As the 3rd episode of Hawkeye begins, we see a young Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) in school and quickly find out that she has a hearing problem. Despite her problems, Maya excels in school and gets her work done quickly. Later that night, Maya and her father William (Zahn McClarnon) make shadow animals on her bedroom wall. She asks him about getting to go to the deaf school although he admits that isn’t going to happen. William suspects attending the public school will be better for her in the long run. He promises that his daughter won’t have to stop signing and will instead need to learn how to jump between two worlds. She begins taking a karate class. Her father tells her it is more about speed than size just before she goes up against a boy much bigger than her.

As Maya takes the stage, we see that she has a prosthetic leg. When the fight begins, she quickly drops the boy and wins. We jump forward and see her beating up guys in the boxing ring. Once she finishes training, she goes to her father’s shop and finds Ronin killing his friends. She sneaks inside and finds her father with a stab wound to the chest. William encourages her to leave him because he is already gone. After the intro, we jump back to the toy store where Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) are forced to ride the mechanical toys over and over. Ivan (Aleks Paunovic) gets bored and asks Dimitri to play cards with him. Once the tracksuit guys walk away, Kate tells Clint she knows he is mad at her, but he would be lost without her. Clint insists he was on the verge of clearing her before she fell through the ceiling.

One of the tracksuits complains about buying Imagine Dragons tickets for his girlfriend only for her to want to take someone else. Kate suggests that is a good thing until Tomas admits he likes Imagine Dragons. When Tomas says she did this to hurt him, Kate argues they both should apologize. He goes for a pen so he can write it down. Kate tells Clint that they need trust and communication. Ivan tells Kate she talks too much. He threatens to rip out her throat until Maya enters. Kazi (Fra Fee) enters with Maya who removes the tape around Clint’s hand. Since Clint doesn’t know sign language, Kazi has to translate for them. Kazi tapes his hands behind his back while explaining she wants to know what he is doing there. Since she noticed the hearing aid in his ear, Maya says he relies too much on technology. He insists Kate isn’t Ronin although she is spoiled rotten.

Kazi reminds him that she beat up some of his guys and came running when he was in trouble. He tells them Ronin isn’t back because he was dead and he saw Black Widow kill him. Kazi doesn’t think this is working so he asks Kate why she put on the suit in the first place. Maya has a flashback of the attack on her father, gets angry, and grabs Kate by the neck. Kazi has to calm her down to get her to stop. Kate insists she put on the suit because she didn’t want anyone to know she was at the auction while Clint tries to cut the tape around his wrist. Clint tells Kate that now is not the time to be scared because they’re going to get out of this. He encourages her to harness her ridiculous overconfidence. As he breaks free and runs for it, Kate tries to find out how he freed himself. The tracksuits try to track him down and bring him back alive. Clint throws a stuffed animal at one of them before climbing on top of the shelves and running.

Then, he gets into a fight with Maya who gets the better of him. She knocks him down and the hearing aid goes flying out of his ear. Maya crushes it and returns to the fight. Clint manages to get his bow and arrows while Kazi stops Kate from freeing herself from the tape. Clint uses two arrows to pin Maya against a wall. He uses another to distract Kazi and break Kate’s tape before diving into a pool of balls. Kate begins fighting Kazi while Clint takes care of the others. Kat slides around and knocks Kazi off his feet. When Clint hits him with the bow, Kate argues that she was doing just fine. Clint picks up his hearing aid just before they flee the building and begin searching for a vehicle. Kate wants to take the ’72 Challenger, but Clint refuses to smash its window.

He takes another car nearby instead. Once she joins him by the car, he tells her she needs to drive. She doesn’t know how to drive so Clint ends up behind the steering wheel. He manages to hotwire the car as the tracksuit gang junks on their vehicle. The gang members chase them in other vehicles. As they flee, Kate grabs the arrows and learns they’re out of regular arrows. Clint takes a few that she shouldn’t use. Then, she begins using the arrows without knowing what they do. She hits the truck’s windshield which is soon covered in a purple substance. Clint tells her to hit the wheels with the putty arrow, but she doesn’t know which is which. They agree it would be easier if Kate was facing the other way. Kate with the van with an arrow causing it to blow up. Then, she uses the plunger arrow on the Charger Maya is driving before arguing it is completely useless.

