SPOILERS AHEAD! STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE FIRST TWO EPISODES!

Hawkeye, one of the members of the Original Six Avengers, finally gets a chance to star in his own project as the Disney+ series aired its first two episodes this Wednesday. Kate Bishop makes her debut in MCU, played by Hailee Steinfeld, who is expected to take the title Hawkeye in future, alongside her mentor Clint Barton Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).

Episode 1

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The series opens in New York 2012, with a young Kate Bishop eavesdropping on their parents' argument. Kate Bishop is a child of a rich family and their penthouse is right in front of former Stark Tower. Soon they are interrupted by some quakes and blasts, that is, Loki's invasion on Earth has started. Their house takes quite a lot of damage and a section of wall completely demolished, Kate sees a hero, with a bow and arrow, taking down Chitauri horde and saving the day. A desire to learn archery starts to grow in her as she sees her first superhero, saving New York from alien invasion. Her mother Eleanor comes to save her daughter but her father was nowhere to be seen.

With her Dad gone, Kate wonders what would happen if the aliens come back. She demands a bow and an arrow with a purpose of protecting themselves. Passion driven Kate starts training herself as an archer, inspired by none other than the Avenger Hawkeye.

Next, we jump to the present day, where Kate Bishop is having a bet with her friends, entrusting her bow and arrow to ring a giant clock-tower bell at night. Kate improvises and it works out well, until the bell comes crashing down. Cut to New York, we see Barton Family watching Rogers: The Musical, a stage play celebrating the achievements of the Avengers in 2012's Chitauri Invasion. Clint constantly gets flashbacks of late Natasha seeing the musical, adding more to his grief. Meanwhile, Kate is back in New York to meet her mother but is surprised seeing with her with Jack Duquesne.

On the other side of town, Clint is trying his best to make it the best Christmas for his family, taking his kids to dinner.

Kate goes to the fundraiser party of her mother and is caught off-guard hearing about the marriage of Eleanor and Jack by Jack's uncle, Armand Duquesne. Later, we also see Armand having a heated talk with Eleanor as he goes underground for black market auction. Kate follows him underground and also finds Jack alongside Armand as rivals. Two of the most special collectibles in the auction were the Ronin's retractable sword and Ronin suit. At that very moment, Thugs enter the underground cellar and blasts through a wall. The Ronin suit attracts Kate as she steals it and wears it to fight off the thugs.

Back in hotel, Clint finds out through Television news that somebody is running around wild in his old Ronin suit. Kate takes the dog, who also helped her, and gives a pizza slice to eat (Ladies and Gentlemen! Meet Lucky the Pizza Dog!). Kate sneaks into Armand's house and finds him dead on the floor with an injury of a sword. Being scared, Kate hastily leaves the place but is met by the Tracksuit Mafia. She tries to fight them but Clint Barton appears to take them down. He pins Ronin suited Kate up against the wall and takes off her mask. Kate is surprised seeing her idol as she exclaims, "You're...You're Hawkeye!" "And who the hell are you?" he asks as the episode ends.

Major Details

In the flashback scene of 2012's Chitauri Invasion by Loki, we get to see the Avengers fight but in the perspective of the general people. Kate watches Hawkeye fight at the rooftop of a building and surprisingly the fight choreography and sequence is exactly the same from 2012's Avengers movie. Though some shots were cut down and went unseen by Kate, she was only able to witness the heroism of Hawkeye, making him an idol of her.

During the moment Kate vandalizes her institution and shoots an arrow to ring the bell, before all that we see a brief nameplate of the tower, and it states "Stane Tower". Quite a callback as Stane is actually Obadiah Stane who was the villain of Iron-Man (2008). Obadiah Stane was the business partner of Tony Stark and wore the Iron Monger suit to eliminate Tony and become the CEO of Stark Industries.

Rogers: The Musical, one of the most entertaining part of the episode! We see all of the original avengers in the 2012 Battle of New York but now singing. Surprisingly, Scott Lang aka Ant-Man is seen in the scene though he wasn't even a hero back then. Making those hard fights as a musical might have been hard to watch for Clint as he seems pretty uninterested and discomforted by all that. His grief strikes again as he sees his late best friend Black Widow on the stage, bringing back all the incidents of Avengers: Endgame.

We see that Clint has hearing problems now, after all he has faced throughout the movies and the huge blast of Avengers Compound in Avengers: Endgame. He now wears a hearing aid which is also a detail taken directly from the Marvel Comics.

Kate finds a one-eyed dog outside the party. This is actually Lucky the Pizza Dog from the comics. Later, Kate took the dog and it was confirmed to be the same one, as the dog absolutely loves to eat pizzas. The Tracksuit Mafia are introduced in MCU, a Russian gang, obsessed with the word "Bro". They also come directly from the comics where they are actually termed as Tracksuit Draculas. One of their allies is the Clown, who also appears this episode under his real name Kazi.

