As the second episode of Hawkeye begins, Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) drags Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) into the alleyway and tries to figure out her identity. She quickly recognizes him as Hawkeye and introduces herself as Kate Bishop. Clint asks where she lives because they need to get her out of there quickly. As they walk toward her apartment, Kate tells him she started doing martial arts when she was five. While he scans the area for threats, Kate says some people claim she is the world’s best archer. Once they step into her apartment, Clint learns about the dog and the fact that Kate inherited the apartment. She agrees to take off the suit so he can have it while explaining she got it from a black market auction. He learns what she did in the suit before she comes down the stairs and asks him to sign her bow.
He checks that she is fine before telling her a little about the Tracksuit Mafia that was after her. She wonders if they were the ones who killed Armand III, but Clint has no idea. He wants to make sure nobody saw her face. She doesn’t think so. Clint warns her that the person who wore the suit made a lot of enemies and the Tracksuit guys were just that start. She insists she only dropped off the dog. Both are surprised when Ivan (Aleks Paunovic) calls her name and the guys begin slinging Molotov cocktails into her apartment. Clint manages to catch one and throw it back while Kate shoots one of the bottles with an arrow causing the van to catch fire. In hopes of getting the suit, Kate shoots a fire extinguisher and it eventually lands near the Mafia guys outside. As the sprinklers go off, Clint tells Kate to get the dog and run because they’ll come back for the suit later.
After they escape, Clint takes Kate to the store to buy medical supplies although she thought they were going to get Avengers supplies. Since Tony sold Avengers Tower several years ago, they have to find another safe house. As they wait in line, Clint tells Kate he needs to find a place to stash her, get the suit, and clean up her mess. She takes him to a place she knows and pretends to have pizza to get into the building. Once they get inside, Kate explains it is her aunt’s place and she is in Florida for the winter. She picks the lock so they can get in. Clint tells Kate how to clean and disinfect her cuts while he gets the suit and returns to his kids. He returns to the scene, steals a firefighter suit and sneaks into the apartment to search for the Ronin suit. The suit is nowhere to be found so he goes back outside and looks in the fire trucks. He looks at the fire truck as he shuts the door and finds a sticker for NYC Larpers.
He returns to the apartment and hears Kate talking to Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) who was worried about her. Clint complains about a little girl in a ninja costume stealing his Christmas before he learns Kate hasn’t named the dog yet. Kate has incorrectly cleaned and bandaged the wound, so Clint takes care of it for her. He learns she has written down descriptions of the Tracksuit men. Clint researches the LARPER group and finds that a man named Grills (Clayton English) has the costume. Then, he texts his kids and tells the dog it is a good dog. In the morning, Cooper (Ben Sakamoto), Nathaniel (Cade Woodward), and Lila (Ava Russo) wait for their father to leave. He tells them Cooper is in charge once they get to the airport and that they cannot lose Nate. Cooper asks if it is about the ninja although Clint denies it. Before the kids leave, Clint tells Lila she is actually in charge.
She wants him to be home for Christmas and he promises he’ll be there. Clint returns to the apartment and finds Kate watching the news which talks about the ninja and Armand’s death. Kate insists she needs to leave to go to work and Clint realizes he isn’t going to be able to change her mind. She insists she’ll be safe because her mom owns a security company. As they walk along, Kate learns about Clint’s hearing problems and what caused them in the first place. When they see make-believe superheroes nearby, Kate tells Clint that he has a problem with branding, but he denies it. She gives his advice for branding, but Clint explains he isn’t selling anything. She believes they should meet after work although Clint isn’t sure they’ll see one another again after today.
They exchange numbers before going in separate directions. Kate approaches Eleanor who is hanging out with Jack (Tony Dalton). They begin talking about the death of Jack’s father and the inheritance. She wants to talk to her mom in private. Jack understands that since she likely feels misplaced by him. She agrees to join them for dinner tonight if they let her pick the topics of discussion. Clint goes to the LARPERS group and gets stopped when he finds Grills with the ninja suit. The woman in charge warns him that it could get messy because many of the people down there are cops and firefighters. He signs up for the battle since it won’t be over until midnight. He learns beginners only get one free hit and a hit to the torso would be fatal. Once he receives his armor and sword, he joins the battle and immediately approaches Grills.