Clint drives through a Christmas tree lot backward as they’re chased by the pickup truck. Kate hits it with an arrow that shoots out strings and pulls trees toward the truck. Clint gives her acid arrows and instructs her to use them to drop the traffic lights. Maya follows them onto the bridge. While Clint fights with Tomas over the gun, Kate notices her bow in the back of the Charger and grabs it. She uses an arrow that releases smoke inside of the Charger. Maya can’t see so she totals the Charger. Clint doesn’t like that. He has to stop in a hurry to prevent from ramming into the vehicle in front of them. The Trust A Bro truck is spotted rushing toward them in the distance leading Clint to believe they’re going to crash into them. Clint gives Kate an arrow and tells her to aim high to bring it down on the van. When she does, Clint hits her arrow with his and it transforms into a much bigger arrow.

It hits the back of the pickup truck destroying it. He gives her the USB arrow while running toward the Charger to retrieve another arrow. Kate warns them not to move because they don’t want to see what the arrow does as Clint runs back toward her. She hits Ivan in the chest with the arrow, but it doesn’t hurt him. Clint and Kate jump off the bridge and he uses the arrow to create a rope that allows them to land on the subway train nearby. They rest on the train and agree they need to walk the dog. Clint also tells Kate that she is right about being one of the world’s best archers. They return to the apartment and clean up. Clint receives a call from Nathaniel. Since he can’t hear, Kate helps him translate. He tells Clint he got up before everyone else and is bored right now. Nathaniel knows his father isn’t going to make it for the Christmas movie marathon although Clint believes he’ll be home before Christmas.

Nathaniel says it will be okay if he can’t make it to Christmas because they understand. After the call ends, Clint thanks Kate for helping him. Meanwhile, the tracksuit gang decides to move because the building is compromised. Kazi pulls Maya to the side to tell her it is important to put the crew first as her father did. He also hopes Uncle won’t find out since they’re supposed to be keeping a low profile. Nevertheless, Maya is eager to get revenge on Hawkeye and reminds Kazi that she is running the show now. As they wait for the doctor, Kate texts Clint to joke about his hearing. Once the doctor arrives, she agrees to fix Clint’s hearing aid. After that, they go to the restaurant nearby. Kate tells Clint she has dreamed about this for a long time although he warns her that she’ll lose things by helping others. She tries to help him pick out a new costume to fix his branding issue, but Clint isn’t interested.

He is worried his wife would divorce him if he wore a silly costume. Clint argues that he isn’t a role model to anyone and never has been, but Kate suggests otherwise. She reminds him that he stuck around to help her even though she screwed up. Clint is told he is stuck now because the tracksuits have linked them to Ronin and they’re not going to drop this. She also says her mother might be marrying a murderer. Clint has to pay the bill since Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) canceled Kate’s credit card. Clint tells her to name the dog before going to pay the bill. She tries to pick a name and eventually says Pizza Dog. Once they leave, Clint tells Kate that the tracksuit gang is into a lot of bad things. Although they started out small, they grew and the guy at the top above Maya would do anything to grow the operation.

There is bad blood because Ronin hit the supplier on the other side before hitting Tracksuit upper management. Clint wonders if the tracksuit guys were looking for something else at the auction, but Kate doesn’t have an answer. He admits it could be bad if there is stuff from the Avengers compound floating around out there. She is confident Jack (Tony Dalton) is involved in Armand’s death. Clint admits it is weird but not airtight. Kate agrees that they need more evidence that that is why they’re going to sneak into her mother’s penthouse. She explains they can get into her company’s files because they have a huge criminal database. They break into her penthouse and use the database to see what they can find on Kazi. They find he is an employee of Sloan Limited which sounds familiar.

Then, Kate tries to look up Jack only to get her account disabled. Clint hears something nearby and goes to find out what it is. When he does, Jack holds Ronin’s sword to his neck and tells him not to move.

 

Hawkeye Review

This episode of Hawkeye was a dramatic improvement over the prior two episodes because it was action-packed. The characters are finally starting to settle down so they’re becoming more tolerable and possibly even likable. Still, it is hard to ignore the stupidity of the Tracksuit gang members.

The show is nowhere near being realistic or a smash hit, but it is a good show to kill forty minutes. The action needs to remain ramped up from here on out to keep the show entertaining. The episode was decent and scores a 7 out of 10. All Hawkeye recaps can be found on Reel Mockery here.