Final Verdict

The episode revolves around Kate Bishop, her past, her family and familial conflicts as the MCU starts setting up their newest young avenger. The episode fulfills to express the festive vibe alongside the murder mystery which will surely set up a big plot for the future episodes. Though the episode feels pretty slow paced, it's a good build up for the next episodes. Not to forget, the energetic and fun Kate Bishop Hailee Steinfeld brought to the screen, was absolutely phenomenal.

Rating: 7.5/10

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Episode 2

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Kate Bishop's identity is revealed to Clint and thinking about the dangers she could attract for the Ronin suit, he took her to her apartment for safety. But the Tracksuit Mafia follow them to the apartment and toss a Molotov cocktail through the window. The apartment sets on fire, and Clint and Kate tries to flee. They hide in Kate's aunt's vacant apartment but Clint leaves in order to get back the Ronin suit from Kate's place. Going there, he saw the firefighters extinguishing the flames but the suit was nowhere to be found. But while leaving the place he sees a "NYC LARPers" sticker on a firefighter truck and understands any of them might have stolen it.

He comes back to Kate's aunt's place and treats her wounds. He also finds that the suit really was taken by a firefighter for role-playing and decides to talk him out of it.

Next morning, Clint goes back to his family and sees them off. His daughter Lila knows something is wrong but Clint says he will be fine and promises that he will be back before Christmas. Clint and Kate have a long talk while walking to Eleanor's office and says this might be the last time they say each other (which will definitely not be). It turns out Jack is also in Eleanor's room which further irritates her. Kate wants to talk with her mother but Jack's presence makes it difficult for her and Eleanor later invites her for special dinner as Jack will be the one cooking.

Clint heads to the Central Park in search of the area where NYC LARPers are hanging out. He finds the person wearing the suit but is unable to enter due to rules. So, he participates in the event and later on convinces the person to give the suit, but on one condition, Clint will have to pretend to die by the hands of him. At first, he hesitates, but then agrees to the term. They fight in a special manner and Clint pretends to be killed by him. The person introduces himself as Grills and Clint bids farewell along with the suit wishing Merry Christmas. He calls his wife and tells her that he won't be back that day and it would take some more time to find out how high the gang appearance goes.

Meanwhile Kate gets a call by Detective Caudle from NYPD. He asks her about the reason of the fire in her house and where she was all night. Kate avoids the questions and said that she is at work and will talk next morning before work.

Back in Eleanor's apartment, Jack and Kate meet up for dinner and Kate brings up the love of swords. Consequently she brings up the topic of fencing and decides that they will fence. They get really heated but Jack keeps holding back. Kate wants to know why he is letting her win but Jack doesn't budge. But a surprise attack revealed Jack's true expertise in fencing. Kate becomes really suspicious about this and becomes further when he gives her a Butterscotch chews from his dead uncle's penthouse.

On the other side, Clint surrenders to the Tracksuit Mafia as they take him to their boss. Kate finds out about this and goes to help him. The very final shot reveals who the tracksuit mafia are reporting to and it is Maya Lopez aka Echo.

Major Details

The Tracksuit Mafia attack Kate's apartment and so Kate and Clint had to escape without the Ronin suit. Later after ensuring Kate's safety, Clint goes back to the place but does not find the suit. In the nearby firefighter truck, he sees the logo of NYC LARPers, and figures out one of the firefighters could have taken the suit. He checks the internet and finds the suit worn by a person named Grills. Now, Grills is actually a neighbor of Clint in the Comics, who is seen standing up against criminals a lot of times and for that, he was killed by the Clown who also made an appearance in the first episode by the name Kazi. So, this might not be the last time we see Grills in the series.

While going through the Times Square in New York, a little kid passes through Clint and Kate to reach a group of cosplaying superheroes which include Ant-Man, Hawkeye, Iron-Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America. But Clint jokes about the Hawkeye looking more like Katniss Everdeen. What an easter egg! Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games being mentioned in MCU is one of the latest name drops from other franchises. Maybe they all are MCU canon and belong to different universes! (Ah, I'm stretching a little bit)

Going through the Times Square, we also see the Disney logo, which is for the Disney Store in the place. Pretty clever for the studios to shoot the long walk scene in front of the Disney store.

After all the fencing with Jack, Eleanor tells Kate to ask for forgiveness. In the very next moment, Jack offers Kate Armand lll Butterscotch! This is the same ones from Armand's home which Kate saw before witnessing his corpse. The smug look on Jack's face clearly reveals he is trying to get Kate's attention towards himself and is deliberately doing so. What's his motive? I guess we will see in the future episodes.

Final Verdict

Clint Barton and Kate Bishop as the mentor and mentee is what we expect the most from the series. Hawkeye Episode 2 starts building up the dynamic relationship among these two, providing a higher level of entertainment. The momentum gets going as the two starts their adventure in this Christmas special series. Once again, it feels pretty slow-paced for any Marvel series, but the pillar of the series is gradually building up for the plot to be explored in the upcoming episodes.