of her as such.
Can Kate just be happy for her, since her mom says it has been fun to get caught up in the romance of it all? Kate can only make out a small part of what was said, but there is a lot more to this story.
She followed Armond and used her waiter suit to get to the wine cellar where a mysterious gathering was taking place. The black market auction is where the super-wealthy have gathered to bid on things like Triceratops skulls and the sword and suit of Ronin. While Hawkeye was generally played by the rules of the Avengers, Ronin was a brutal avenger who never flinched at killing.
A huge explosion goes through the wall of the wine cellar as the sword is being bid on. Kate has been hiding, having blown her cover, and she notices the Ronin suit and scrambles to grab it as armed men burst into the room, apparently looking for watches. Jack found the sword that Armond had just outbid him on while Kate was getting into the suit.
There is fighting. Armond, Jack and some other one-percenters are out after Kate beats up the men guarding the exit. A fun wine-bottle-inspired fight scene ensues when she turns her attention back to the other thug. She escapes when the odds are against her.
She sees the thug loading the car. They were looking for an item that was on the watch he found, which had an Avenger's Complex tag on it. Kate showed up and let the mangy dog have it as he kicked at the mutt. She followed the dog and narrowly saved it from a car, all of which were caught on camera and displayed on the news.
Which is where Barton/Hawkeye spots her.
Clint Barton is a family man.
Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton, Cade Woodward as Nathaniel Barton, and Ben Sakamoto as Cooper Barton.
The photo is courtesy of the studio.
The moment I knew I was going to like this show was when I saw Hawkeye watching the musical with his kids. A bunch of actors dressed up as the Avengers are belting out a show- tune that is basically a remake of our heroes saving NYC from The Avenger.
Barton looks frustrated. He looks bored and uncomfortable, but when he sees Black Widow dancing, he pales and you can see that he has lost his mind. He turned off his hearing aid and drowned out the sound of the musical. He doesn't want to be here.
He doesn't return, but he says he'll be back. If there are no other options, and there is nobody else in the bathroom, then he should take a selfies at the urinal.
Barton is upset that this is not the right time. The guy is behind him as he washes his hand. He asked if it was an appropriate time. Good thing our hero has self-control. It would be hard to not smile at that stupid face.
He goes outside with his kids. His youngest asks why they are singing and dancing. It is a good question. I wish this was a real musical, but they decided not to go back.
Clint Barton, a family man, is enjoying time with his three kids when they go get Chinese. Their mother is back home.
When they get back to the hotel, they see a news report and Hawkeye goes to find whoever has his Ronin suit and stop them from doing stupid things or getting killed.
Kate gets into trouble.
The Pizza Dog was played by Hailee Steinfeld.
Mary Cybulski is a Disney employee.
Kate feeds the dog pizza at her apartment and he is named in the show: The Pizza Dog. He is cute. She heads back out to get some answers after telling him not to ruin her pad.
She sneaks into Armond's palatial home after she noticed that he has a brand of candy called Armond III. A little vain, but then we are dealing with people with large egos.
She comes to a study where she finds a man dead in a pool of blood. It looks like he was stabbed. His nephew grabbed the Ronin blade back at the auction. Maybe I am reading too much into Jack's character, Better Call Saul has trained me, and Tony is a fantastic villain in that show, but he seems the likely suspect.
Could it have been Eleanor? There was no love lost between them.
When the maid arrives, she sneaks back out into the street, where she was followed by the people from the auction. If we are lucky, they may be the same gang from Barry.
They told her, "We got you now, bro!"
She holds her own but she is outmatched by the many attackers and she locks the doors of a nearby car. It isn't much protection. They punch and kick at the windows, bursting through the glass when a hooded figure appears. Her attackers are either down or fleeing. Her rescuer drags her out of the car, takes her to an alleyway, and tells her to take off her mask before he shears her face.
He lowered his fist and scowled as he said, "Come on!"
She exclaimed, clearly shocked, that she was Hawkeye.
He asks, who the hell are you?
Cut to black. The credits roll.
Verdict.
The Hawkeye.
Chuck Zlotnick is a Disney employee.
The series premiere was fun, funny and exciting. The politics of the super-rich Kate are shrouded in mystery. The musical was hilarious but there was a bit of sadness that allowed Jeremy Renner to really flex his acting chops.
Kate Bishop is a great role for Hailee Steinfeld. I haven't seen her in a while, but I still like her in the Transformers movies. She was great in that as well. She does all that very well, and she is a little more confident and self-assured.
I think the show comes into its own in Episode 2. It is more fun when they are playing off one another after only meeting by the end of Episode 1. The LARPing scene is hilarious. I need to finish Episode 2 by tomorrow so I will include it in my next review. I am late on my Wheel Of Time Episode 4 review, so I will try to get it out by tomorrow. There is a review of that show here.
I will be taking the kids to see Ghostbusters: Afterlife since my teenager hasn't seen it yet, and I will also be reviewing Encanto this afternoon. There are two features!
The new Ghostbusters was well worth seeing in theaters twice, but many critics disagreed, and I think politics are to blame.
What do you think about Hawkeye? Let me know on social media.
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