Marvel Studios had one final gift to offer fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the form of its Hawkeye finale on Disney+. The episode, entitled “So This Is Christmas”, leans into the lyrics of the John Lennon song it appears to be referencing and hopes that the fighting will stop, and that the war will be over. “What have you done?” seems to have been a little out of the show’s reach, but we’ll get to that.
Yes, the war against Thanos may have ended some time ago, but it lingers in the hearts of survivors Yelena Belova and Clint Barton, neither of whom have truly recovered from Natasha Romanoff’s death. Yelena wasn’t even there during that fight, having been snapped out of existence with half the population, but she aches for what she has lost, and that misplaced grief hit Clint square in the face during this finale.
I think we all knew that an actual heart-to-heart between the pair would resolve things fairly quickly, but that didn’t stop me bawling my eyes out like a little baby when they finally cleared the air. It is time to remember Natasha as she would want to be remembered: stubborn as hell and in full control of her destiny. The only person to blame for her death is Thanos, and that mf is dead, dead, dead. Letting him rule over so many emotions after the fact just hands him some of the victory he once craved, and that will never do.
The most important of these individual conflicts, of course, is Clint’s, who has spent this entire season quietly battling his grief over Natasha’s death. Yelena’s insistence on killing him, despite her conversation with Kate and (presumably) a fantastic intelligence network, does feel somewhat contrived. The special whistle moment that interrupts their fight also feels a bit convenient and a little too close to the ‘Martha’ get-out clause from Batman vs. Superman. But their grief-drenched argument allows Clint to express his regret for not stopping Natasha from sacrificing herself, and voice aloud that she was only able to do that because she was better than him. Clint has never been to therapy, and so just talking about what happened with someone who shares the same kind of love for Natasha seems to be the final step required on his path to healing.
Yelena splitting Clint and Kate up means our pint-sized archer must go up against The Kingpin of Crime solo, which is a mismatch for the ages. Vincent D'Onofrio’s Fisk is shown to be substantially more powerful than he was in Daredevil, able to send Kate flying with a punch and even tear a car door from its hinges. It raises the question of whether this even is the same Kingpin from the Netflix show, especially with that horrendous dress sense. Regardless, the situation provides a bit of a David and Goliath aspect to the fight, which Kate entertainingly overcomes with smarts rather than brawn.
Kate doesn’t get the final blow in on Kingpin, though. Instead, Kate’s big finale moment is actually with Eleanor, and it’s satisfying to see her mother treated as a villain for what she’s done, rather than someone accidentally in too deep. It creates a massive moment for Kate, in which she rejects her biological family and embraces Clint as her partner and surrogate dad. I’ll confess, seeing Clint bring her back to his family for Christmas made my eyes a little misty. So much of the MCU has worked with the theme of found family, and Clint and Kate’s relationship has been one of the most effective examples of that.
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Kingpin’s fate is instead left in Maya’s hands, who naturally has the most personal vendetta with him. Looking back over the series, Maya never really experienced the growth she required to make her part of the finale ring true, but it’s still enjoyable to see her settle the score with both Kazi and her ‘uncle’. Shooting Kingpin point blank in the face is a surprising moment, largely because Vincent D'Onofrio has only just arrived, but the act happening off-screen seems almost certainly television code for “things aren’t as they seem”.
It would be a shame for Kingpin to be gone already, because D'Onofrio is once again a phenomenal presence as Fisk, even if this single episode doesn’t allow him the nuance that Daredevil did. His ability to blend sophisticated giant and unhinged mob boss personas means he still remains one of the MCU’s greatest villains, and the terror he provides completely outmatches any of the threats Hawkeye has served up in its five preceding chapters.
By bringing the conflict with Kingpin to a head, the finale also serves as the most accomplished episode for action. We finally get a scene in which the Tracksuit Mafia throws bro after bro at Clint and Kate, who fight them off with a brilliant assortment of trick arrows. There’s a Home Alone vibe to this sequence, thanks to the toy-like nature of the arrows and the increasingly absurd ways in which the Tracksuits are dispatched. That feel, along with the ice-rink setting, really delivers on the ‘superheroes at Christmas’ promise, something that Hawkeye has never quite wholeheartedly embraced until this moment.
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Between all these big scenes are dozens of smaller moments that only add to the joy this finale brings. Jack fencing with a bunch of goons is a lovely nod to his Swordsman persona from the comics. The LARPers helping out in the final investigation and battle turns them into something akin to Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars, which perfectly fits into Hawkeye’s detective show framework. The Tracksuit Mafia thug thanking Kate for her earlier girlfriend advice is one of the best jokes of the series, and is quickly topped by the even funnier Pym shrinking arrow gag. And, finally, Clint burning the Ronin suit is a lovely metaphor for the end of his dark period. With the expulsion of his grief comes a new, better Hawkeye that I hope we see more of in the future.
Honestly, the majority of this finale was the equivalent of unwrapping one grin-inducing gift after another: the pre-showdown montage of Clint and Kate creating a fresh set of trick arrows, everything with Tony Dalton’s Jack Duquesne (I can’t even narrow it down), the LARPers rising to the occasion, the Tracksuit Mafia continuing to be a delight even as they were struck down like so many bowling pins, the owl in the Christmas tree flying off with the tiny Trust a Bro van, Echo v Kazi (sadly killed with ease) and Kingpin (let’s face it, almost certainly not killed with ease); the revelation that yes, Laura Barton was once a SHIELD agent, too, and probably one of the greatest post-credits scenes that the MCU has ever delivered: a full, shameless performance of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s “Save the City” from Rogers: The Musical. It remains a relentless earworm that can absolutely do this all day, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only one hoping for a final shot of a certain someone watching it from the audience.
I’m also happy that the final hour of Hawkeye didn’t use itself to set up the next Phase 4 thing coming. There was no Daredevil tease or big cameo. Everyone got closure, even if in some cases that closure likely leads directly to their futures in the MCU.
Echo and Kate will no doubt be back, and so will Yelena. Hawkeye? Well, maybe he’ll finally get that retirement he’s been hankering after for years knowing he’s got such a great replacement ready and willing to fight the good fight, and one who believes she can confidently come to the rescue without the added bonus of super strength or a flying suit that shoots lasers. Hawkeye, as it’s become clear during this show, is just dog tired. Kate, Echo and Yelena are only just waking up.
