Welcome to the Kate Bishop show. She too is a Hawkeye and this episode feels like it really focused on her. Yes, Clint Barton is here, but he feels secondary in his own show. But as she is also Hawkeye, maybe the show is meant to focus on her.
The show and this episode opens in an unexpected way. We see a young Kate Bishop listening on her parents arguing. She is standing on a lot of things to reach an air opening space. From the argument it appears that her parents are having serious financial problems. She drops a truck when she kicks it with her leg and her parents hear it. Her mother thinks that her father should handle the situation implying that he is closer to her then she is. They seem pretty close. He says that he will always protect her. She lives in a Marvel world so things are probably not going to go well. Especially when you hear people talk about things not falling from the sky.
Then she goes to eat with her mom and they manage to bond a little bit. Her mom tells her to bring the checkers so they can play together. Then in her room you see shadows across the window. Then you can hear explosions. Then you understand. This is 2012 in New-York, the battle for New-York. The Avengers vs. the Chitauri. She can't find her parents, but you can see the aliens through the windows and the window celling. Her house gets hit, but Kate is unharmed. Then we see that her father's work room has been destroyed. Because it is not a superhero show without a dead parent apparently.
Through the now not existing wall we can see the attack on New-York. An alien sees Kate and comes for her, but his small craft gets hit by a melting arrow. Then she sees Hawkeye firing at the aliens and kicking ass. Barton never looked more impressive and boy do I love me some Avengers theme music. It is not the classical theme, but has a twist to it. Then Kate's mom shows up and takes Kate away. Kate is worried about her dad, but we know he is dead. Plus we know where Kate Bishop got her hero worship for Hawkeye in the MCU.
Then we switch to the funeral. Kate is mourning but she is also terrified that the aliens will come back. Her mom tells her that they won't come back because of the heroes. Now Kate wants to be one. Kate wants to be able to protect herself and her mom. Her mom explains that it is her job to protect her and to be there for her. But what Kate wants and needs is a bow and arrow. She wants to be the next Hawkeye.
Then there is the opening sequence of the show. Straight out of the Matt Fraction Hawkeye run. The same design, color scheme, everything. I know he didn't get paid for this show and he totally should have. Also, we get a short version of Bishop's life since she was a kid, like her studying martial arts on top of everything and her competitions and medals and her getting into trouble.
Then we switch to present day Kate Bishop. She is breaking into a building, well, she tries to break into a building, but eventually she just climbs it. We think that she is on some heroic mission, but no, she is just doing something for a bet. Shooting an arrow at the bell tower to make the bell ring. It is hard because of the thick rope that the bell is attached to. Her friends are watching her and encouraging her. She managed to hit it and make it ring and then we find out why the bell never rings. It is too fragile. The entire bell tower collapses. Plus she ends up being caught pretty fast by campus police. I mean, she deserves it. That is a lot of damage for nothing.
Then we switch to New York at Christmas, you can feel the celebration in the air. We see Clint Barton and his three children in the Rogers musical. It is actually a musical about the battle for New York. I guess that the people of New York now have a better appreciation for what the Avengers did for them. The Sokovia Accords made it look like the world has turned against superheroes and so did The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Barton looks like he is suffering and I think I was suffering watching this. The adventures of the Avengers were not made to be turned into a musical. I hope Disney will never do this for real. You can feel how miserable Barton is when he looks at the woman portraying Nat. Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff was his best friend and he misses her. A lot. This musical is a terrible idea.
Also, looks like the show is giving Barton one of his most famous characteristics from the comics, he has hearing problems. The musical is so bad that he turns off his hearing aid. Something that is very common with people who have hearing aids. From some reason Ant-Man is in this musical even though he wasn't in the battle. I guess he did become famous after the battle with Thanos. No more awkward moments with kids not recognizing him. His daughter seems to like the actor that portrays Hawkeye, a lot younger than him at the time and he is also wearing purple because that's Hawkeye's color. Even though it not yet officially his color. A young girl in the audience dressed as Natasha notices Barton and waves at him and he smiles back, but you can see pain in his eyes. Even though she sacrificed herself for everyone, for him, first of all, she was a friend. It was a terrible idea for him to go to this terrible musical.
