Ok so the Hawkeye finale is finally here and the episode is packed with easter eggs, hidden details and some big reveals. It answers some big questions but also sets some things up for the future and throughout this video we’re gonna be breaking the entry down and going over everything you need to know about it.
I wanna just get straight into it but as always there will be heavy spoilers so if you haven’t checked it out then check out now. Please drop a thumbs up if you’ve enjoyed any of the videos we’ve done over the past 5 weeks and thank you as always for rocking with me.
With that out the way, thank you for clicking this, I’m your Uncle Kevin Spoilers, now let’s get into the Hawkeye.
Ok, so in the last episode we found out that Yelena was snapped and because of this she never got to say goodbye to her sister. As she believed that Clint was somewhat responsible for Natashas death she had a sit down with Kate Bishop said if she didn’t stay out her way, that she’d beat that bish up.
HAHAHA, YOU ARE SO FUNNY KEVIN SPOILERS.
Yelena ended up trying to track down who hired her and this put her led her to not only Elanor but also the big guy in charge. She sent a picture of the pair together to Kate and that should be you fully caught up.
Now the episode is called so this is Christmas, a nod to the song so this is Happy Christmas, war is over by John Lennon. This very much sums up the entry and how things end up going to all-out war come to the end of the entry.
We open on the other side of Yelena’s photograph from last week and find out that Kate’s dad was actually deeply indebted to the Kingpin. This somewhat mirrored Echos dad who we learned in Episode 3 didn’t have enough to pay for her to go to a specialist school because he was in over his head.
Now they have changed things up slightly from how they were in the Daredevil Netflix series as in those, Kingpin didn’t have a cane. This character trait actually pulls directly from the comics as the villain often carried one with him so it brings him slightly more inline. We still don’t know if the MCU is gonna class the Netflix shows as canon or if they’re gonna be variants of them as there’s a lot of history to twist the MCU to fit. Though Kingpin kept a low profile in the first Season he was exposed come the end of it and Kate probably would’ve known about him. Not to dive too deep into Spoilers for Spider-man No Way Home either but there was also a character from the show that popped up in that so it’s gonna be interesting to see how they’re integrated into stuff. Honestly, I’m just happy the Kingpin is back and I love this little cane addition.
Elanor wants to get out of the game and we learned that many of our suspicions were true. She killed Armand and also made it so that Jack took the fall for Sloan Limited. Realising that Kate is getting too close to the truth she decides to break their deal and we learn that she has blackmail material on the kingpin after keeping records of their transactions.
This is somewhat similar to Owl in Season 1 of Daredevil who tried to pull the same trick on Kingpin in order to stop him from retaliating for attempting to kill Vanessa. Kingpin still took him out so it doesn’t bode well for Elanor.
Kate is shocked to see this conversation all play out and hanging up in the room we can also catch a Dragons Of Destiny poster, giving a nod to those fantasy books.
Clint says that this is his mess and that he’s not going anywhere until this is finished.
Hawaiian Christmas
Across town, we cut back to Kingpin having a Hawaiian Christmas and we should all just let the man celebrate the holidays. Maya comes to him which is when he learns about what’s been happening. This was, of course, all kept from him but clearly Kazi filled him in even though the two promised to keep things a secret. It starts to hint towards where his real loyalties lie and come to the end of the episode that leads to his demise.
He tells her exactly what he wants to hear, well signs it and I actually have a theory that though Kazi translates it Kingpin understands her. In Daredevil Season 1 when talking with Madam Gao they initially used a translator but we learned that this was actually just Kingpin pretending he didn’t understand to see if Gao would let anything slip. After the death of his father, Kingpin moved to Asia and learned several languages and I believe that he’s pretending not to be able to sign her to see what she’s really saying and if Kazi will say something different. He knows how to say I love you and I think that come her solo show we may learn that he understood her the whole time.
He clearly doesn’t believe Maya is still loyal and angered at the Ronin, Elanor and Echo he decides to set a reminder that the City belongs to him.
