Control: Hawkeye

I, Dalton Lewis, humble reviewer, watched episodes one and two of Hawkeye, the MCU’s newest television show. My thoughts:

Good. Pretty fun, entertaining, MCU-fare. Enjoyable. Kate Bishop is a blast.

Then, mild spoilers for the rest…

You’ve been warned. A little girl loses her father. I think that this is a bit of an overdone trope in these comic book stories, but I like that her mother survives and has a complicated relationship with Kate Bishop. That’s interesting — the rich mom who tries to control the uncontrollable wild daughter who is always getting into trouble. The dynamic between the two of them is interesting. The father dying is less interesting but more sad — it’s the sort of thing that happens to drive these stories.

A child sees the Chitauri attack. That’s an opportunity for a good scary scene. The Chitauri attack is something that MCU fans know well — we’ve seen it repeatedly and from several perspectives, but we’ve never seen it from the eyes of a scared little girl wanting to survive and scared for her family. She sees the enemy and knows that they are bad guys and will always know that the bad guys are out there, are scary, and will never be truly stopped — even though her mom lies and says that they have been stopped.

Flashforward to college: Kate Bishop, prized college student, is winning archery competitions and causing trouble. She destroys a famous bell and clock tower with her archery over a bet. That’s fine — it’s a little comical character moment, the sort of character beat the MCU relies on. She’s a smart, talented college student who wins awards at archery and is a black belt. This means that she’s smart, talented, and successful.

Meanwhile: Hawkeye. Hawkeye, expert archer and legendary Avenger superhero, attends a performance of a Captain America musical in which the Chitauri attack is presented as a musical number and feels a strong dose of PTSD. He can’t handle the musical and he and his family leave halfway through. Hawkeye deals with fame while trying to be the same down to earth guy he always has been.

Hawkeye still has a good, smiling family that he cares for and gives everything to. They still seem kind and giving and meaning everything to him, and they are all once again alive, which is great. He talks to his wife over the speaker phone and establishes that his relationship with his wife is still great. Hawkeye is a good guy.

Then there are the rich people. Kate Bishop and her mom attend a function for rich people, and she sneaks downstairs to a secret auction in which they are selling ronin’s gear. This leads to a gargantuan fight with a number of goons. The fighting is street-level, martial arts and guns, and it should be: there aren’t any powers being used here. I liked the fight sequences. They reminded me of Daredevil.

Kate fences with her mother’s boyfriend and both sides try to lose: Kate tries to prove that her soon-to-be-stepfather knows how to fight. This interplay between them is entertaining. Her mother’s job — as the head of a security company — seems a little odd because her mother doesn’t seem like the superhero type. Also the security company doesn’t seem to save anyone. It seems like an odd family business.

Hawkeye goes LARP-ing. That’s fun. He fights a big duel against a LARP-er in a fun little sequence. This is the sort of silly thing that is quintessential MCU — a silly beat which relies on characters and develops their personalities and feels warm and human. This is why we care about the characters.

There is a fire. It destroys somewhere important. I think that somehow the writers intended that to symbolize a destruction of Kate Bishop’s old life and the beginning of a new life. That seems like the right type of symbolic event for this story: the transition to herohood for a young woman.

Overall the story is fun and interesting and has potential. It could turn out to be great or merely good depending on how the final four episodes play out. I’m just impressed that the MCU can still incorporate old and new characters in the same story after almost fifteen years of storytelling.

Thanks, and take care, friends.