Barton has to take a break and goes to the bathroom. Unfortunately, there is no peace and quiet there either. The sink actually has a graffiti that says "Thanos was right". Something that we say a lot in the real world, but for him it has to hurt to see it. Nat gave her life for this cause. Then he gets harassed by someone who wants a selfie with him while he is in the bathroom. It is always inappropriate and a bad time when someone is in the bathroom. Give famous people a break.
Barton just goes outside. He needs to get away from it all. But his daughter comes out to find him and check on him. His daughter automatically guesses what's wrong, that he lost his best friend. But then his kids come out and he is all a happy family man. I mean it is Christmas in New-York and it looks fantastic.
Then we switch to Kate Bishop who is in a less nice part of New-York. But her mom demands that she will come see her now as Jack is there. I guess we will find out who he is. Her mom is not happy that she has to pay for the clock tower that her daughter destroyed. While Kate is not happy with the rich life her mom is leading. But her mom is just worried about her daughter getting hurt, which she probably will. Kate shows her mom a new golden medal and her mom treats it like a toy instead of an impressive achievement. But now we know that Kate is also really good at martial arts. Because you need more than a bow and arrow to be a great superhero.
We do find out who Jack is, he is her mother's current boyfriend. Kate's mother and Jack leave to go to a charity event and leave a surprised Kate to get ready. She's surprised by Jack's presence as he moved there while she was away for the semester. What an awkward situation.
Then we switch back to Barton who is having dinner with all of his three kids. They seem to be having a great time bonding and then Laura, Clint's wife calls. Apparently the musical was so bad that they all left halfway through. This trip was all about Clint bonding with his kids. Thanks to the blip he didn't see them for five years. Tomorrow they will all be united together as one big happy family. So we know that there is no way that is going to happen. There are six days until Christmas and each kid picks his Christmas activity which they want to do together. It sounds like a lot of fun, real family bonding moments. Then the waiter shows up, shacks Clint's hand and tells him that dinner is on the house, it is the least that they can do after he saved their city. Clint seems embarrassed but it is true, he is part of the Avengers they did save New York and the world.
Then we switch to Kate Bishop. She is at the charity event with her mother and instead wearing the red dress her mother asked her to wear, she is wearing a man's suit. Which in this case makes her look like a waitress in the event that is trying not to work. When one of the older man approaches her she automatically says she is not a waitress, but apparently she knows him. He is Jack's father, Armand Duquesne. This chat is how she finds out that her mother and Jack are engaged. Kate looks unhappy about this and Armand also doesn’t seem thrilled about it. Armand expects Kate to confront her mother about this and she totally does. Her mother is the height of emotional manipulation and manages to get Kate to say that she is be sort of happy for her. Yet Kate looks very unhappy about this fast romance turning into a serious commitment.
Kate goes outside to get some air. Outside she sees a one eyed dog. It is our new favorite Marvel pet, Pizza dog. The dog runs away but Kate doesn't follow. As Kate walks inside she hear her mother and Armand arguing. He says that her empire is built on a lie and I guess we shall find out along the way what lie it is. It seems like Armand was threatening her mother. Kate confronts her mother, but her mother just brushes it off. Kate is not the type of person that just lets things go and wants to investigate this matter further.
So obviously she decides to stalk Armand. The music is very home alone which is pretty funny to me, the ominous charismas music. Kate uses the fact that she is dressed like a waitress to her advantage and picks up a tray and just pretends to be a waitress. She continues her surveillance until she reaches a wine cellar and Armand and Jack are there and everything looks like it is in preparation for an illegal auction. Armand is unhappy with Jack and his new fiancée. Kate is very resourceful, when another waiter asks her what she is doing there she manages to remember the name of the boss and says that he sent her there, which calms the other waiter down immediately. Kate has some pretty impressive stalking skills.