Back on the Subway, we watch somewhat of a scene that mirrors the one from the Third Episode. Whereas that was Clint stressing about his family, now it’s Kate. They even had a family therapy poster up in that scene so I love how it’s reflected her with Kate.
Now Kate and Clint end up assembling an arsenal of trick arrows and not only does this call back to earlier in the season it also pulls directly from the Cherry Issue in the comic run. There were several of them including sonic ones, putty ones, net ones and the boomerang one which was how the pair actually managed to beat the Tracksuit Mafia. They stock up on a lot of them here and it makes for an awesome finale in which they add a couple more strings to their bow in order to take the bad guys down.
I absolutely love DIY scenes like this and we also get some Stark industries one that carries across the corporation’s logo. This has popped up in several Marvel properties in a missile shape like what we have here and it’s nice watching them at least somewhat reference that.
Now, this scene also carries with it Kate finally telling Clint about her childhood and why he means so much to her. Throughout the show, he’s very much wrestled with the position that people have put him in as he doesn’t think that he’s a hero. In his eyes he very much let Nat take the fall for the soul stone and he was simply someone who collected it.
He’s said that he’s not a role model but this moment very much shows that he is and even if he doesn’t have superpowers he can still stand shoulder to shoulder with the best of them which shows that humanity has potential.
It really means a lot to Kate and we watch as the Trust A Bro vans move out. Bro is of course something that the Tracksuit Mafia say all the time so this company front was poking fun at their catchphrase. I think we can now confirm as well that the Fat Man auto repair was poking fun at the Kingpin too and it all comes to a head at Rockafella Plaza.
Now this scene actually pulls somewhat from the comics though they have changed things up quite a lot. Originally in the source material, a tape that apparently showed Clint killing a dictator was sold at a black-market auction held by Madame Masque. This somewhat paralleled the Ronin suit and sword auction that happened in the first entry but the skyscraper itself was where it took place at in the Matt Fraction Run.
At one point Clint ended up jumping out of the Skyscraper and there was a big shoot up inside of it which this episode is clearly giving nods to. The Rockefeller centre is where the final scene of Spider-man No Way Home takes place and though it happened in the snow, unfortunately, he doesn’t show up for this. Guy was probably just looking out his window letting it happen thinking ‘sod that they’ll not remember if I was there anyway.’
Now inside they try to track down Elanor and we learn that the Larpers have infiltrated the night dressed as Staff. Gave me a lot of Fight Club vibes. We learn that Jacque was bailed out by little Armand’s father and though we don’t learn who this is it could also be another Armand.
In the Comics, Jack’s father Armand instilled in him the idea to become the superhero the swordsman. He told him of his ancestor the Crimson Cavalier and Jack ended up taking on the mantle of The Swordsman becoming an Anti-Hero in the comics.
Kazi sits waiting with a Sniper Rifle and Yelena checks in looking like Steve Harvey.
This scene was so great and hearing the Nutcracker song in the background perfectly sets the tone. Kate confronts her mother with the video of Kingpin and she’s clearly very remorseful of how things have turned out. It’s put her in a lot of danger and she was clearly just trying to protect Kate as she promised to at the grave.
Kazi starts his attack and I love how Clint quickly grabs a waitress tray to use it as a shield. Man was taking notes from Cap and it happens so quick you might miss how Slick son is with it.
Friends or Foes
Kate and Yelena have a great little exchange and I love how the latter is constantly trying to stop Kate from messing up her plan. It really sets up the rivalry between them that will no doubt last a couple of years. You might notice that Yelena also has blue Eyelashes, which could be a nod to how she’s working alongside Val who had the same colour blue in her hair during Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
Yelena ends up pulling her dress off to reveal her Hawkeye costume underneath and when Kate presses all the buttons on the elevator they end up running through the building.
