Hawkeye Episode 105: Everything Is Falling Into Place

I’ve made it very evident that the Hawkeye series has been my favorite Marvel series project, and the latest episode not only reaffirms my conviction, but it’s going to bring more fans because of this episode and what it means for future Marvel projects. And again, it left me feeling like it was MUCH shorter than the other episodes, even though it was the same length (and in a good way).

As you may know, this series has taken a lot of inspiration from the Fraction/Aja/Hollingsworth Hawkeye run from 2012-2013, as well as other influences (such as Maya Lopez’s origin story of her father being killed and being manipulated to believe that Daredevil killed him). I’ve always been a person that doesn’t mind Marvel changing the origin or stories from the comics fo the MCU because the MCU is like its own comic book story (e.g. I thought what they did with Taskmaster in Black Widow was fine and made sense). But I’ve been impressed with how well the series takes the inspiration and transforms it to fit the MCU while at the same time capturing the essence of the story and its characters. It’s not an easy feat by any means, but the writers and creators of Hawkeye have done a tremendous job in doing this. 

As I’ve mentioned in my review of Episode 4, the show has demonstrated a pattern in the openings of each episode in the series, and episode 5 fights right in. Episode 1 and 3 begins with a backstory or origins of a character (Kate and Maya, respectively). In episode 5, “Ronin”, we get the backstory of Yelena and what she has been doing since the ending events of the Black Widow movie. This opening doesn’t answer the crucial question though of who hired Yelena to assassinate Clint, but it is revealed to us by the end of the episode. 

Overall, this episode seems to have a lot of the same great elements as the other episodes, but still different somehow. This had action, drama, mystery, humor, emotion – everything. However, this episode was clearly written to help make all the pieces start to fall into place for the big showdown in the final episode. We start to see how each of the characters is somehow tied to one another and how they are going to play a role in it. But what I’m really impressed by this episode is how they are able to incorporate all of this and make it a very enjoyable episode and not used as a throwaway, plot device that serves only to set up the next episode. We still get a lot of heart with Clint’s heart-felt moment of talking to Natasha (privately, as you would at a grave) at the Avengers memorial site in New York, a lot of humor from Kate and Yelena, and a major reveal that shocks Kate (but really no one else because we knew it was coming). But even though we knew this was coming, seeing this revelation for the first time (and the update to the end credits scene) gave me such a thrill that I enjoyed being able to see it in the context of the episode without having it leaked or spoiled for me (I’m looking at you, Matt Donnelly and John Campea).

One last thing: there have been rumors about the Hawkeye series and Spider-Man: No Way Home being connected for numerous reasons (they happen around the same time, their release overlap, characters that are showing up in each medium, etc.). Initially, I thought it was purely coincidental and probably didn’t have any real connection. Although I’m not 100% convinced of this, I will say that I wouldn’t be surprised if they are now, given this episode and other rumors circulating around each project.