Hawkeye: “Ronin” Recap

It definitely appears that Clint could possibly walk away, or at least it feels like he could have, but given how invested he is in this matter at the moment it’s bound to happen that walking away would be the worst thing he could do. Between having to cut his family time short and finding out that there’s a Black Widow on his case, Clint’s holiday has definitely taken a turn for the worse, and so has Kate’s. Stating that Kate brought this on herself by wanting to meet her hero might have been accurate back in episode 1, but as of now she’s started to head for the deep end and is just now starting to realize that she might not be able to swim quite as well as she thought. All analogies aside for the moment, the fact that Yelena Belova has been hired to take out Clint was already made apparent earlier in the Black Widow post-credits scene when she was speaking to Val. But what people didn’t know was revealed after Yelena was shown turning to ash and then snapping back to reveal that she’d been a victim of the Snap, or the blip, whatever a person wants to call it. 

Losing five years in a matter of what feels like five seconds is bound to disorient anyone, and it’s fortunate that no one was in the bathroom at the same moment that she came back since it would have been kind of awkward. But after learning what had happened and being lied to, Yelena, being who and what she is, understandably felt very strongly about her sister’s death, and somehow bought the lie that was fed to her concerning who killed her. The downside of this is the fact that Clint Barton does have a long record that’s best left alone since he’s done a lot of bad things in his life after being trained to be a weapon. The amusing thing about that is the fact that Yelena doesn’t appear to care that her record is anything but clean either. 

If one really wanted to argue they could say that Yelena had been turned into a weapon against her will, while Clint made his choice when it came to being an assassin. But no matter which way one wants to argue the matter, the fact is that they’re being played as it turns out since, by the end of the episode, it’s revealed that the ‘big man’ that Clint has been referring to and that many have been guessing is coming finally gets the reveal that some folks have been wanting and others have been talking so much about. The person who hired Yelena is apparently none other than Kate’s mother, Eleanor, while the reveal that everyone was waiting for shows Eleanor speaking with none other than Wilson Fisk, The Kingpin. There’s no doubt that a few jaws dropped when this was revealed since a lot of people have been wondering when the character would finally make his way into the MCU, apart from what has been shown in The Punisher and Daredevil on Netflix. But here he is, larger than life and hopefully ready to be shown in the season finale. 

This also carries ramifications when it comes to Echo, as Clint, dressed as Ronin, did his best to make it clear to her that her quest for vengeance was bound to get her killed. At the very least, the encounter did put a serious amount of doubt into Echo and appears to have her thinking about who really killed her father. The story has also started to make Eleanor Bishop look extremely shady as she continues to be concerned for her daughter, and actually calls the feds on Jack after Kate reveals to her what she and Clint found. But it feels too simple, doesn’t it? Everything is swirling around a central idea at this point, and it’s fair to say that one way or another it’s not going to be settled so easily, which hopefully means that Hawkeye might need a little more closure. It doesn’t look like there’s bound to be a season 2 since this was billed as a limited series, meaning that it’s going to show a mini-story and be done. But with everything that’s happened, it kind of feels like it should warrant another season or a movie at least. 

At this point, it’s tough to say what’s going to happen since the MCU has been keeping their cards pretty close to the vest in order to keep any leaks from occurring as they’ve done in the past. But it’s easy enough to state that people will be hoping that the season finale will tie everything up. That’s a pretty tall order at the moment, but there’s always the possibility that it could lead into another show, which would be interesting, to say the least.