Her skills are on full display when Gary, the boss, shows up. She pretends to be upset that he doesn't even remember name, gives him the tray and says that she quits. What a show. He tries to follow her, but fails. She is standing next to a door and hear a few people planning to break into the little auction. The auction is about to sell Ronin's sword. Ronin is Hawkeye after he lost his family and decided to deal with it by killing all the organized crime around the world. Jack is obsessed swords apparently, he and his father go into a bidding war for the sword. The father wins. The new bad guys go in. When Ronin's suit is about to be sold the wall behind the auction explodes and the bad guys get inside. They are there to steal a watch apparently. Jack uses the opportunity to steal the sword when no one is paying attention to him and his father is unconscious. Great son that is. Something in this entire scenario is fishy.
But Kate always bounces back on her feet. She steals the Ronin suit to disguise herself. Probably not a great plan. She uses her medal winning material arts skills against the new bad guys. All the bad guys start shooting at her, but she manages to doge it all, because it is a Marvel show. Her mother tries to call her, but she has no idea what is going on. As Kate fights these guys we find out that they are all Russians that wear tracksuits. She fights them all impressively with the wine bottles around her. Because it really hurts to get hit over the head with a wine bottle. I have no idea why anyone would think that she is Ronin, when Ronin was clearly a man and this is clearly a woman. Someone found the watch which I don't recognize, but the Pizza dog grabs his leg and takes him down. Then Kate shows up and saves the dog as the man tries to kick him. She runs after the dog when he escapes across a busy road. She saves him from getting hit by a car. Kate is so nice to go and save the dog and resourceful as well. But her troubles are not over. The bad guys think that she is Ronin and plan to continue to chase her down.
Then we switch to Clint and his kids going back to their hotel room. The kids immediately turn on the TV and the news are on. With the explosion and the return of Ronin. Clint wants to know who stole his criminal insane persona. We get some flashbacks to his killing days from Avengers: Endgame. His past has come to hunt him it appears.
Kate brings the dog to her apartment. She has no idea how much trouble she is in. typical teenager behavior. She gives the dog some pizza to eat, which he is delighted to do. Kate decides to break into Armand's house wearing the Ronin suit. Another terrible plan. Inside the house she finds a very dead Armand who has been stabbed to death. It looks like his son stabbed him to death with the Ronin sword, but Kate doesn't know who has the sword. Kate runs away from the house, but then is ambushed by a van full of the Russian bad guys. She gets into a really bad fight and gets beaten up a lot. She gets into a car, but they smash the windows. Suddenly, out of nowhere they are being taken down. We don't see the face of the man, but we know who he is. It's Clint. He opens the car door and pulls Kate out. He pushes her against a wall, takes off her mask when he is about to hit her and stops himself. "Come one" he yells, because he sees a little girl. She sees the idol of her childhood, Hawkeye. He wants to know who the hell she is and the episode ends.
It was a pretty good first episode with one big problem. Instead of focusing on Clint and his family, it appears that this show focuses way too much on Kate Bishop. I like Kate Bishop, but I this is not what I was expecting. Too much Kate, not enough Clint.
But still, Hailee Steinfeld was a dream and fan casting of Kate Bishop and everyone were right. She is perfect in this role. She is likable, funny and badass all at the same time. Plus a stupid fangirl, even though I really like fangirls. Jeremy Renner is a good actor and he is good in here as well, you can feel his sadness over Natasha's death looming in the background. I just expected to see more of him as even the small moments with his family were very good. Vera Farmiga is always fabulous, here I have a feeling that she is fabulously evil. Although Jack Duquesne (Tony Dalton) a.k.a. Swordsman brings some evil vibes of his own. All of the Barton children are not great, but it is hard to find good child actors. Still, generally, the acting is superb all around.
The setting of this show is fabulous. I mean this is New York during Christmas with the music to match it. How can I not love this?
It's a little of a weak start. It is not the bigger than life Marvel characters that we had on shows so far, but it is nice in its own way. Just smaller. What do you think?
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