Such a nice little exchange and yeah it’s so annoying when people do that. Their chase back and forth works really well and I love how Yelena is levels ahead of her and just being like ‘don’t do this mate’ don’t spoil Kevin Spoilers. They move through offices in one continuous shot and Kate ends up using Bolas which is one of her signature weapons in the comics. I wish Yelena would stop making me like her too as I just want her to stop killing Clint but she won’t give up.
Now, this big action scene does change things up quite a lot from the finale of the comic book run. In that Clint ended up taking over an apartment block from the Mafia after they tried to charge the tenants triple rent in order to extort them. Throughout the book, they had several run-ins with him and they ended up hiring Kazi to kill him but this failed. In the end, The Mafia stormed the apartment block and we got a sort of Home Alone 2 showdown in which Clint and Kate used lots of tricks to take them all out one by one.
They were joined by the other Tenants and it was a brilliant way to wrap up the run though I do think that this action scene here also works really well as a final place for things to go down. The Rockefeller centre is probably the first thing that people think of when they think of New York at Christmas and it’s a brilliant setting to have the showdown.
In the end, Clint had Kazi in a corner but he had a gun hidden up his sleeve, however, he managed to defeat him by flicking a toothpick in his eye in order to take away his sight. Kazi was actually the one who made Clint deaf as he stabbed him in the ears with some of his arrows so it was sort of like Poetry they rhyme.
Now we see how easily that Yelena descends from the window and in comparison how difficult it is for Kate to look cool. Though she’s getting called a Mary Sue by the people that call every female character a Mary Sue, I have really liked the way they’ve handled her and as far as an origin story goes this has slowly built her up over time showing both her strengths and weaknesses very well.
They also have a moment where she steps on a giant keyboard and shoutouts Simon A Burman on Twitter for pointing out that is a callback to BIG.
Outside the Mafia attack and we learn from the member that was gonna go to to the imagine Dragons concert that he ended up going to a Maroon 5 one instead. Outside Kate is saved by Jack who shows how adept he is and I think that going forward with Elanor getting jailed at the end of the episode that he might actually become somewhat of a mentor to Kate. he could clearly best her with a sword so I think that would be a brilliant direction to take things as she learns more. He does end up joining the Larpers come the end so they might not make him fully into the Swordsman but I think that having him remain in Kate’s life would be a good way to go. He does look quite similar to her Father and with her losing her Mother it would be a nice continuation of the character in my opinion.
Inside the building, Kazi and Clint come face to face with Clint taking ya boy down. Chased by the rest of the Mafia down a corridor I kinda got a lot of vibes of the ending of Endgame from this buy obviously these guys don’t wanna rip his head off.
Clint jumps out the window and ends up landing in a tree which is when he comes across an Owl that’s nested there. This sort of becomes like the Rat in Endgame. The Larpers decide to mount up and across town, though Maya packs a bag she ends up leaving to go help out Kazi who is pictured along with her and her father.
Kate gets Clint out of the tree by bringing it down with an acid arrow and this ends up putting Clint on ice like Captain America, ey.
Hawkeyes Suit
Finally, he takes off his shirt to reveal his hawkeye costume and this looks very similar to how it was in the Matt Fraction Run with the Hawkeye logo on the front. In the ice rink, the pair make their final stand. Using magnet arrows they disarm the Mafia and use their armada to take them down. The trick arrows really brought a smile to my face and watching the singles one, ice one that like, that freezes that guys entire leg and just all of them work to show why they can mess people up pretty easily.
Watching Kate and Clint work together as a team is great and we get a hero shot much like the Avengers one to cement they made it. Made it to a bloody great show. Lastly, Kate uses a Pym arrow to shrink down the Trust A Bro truck and I thought it was pretty messed up that they got carried away by an owl. They’re not gonna be able to return to normal size and are probably gonna end up getting eaten by an owl man, not cool.
Kazi arrives and though Clint uses a triple arrow she blocks it. Yelena shows up along with Maya and she ends up turning on her surrogate brother. The pair end up sparring with one another and the pair of course learned Karate together as kids.
