Hawkeye Episodes 1 & 2: Grounded Marvel Land

If you are going to get me to like a character all you really have to do is have them save a dog (or any animal really) and I’ll be rooting for them forever.

Actually I liked Kate Bishop before that but it was a plus and while I thought the first two episodes felt a little off it was nice to be back to a grounded realistic version of Marvel Land after Loki, Shang-Chi and, the should have been about Thena and Gilgamesh, Eternals.

So we follow Kate Bishop (an excellent Hailee Steinfeld) whose not having the best couple of days when she dons the Ronin suit and a whole lot of trouble fines her. And separately Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) who wants to try to keep her out of trouble and bury the suit once and for all.

Hawkeye is our everyman here and Renner makes it work. He’s suffering from hearing loss and still dealing with Natasha’s death.

And here we see not just the play Rogers the Musical but little bits of real world on the ground Marvel. Hawkeye is not perhaps the best with people so the guy sliding up next to him in the toilet (where he also has to see graffiti saying ‘thanos was right’…) doesn’t thrill him.

But on the other hand he gets dinner for his family on the house (even though he didn’t ask) for saving the city and he doesn’t even know that he saved Kate when she was a kid and inspired her to pick up a bow and arrow in the first place.

I mean grant you Kate is kind of a mess so he might wish she had been inspired by Hulk or something but still.

Things are a little bit all over the place in these first two episodes. We get Hawkeye dealing with the Tracksuit Mafia (who actually make the bro thing work in Iive action, Kate, his family and LARPING which I actually think he might have enjoyed in the end…)

Also bonus for him and Laura still having the best relationship in the MCU.

Speaking of relationships despite the actual mustached stepfather- to- be in Kate’s life I’m putting it all on mommy being the big bad. Not just because it’s Vera Farmiga either but that’s the way I’m going up to and including her using the invasion of New York to do in the father.

Which makes the fact that she and Kate have a good relationship right now seem like a whole lot of potential for pain.

We also see Echo for like a second and I’m sure she’ll be great but with nothing to go on I’m dreaming of those Kingpin rumors. Yet on the other hand there’s already a lot going on in this show (and we still have the highly probably appearance of Yelena to go!)

This is Marvel and the finale would be right before Christmas so I can’t imagine this being where they decide Hawkeye doesn’t make it home to his family.

But an interesting thing about Yelena potentially whether she spares him or even possibly helps the picture Val showed her at the end of Black Widow was him as Ronin so potentially she could expose the true Ronin in the end.

Anyway it’s a little bumpy but I enjoyed the first two episodes. Kate Bishop is great, there’s a cute dog and Hawkeye just might be the most relatable Avenger plus I love grounded Marvel Land 🙂

And yes it was dreadfully cringey but I would watch the hell out of that musical!