We’re getting closer to Christmas, and with that comes dealing with people in crowded stores while shopping for your loved ones. While that is a surefire way to dampen the Christmas spirit, it’s also Wednesday, which means a new episode of Hawkeye dropped. What better way to increase your holiday cheer than with an episode of the MCU’s first holiday-themed series?
Though we haven’t mentioned it much for Hawkeye, I do need to drop a spoiler alert for this one, as what’s to follow will not only spoil the episode but Black Widow as well.
We last saw Clint (Jeremy Renner) at the business end of the Ronin sword after he and Kate (Hailee Steinfeld) snuck into Kate’s mother’s penthouse to find information on Kazi. At the start of the latest episode, titled “Partners, Am I Right?” Jack Duquesne (Tony Dalton) has Clint cornered until Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) comes in and recognizes the Avenger. After a quick conversation between the four of them, Eleanor takes Clint aside and explains that she doesn’t want Kate mixed up in Avengers’ business because she doesn’t want her daughter to get hurt. As a parent, Clint understands completely.
After speaking with Laura (Linda Cardellini), Clint learns that Jack Duquesne is the CEO of Sloan LTD, the company that’s funding the Tracksuit Mafia, and has ties to someone called “the big man.” Laura also asks Clint about a watch from the Avengers Compound. Remember that one? That’s the watch that the Tracksuit Mafia was looking for when they broke into the underground auction in the first episode!
After a scene with Kate, Eleanor, and Jack, Kate meets up with Clint at the safe house, bringing him a pizza and Christmas decorations. They share a fun moment hanging out and decorating while wearing ugly sweaters and drinking daiquiris. So much so that Clint opens up about how he met Natasha and how it felt to lose his family in the Blip. Kate also learns that Clint was Ronin. She accepts it easily, but this is a moment of vulnerability for Clint. Being Ronin wasn’t something he’s proud of. It was a reaction to his overwhelming loss, and if he could change it, he would.
In the morning, Clint and Kate work up a plan to get the trick arrows back from the cops, which involves Kate asking the LARPers for help. Kate is more accepting of the LARPers than Clint was, but they come through for him in the end. As Clint is collecting his arrows, he learns from Laura where the watch is and sets out to retrieve it.
Clint devises a plan to break into the building where the watch is only to find that Kate has jumped the gun and snuck in already. He tries to guide her through the building, but Clint is attacked by an unseen assailant. Kate is also ambushed, by Maya, and realizes that she’d broken into Maya’s apartment.
Clint uses a grappling arrow to help Kate escape, but Maya follows, and there’s a four-way brawl on the rooftop. Kate is thrown off the building by Clint’s masked attacker, but not before having a tether attached to her belt, saving her life. Clint tries to tell her to leave, but Kate refuses and rejoins the battle.
Kate uses a flash-bang arrow to interrupt the fight and chases Maya off. She aims an arrow at Clint’s attacker, who is revealed to be Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh). Yelena flees, and Clint tries to impress the danger of the situation on Kate, who insists that she wants to help. But Clint tells her to go home and that they aren’t partners.
The main focus of “Partners, Am I Right?” is relationships. Kate has convinced herself that she and Clint are partners. Clint feels very differently about that, especially after his conversation with her mother. Clint knows that what he does is dangerous and doesn’t want Kate to get mixed up in it, but she is very resourceful, so he keeps her around.
There’s also the relationship between Clint and his wife, Laura. It’s been clear that Laura knows about Clint’s life as a secret agent as far back as Avengers: Age of Ultron. But this episode introduces us to a different side of Laura, one who helps Clint gather intel. It begs the question of how deep does Laura get involved with Clint’s mission? Is she an ex-SHIELD agent, and that’s where they met? Though it comes out of left field, it adds a new dynamic to their relationship and one that I like very much.
We also get a glimpse of the relationship between Eleanor and Jack. He seems like an affable guy, one who can take a joke, even if the joke is on him. He treats Eleanor well, and Kate is even capable of getting along with him. So to learn that he is involved with organized crime is a bit of a surprise. Of course, this isn’t the first secret that’s been uncovered about him; that honor goes to his swordsmanship skills demonstrated in the second episode.
And then there’s the relationship between Clint and Yelena Belova. We last saw Yelena at the end of Black Widow being told by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (played by Seinfeld alum Julia Louis-Dreyfus) that Clint killed Natasha. That explains her appearance in this episode and why she’s hellbent on destroying him. Yelena is looking to avenge Natasha after mending her relationship with her long-lost “sister.”
But overall, just like the rest of the series, this episode is about the relationship between Kate and Clint. For a while, it seemed like the two were growing closer. After two episodes of Clint trying to deny Kate and using her as a means to an end, he was opening up about his past and telling the truth about his ties to Ronin. Once Yelena showed up, however, he realized the danger he was putting her in, and the affections he felt for the girl required him to push her away. The pain on her face as he leaves is incidental to him; he knows that leaving her behind is the only way to keep her safe.
And all of this makes sense as the themes of family and relationship even shine through in the setting of the series. With the show taking place during Christmas, family is, of course, going to be a major theme. Clint’s entire arc is that he wants to get home to spend Christmas with his kids. Meanwhile, Kate has adopted Clint as a surrogate father, while Maya Lopez wants to kill Ronin (who is also Clint) for the murder of her father.
We’re getting closer to the end of the series, and there are still several questions left to be answered. Who is “the big man” that’s funding the Tracksuit Mafia? What’s the deal with the watch and who is it connected to? Will Maya adopt the mantle of Ronin? What’s the deal with Jack Duquesne? We have two episodes left to get the answer to any of these questions, and I for one am stoked to get to the end.