On the ice, Yelena says she needs to know what happened with her sister and though Clint doesn’t go into the ins and outs of it yet he says that her sister sacrificed herself. Yelena doesn’t buy it and elsewhere Kingpin confronts Eleanor. Kate arrives and shoots him with an arrow which doesn’t work and as we learned in Daredevil he wore armour under his clothes and in his suit.
He had to pull a few strings to get it and that’s an archery pun right there ey.
Eleanor ends up hitting him with a car and back at the Rockerfella centre Echo and Kazi continue their fight. She ends up stabbing him with one of Clint’s arrows and potentially if the Kingpin comes back he could end up blaming this on Kate or Clint.
Realising that Kingpin is coming for her she decides to tackle things head-on and we watch as Kate fights him across town. Mirroring this Yelena and Clint battle it out with one another and he tries to tell her the truth but she does the old stop lying. It’s a bit cliched especially the stop lying line but Florence Pugh acts brilliantly delivering a grief-filled fight full of rage and anger that does make it more impactful.
Just as she’s about to kill Clint he busts out the whistle that Yelena and her sister did as children which makes her realise Clint is telling the truth. Yelena of course actually viewed the sleeper cell family as a real one and she wanted nothing more than them to get together. Nat was very much a real sister to her and hearing that she talked about her all the time makes her realise how much she meant to Nat and how much Clint meant to her too. He talks about how they escaped at the start of the movie, namely Nat flying the plane which is how they got away after Melina was shot.
Yelena says she could’ve stopped it but we know how stubborn Nat was and that it was her choice. Yelena and Clint let bygones be bygones and thank god there were no police here.
Against Kingpin, Kate ends up taking one of his cufflinks which has the same design as it did in the Netflix show. These belonged to his father and after he killed him he wore them as a reminder of what he’d done.
We did say that we thought the toin coss….sorry coin toss trick would be used to take out Kazi I actually prefer it that it returned here. She uses it to trigger the arrows which all whack the big guy at once. Anyone else would be brown bread from this but, guess we need Echo to have her big moment.
Outside Eleanor tries to downplay what she’s done and she says that she did it for Kate. She’s clearly not morally right and Kate has no issue with seeing her arrested on Christmas as it’s the right thing to do. No presents for you from your mother in the morning love.
Now speaking of parental breakups we see that Kingpin escapes but he’s confronted by Echo who arrives and points a gun in his face before shooting him. This actually pulls directly from the comics and the standoff is extremely similar.
Though it seems like he died, Kingpin actually survived in the comics though he was blinded. This was done to of course mirror Matt Murdock and though there is potential that he’s dead I think it would be a shame if Marvel brought him and Daredevil back just to kill him off the big guy in his first major appearance.
I do believe that he will survive and that Maya will learn of this down the line which we’ll talk about later on.
Clint congratulates Kate for talking down Kingpin and they decide to walk the dog before we jump to the Barton farm to watch the family meeting Kate and spending Christmas together.
Laura is Bobby Morse?
At this point, we get confirmation of one of our theories which is that the watch belonged to Laura and on the back of it we can see the logo for SHIELD with the number 19 confirming that she was also an agent.
In case you don’t know, in the comics, Clint was actually married to another hero called Mockingbird. Mockingbird or rather Barabara Morse was a shield agent drafted under the codename Agent 19 which this of course confirms
Though we don’t know much about Laura in the MCU, when the Avengers first went to Clint’s house in Age Of Ultron Tony did jokingly say that she thought she was an Agent potentially linking in with this.
Due to her constantly mocking her enemies in fights she eventually took on the codename Mockingbird but she ended up faking her death in order to return to being a civilian, which I can imagine is what Laura did. Interestingly Barabara also changed her name and thus it could be connected because it’s all connected.
Outside Clint burns the Ronin uniform along with Kate and she tries to brainstorm some nicknames. In the comics, they constantly made jokes about how the pair shared the same name because they couldn’t think of a better one and Clint says that he has an idea for name which is when we cut to the title sequence.
