Main cast: Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton/Hawkeye), Hailee Steinfeld (Kate Bishop), Alaqua Cox (Maya Lopez), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), Vera Farmiga (Eleanor Bishop), Tony Dalton (Jack Duquesne), Fra Fee (Kazi), Aleks Paunovic (Ivan), Piotr Adamczyk (Tomas), Linda Cardellini (Laura Barton), and Vincent D’Onofrio (Kingpin)
Director: Rhys Thomas
Oh no, Kate’s mom is the mastermind of all this! Oh wait, she’s actually forced to work for Kingpin because her late husband owed Mr Fisk a lot of money. Oh, and she’s setting up her fiancé to take the fall of her crimes, and oh yes, she’s the one that hired Mini-Black Widow to kill Clint. Now that her plans to keep Kate out of this mess has failed, Eleanor wants out. Well, Kingpin isn’t exactly eager to let her go, as you can imagine.
All of this is conveniently sent to Kate’s phone, of course, because this is the finale of this season, and there is no time for any detailed investigation or clue-hunting.
So, will it be a spoiler if I say Kingpin lives on to be in the Daredevil show or movie?
So This Is Christmas? is a very derivative episode in the sense that’s it’s another day in the MCU. I have to say, though, that I like how they handle the conclusion to Clint’s MCU arc here. It’s done with a light hand, but still, I find myself thinking that I’d miss that guy. I know, I’m shocked as well at myself.
Here’s the thing. The season is a complete waste of opportunity. It starts out as an advertisement for Kate, then it builds up to be an advertisement for Maya, and the last two episodes are an advertisement for Kingpin.
By that point, even Kate feels like another component of the Happy Meal commercial that Disney+ MCU shows have become: now that you have bought the Happy Meal this week for this toy, watch for that toy coming next week and buy the Happy Meal then!
Disney doesn’t care whether the audience is satisfied or happy with the current episode. It doesn’t even care to build anticipation for the story arc within a particular season. No, once people are watching, who cares about the content of that season. It’s now time to throw in coming attractions, so that the audience will be drummed up into a frenzy to keep consooming while barely remembering what they have just consumed.
To further increase the push, there will be dozens of similarly worded articles and YouTube shows and podcasts beating the coming attraction to death on the same week that a particular episode airs, so much so that I am spoiled on the entire season just from following the hype.
It’s a shame, because the cast of Hawkeye is pretty good actually. Jeremy Renner and Vera Farmiga elevate the tired, half-baked materials they have to work with, and Hailee Steinfeld’s biggest problem is the horrible “AI-scrapped-Twitter-feeds”-tier lines she is forced to utter in this show. Vincent D’Onforio steals every scene he is in, and Tony Dalton is fun to watch.
Nothing can save Mini-Black Widow, though, as the actress is horrible through and through, and she is also out of shape to be a convincing hardened and dangerous action figure. Alaqua Cox also doesn’t have much to do here, as her character’s personality is summed up entirely in one word: snowflake.
Anyway, this season is done, and what do I have to take home from it? Go watch whatever Kate will be in next, they are giving Maya her own show so watch it too, and watch whatever Daredevil and Kingpin will be in as well. What actually happened in this season? Well, who cares! Disney just used this show to jump start three more possible shows or movies, so stop thinking about this show and instead get excited about the future shows! Consoom, consoom, consoom…