After killing a few LARPERs, he walks up to Grills who knows who he is. Clint explains what he is going to do to take the suit so Grills tries to negotiate. He wants to kill Clint because this is the closest he’ll ever get to being a superhero. Clint eventually relents and agrees to let Grills kill him in exchange for the ninja suit. Meanwhile, Kate sends Clint several text messages before she receives a call from Detective Caudle (Ivan Mbakop) who wants to talk about the apartment fire. He is concerned when she doesn’t seem too upset with the fire. Kate explains she is at work and doesn’t have time to talk right now so they agree to meet tomorrow before work. The fight between Clint and Grills begins. Clint pleads with Grills to just kill him and he eventually does. Once Clint has been killed, Grills gives him the suit and thanks him for letting him kill him. While Grills says this was likely the best day of his life, Clint admits he is glad he did it.
Clint calls Laura (Linda Cardellini) to tell her he isn’t going to make his flight. He believes it’ll take one more day now that the suit is safe and he needs to work things out with his old tracksuit friends. He locks the suit in a gym locker while Laura tells him he has five more days to get there for Christmas. Before the call ends, he says he is going to use the catch and release strategy and it is time to get himself caught. During dinner, Kate tells Jack he seems too good to be true. They also discuss his fencing skills before Kate suggests they break out some of the swords and do a little bonding. When Jack goes to get his gear, Kate tells her mother that this will be fun. Jack repeatedly lets Kate beat him although she tells him to stop doing that. She gets upset and tries to slash him in the face, but he quickly parries the blow and knocks her sword to the ground.
She demands to know what Jack is hiding so Jack insists he was only lying about his fencing skills. Once Jack leaves to get changed, Kate tries to convince her mother that Jack is hiding something about Armand’s murder. She tells her mother about the ninja suit and the Molotov cocktails before Jack enters and asks Kate if she is old enough to drink. Eleanor insists everything will be okay and her daughter can begin working at Bishop Security once she graduates although Kate doesn’t sound interested in that. Eleanor wants to put it all behind them and encourages her daughter to apologize to Jack. Seconds later, Jack gives her one of the butterscotch candies she found in Armand’s home. Kate gets upset and leaves in a hurry. Meanwhile, Clint gets himself kidnapped by the Tracksuit guys.
Enrique (Carlos Navarro) hits him with a baseball bat while Ivan tells them to take it easy because she wants him alive. Kate tries to call him but doesn’t get an answer. A man answers and tells her Clint cannot take her call right now. Once the call ends, she uses her mom’s security company app to track Clint’s phone and tells the taxi driver where to go. Tomas (Piotr Adamczyk) doesn’t like it when Clint jokes about their latest hideout because it was hard to find a new place. He tells them he isn’t the guy he is looking for and Kate Bishop isn’t either. Kazi (Fra Fee) listens from a distance as Clint tries to get them to let him talk to their boss. They pull out guns when Clint quickly removes the restraints on his wrists.
They demand to know where Kate Bishop is as she falls through the glass above. They’re tied to children’s toys as Clint complains that Kate got them into even bigger trouble. Ivan goes to his boss and tells her they have both of them. She waves for him to leave.
Hawkeye Review
The second episode of Hawkeye was much better than the first thanks to Clint’s LARPING experience. Although those scenes only lasted five minutes or so, they were entertaining and humorous. As for the rest of the episode, it was okay but nothing spectacular. At times, it feels like everyone is just going through the motions.
It has been difficult to develop a relationship with the Kate Bishop character because we haven’t seen her work hard for anything. It doesn’t help that Hailee Steinfeld sounds like she is just reading the dialogue and failing to put any emphasis on her lines. Another issue is the bad guys who are shallow and one-dimensional.
Hawkeye isn’t great or terrible. It will be a major disappointment for Marvel fans who were expecting a lot more though. The second episode had some funny moments but not enough to overshadow the mind-numbingly boring scenes. It scores a 6 out of 10. Hawkeye recaps can be found on Reel Mockery here.
Jay Skelton is a fan of all television shows and movies. He tries his best to keep up with the latest foreign television shows and movies. Jay loves skinny dipping in the dark too.
