Hawkeye

About the series

Contains story spoilers.

Hawkeye brings Clint Barton back into action through a problem that sounds much smaller than an Avengers emergency: getting home for Christmas. The 2021 Marvel Studios series pairs Jeremy Renner's experienced, reluctant hero with Hailee Steinfeld's Kate Bishop, a skilled young archer who sees him as the person she wants to become. Jonathan Igla created the series, whose New York setting puts its conspiracy among holiday parties, crowded streets and family visits. Clint wants to finish what he has accidentally been drawn into; Kate wants to be useful enough that he will let her stay. The distinction matters because they arrive with very different understandings of what being a hero costs.

Kate's admiration starts during the alien attack on New York, when she sees Clint protect her and loses her father in the same catastrophe. By adulthood she has developed archery, fencing and martial-arts skills, but they have not made her cautious. At a gala with her mother Eleanor and Eleanor's fiancé Jack Duquesne, she follows suspicious activity into a black-market auction of objects taken from the ruined Avengers compound. When the Tracksuit Mafia attacks, Kate puts on the Ronin outfit being auctioned and helps the hostages escape. She also rescues a dog, Lucky, from the gang and passing traffic. Finding Jack's uncle Armand dead brings a murder into the mystery, while footage of the costume reaches Clint. He saves her from another ambush, drawn in by the sight of an identity he wanted to leave behind.

Their first attempt to disentangle the mess creates another one. The gang attacks Kate's apartment and sets it on fire, forcing Clint, Kate and Lucky out while the Ronin suit is left inside. A firefighter has taken it before Clint can return, so retrieving it requires him to participate in a live-action role-playing event rather than storm a criminal hideout. The contrast between his real fighting experience and the make-believe contest gives the emergency an awkward detour. He sends his children home and promises to arrive by Christmas, then deliberately allows the Tracksuit Mafia to capture him as part of his investigation. Kate remains convinced Jack is involved in Armand's death. When she tries to find Clint, she gets herself captured too, leaving both archers in front of the gang's leader, Maya Lopez.

Maya's pursuit is driven by the death of her own father at Ronin's hands. She does not simply want an explanation for a stolen costume: she wants the killer it represents. Clint claims that Black Widow killed Ronin, a way of describing his abandonment of that life without admitting whose face was beneath the mask. Maya is unconvinced, and the confrontation breaks his hearing aid. He and Kate escape through a chase involving a stolen car and a moving train, but the consequences continue after the action stops. When his son Nathaniel calls, Kate helps Clint understand him because he cannot hear the conversation properly. She sees a father struggling to keep a promise as well as the famous archer she idolises. Their subsequent visit to an audiologist addresses that immediate need before they return to investigating Eleanor's household.

The apparent clues around Jack deepen when Clint and his wife Laura uncover his connection to a shell company laundering money for the Tracksuit Mafia. Kate also works out that Clint himself was Ronin, complicating her image of him. Laura helps track a stolen watch to Maya's apartment, where Kate discovers information about Clint and his family. Recovering the object turns into a rooftop confrontation involving Maya and a masked assassin. The assassin is Yelena Belova, Natasha Romanoff's sister, whose arrival brings another threat from Clint's history into the present. Kate helps in the fight, but Clint decides that continuing the partnership will put her in unacceptable danger and sends her away. The investigation is now reaching people at home, rather than staying confined to the criminals they originally intended to question.

Yelena's grievance has its own missing years. She disappeared in the Blip and returned to discover that Natasha had died while she was gone. She comes to Kate's apartment and explains that she has been hired to kill Clint, making their conversation about the hero Kate trusts much more dangerous than an argument over his reputation. Clint visits an Avengers memorial and apologises to Natasha before wearing the Ronin suit again to confront Maya and try to protect his family. Kate returns to help him despite the break in their partnership. Yelena then uncovers who ordered the assassination: Eleanor. A photograph also connects Kate's mother to Wilson Fisk, whom Clint recognises as the criminal figure behind the larger operation. Kate's investigation into her future stepfather now points toward the parent she hoped was outside the conspiracy.

At Eleanor's Christmas party, that discovery becomes a choice Kate cannot avoid. Eleanor admits that debts inherited from Kate's father drew her into working for Fisk; she also killed Armand and framed Jack. Fisk sends Kazi after her, and the party becomes a fight that Clint and Kate must manage with help from Jack and the role-players. Maya kills Kazi, while Kate confronts Fisk and disables him using Clint's trick arrows. Kate allows the police to arrest Eleanor for the murder rather than protect her. Yelena fights Clint but ultimately accepts his account of Natasha's sacrifice and leaves him alive. Maya confronts Fisk with a gun, while his ultimate fate is not resolved here. On Christmas Day Clint reaches home with Kate and Lucky, returns Laura's watch and burns the Ronin suit. The family reunion closes the immediate promise, while Kate's entry into his world has required her to stop protecting her own family's comfortable story.