Just before that though we can see the target that was pinned up at the beginning of Avengers endgame and it’s an awesome way to close out the series.
It’s not over yet though and in the post-credits scene, we see Rogers The Musical play out. This musical actually recently appeared in Spider-Man No Way Home and it’s a nice way to close out the entry as Marvel wish you a merry Christmas.
Now we’re gonna talk about the future direction of the MCU in just a bit but as for my thoughts on episode and series as a whole, I have quite enjoyed it. Though I was a bit meh on the first two episodes I thought Episode 3 was one of the best Disney Plus show episodes ever and from that point on the series has set a high bar.
In terms of ranking it amongst the other shows I’m not sure exactly where I would put it just yet but Loki has definitely remained as my favourite. Though the ending of Wandavision wasn’t all that I actually really enjoyed the journey and all the speculation, fan theories and deeply layered easter eggs made that show something that I look back on fondly even though everything didn’t completely pay off.
I’d put Hawkeye in a close third and I think that though I probably have fonder memories of Wandavision that if we look at things objectively that it’s probably a better show than Wandavision is, I just have so many…so many happy memories.
Lastly is Falcon And The Winter Soldier but I also think that’s a great show as well. Sam, Bucky, Zemo and John Walker all get really good arcs in it and it’s a good show. They all are really but I know you guys often ask me how I’d place them so yeah, that’s where they rank for me. Now go and kick off in the comments because I said Hawkeye was objectively better than Wandavision but I preferred it for the journey.
I know what you’re like, you sucker.
The Future of the MCU
Now going forward The MCU has several things coming up that will probably connect to this and we will likely be getting the announcement of a Young Avengers very soon. Almost all of the pieces are in place now and with Ms Marvel right around the corner and America Chavez due to debut in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, I don’t think it’ll be too long before we get an announcement on it. Whether that will be a movie or a Disney Plus show we don’t know but I think come to the end of 2022 we will know what’s happening with the team.
The most direct sequel to this show though will probably be the Echo series which was announced on Disney Plus Day. Echo has been one of the most interesting characters in the entire series and she’s gone somewhat on an arc, changing from villain to anti-hero.
She’s one of the more complicated characters in the Marvel Universe and there’s a lot of things that they can do in her solo show. She’s pretty much out to get revenge for her father’s death and this has driven all of her actions throughout her life.
As I mentioned earlier, I do think that the Kingpin will survive and that he’ll be back either having been blinded or simply have just survived the bullet.
In the comics after she discovered that Kingpin was the one who was responsible for her father’s death she ended up going head to head with him but they’ve sort of already done that.
Daredevil was also brought into the mix as well and originally her father’s death was placed on him and not the Ronin. This kinda sparked up a rivalry between them and potentially we could see her going head to head with him instead.
Also Marvel, just give us more Yelena Belova, please. Florence Pugh is absolutely killing the role right now and I think that right there is some perfect casting. Our next MCU entry is supposedly going to be Moon Knight but as Ms Marvel was supposed to debut in November this year it could end up being that. It’s gonna be interesting to see how that turns out as such a big delay means that they might have gone and changed things but we’ll see when that releases.
Anyway, that wraps up the episode and obviously, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
Make sure you drop em in the comments section below and I hope that you’ve enjoyed all the coverage over the last 5 weeks. I also hope that you have a good Christmas and thanks so much for all the support over the last year. Hopefully, we’ll hit the million subscriber mark in 2022 and I couldn’t have done it without you so I really appreciate all the love.
We’re running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies of the Spider-man 4k trilogies on the 30th of December. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is like the video, make sure you subscribe with notifications on and drop a comment below with your thoughts on the episode. We pick the comments at random at the end of the month and the winners of the last one are on screen right now so message me @heavySpoilers if that’s you.
If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of the perfect scene in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the entire thing so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace
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