Hanging With HAWKEYE - Episodes 1 and 2 (Patreon)

So my favorite thing about these ding dang Disney+ shows is that 1) a lot of people like watching them and 2) a lot of those people talking about them. It’s the ole’ proverbial watercooler thing I miss so dearly in the modern viewing scenario. But given the MCU’s post-covid full on assault of constant release, I had actually lost track of things and had no idea HAWKEYE was even being released today. Nonetheless, I got up early and made some time for the first two episodes. Luckily for us, there’s no real need to break up the episodes into two different recaps, I’m just going to give my collective thoughts on both and then sound off in the comments below!

As always, we’ll go subject by subject

Jeremy Renner / Hawkeye - So. I get this feeling like the man is possibly a big self-serious fart butt, but sometimes he’s entertaining in that way? I mean the entire Jeremy Renner App saga is amazing and I rarely find ironic stuff like that funny? Either way, the real pickle with this opinion is he’s also a great actor. Like, I don’t think there’s been a single performance I haven't liked since he came on the scene 15+ years ago. Renner translates angst with equal part vulnerability. And his withdrawn nature rarely feels wooden or cold, just haunted and wounded. Even within the halls of Avengerdom, he’s weirdly seemed like the only character with his feet on the ground and thus been doing pretty thankless work all the while. Luckily, we get all those qualities in this show - even right in his first scene - specifically with the way it handles his PTSD and his disconnect with the rah rah musical / pomp and circumstance before him. Honestly, I think he’s doing really solid work here, even though he’s getting saddled with busy work a little too much in the second episode.

Fraction of Fiction - I never read the Matt Fraction arc! I hear it’s great! So just know that all these reactions are me coming in blind and having show-only reactions.

Kate’s Origin Story - Look, I am someone known for advocating directness and clarity, especially with establishing character motive. But great googly moogly you need, like, SOME tact. Because here the protection & hurricane convos > seeing Hawkeye fight > get me bow and arrow is a sequence that is even a little hard for me to swallow. It’s the kind of beat that needs to be a little more personal (like her and Hawkeye interacting, even briefly) or something that you see be executed a little more internally. Like instead of ending with asking for a bow - we see her worry her mom’s not gonna do a good enough job protecting and turn to the bow of her own volition - and while we’re on that scene, she should absolutely be connecting all this with the deeper mourning of her father (which weirdly doesn’t seem to be destroying her?). But instead everything feels so declaratory and lacking in interiority. Even just one graceful moment would do wonders for a sequence like this. But all that being said, I’ll still take clunky over vague because I’m happy to have things in place so the story can just go ahead and start… As for it’s execution once it does?

Plotty Plot Plot - So the word of the day is contrivance. Like the opening origin, so much of what plagues the first two episodes is that there’s always a character only doing a behavioral thing only so that X can happen later - or there’s some insanely convenient leading thing. Like the second she started kicking butt after putting on the ronin outfit I shouted the infamous Phantom Menace line, “rolling, that’s a neat trick!” And why is the dog’s sudden involvement part of the convenience too? Why can’t that just be her dog and it gets involved in the story? And then there’s butterscotches getting handed to her instead of discovered? And the whole LARPing set-up that just wants the goof so damn bad that it stretches the reality of motive so damn thin. I have the ability to suspend SO MUCH disbelief, but why is everything part of contrivance? And you’ll notice that at the exact same time, there’s a lot of character work that comes off as pure demonstration, instead of organically meeting the story as it unfolds. Like, who the heck are those friends in the opening dare? Is this ANY kind of organic situation, even emotionally? What’s their relationship, again? And I’m willing to bet we will never even see those characters again (though I hope I’m wrong). It’s all put in place to justify some kind of  later outcome and feels so false to the organic situation of the moment itself. But this hints at a deeper problem going on with her…

Hailee Steinfeld / Kate Bishop - So Steinfeld is probably one of the more talented young actors around, right? From the second she exploded onto the screen in True Grit she’s been throwing 99 mph and happy she was cast here. But two episodes I’m feeling like all the choices between her and the storytelling haven’t quite gelled right here? For one, I worry she’s trying to play it a bit too jokey? Like the whole thing about lines in these movies is don’t want to try and be funny, you just want to play the truth and let the line carry it through (which is something Renner does pretty well). But I get the sense she’s just doing this because there’s major characterization problems with Kate. Like, I don’t really grok her interiority, nor her methodology of what she’s after in given scenes. There’s this weird way her character literally doesn’t seem to care about anything except this vague notion of being more like Hawkeye? Am I wrong? Like the way everything else gets discarded around her, at times she almost seems sociopathic when it comes to everything else in life? Like even with her mom / step-dad plot there’s just something that bugs her and a mystery to unfold - but it’s like it never steps a layer deeper to make it really feel like it’s ABOUT something in her personality, nor even her back story. And I worry that they’re holding off on all that, which brings us to…

Vera Farmiga - Soooo, there’s this unfortunate problem with casting sometimes because it can just point us in the given direction of someone even if the narrative isn’t. Because Vera’s too good an actress to be saddled with so little. Hell, right now we know so little about her on the whole. And given that SHE was the one who argued with Armand (or whatever his name is) while all the step-dad stuff is getting laid on so heavily? Well, I think there might be some kind of bait switch going on here. The thing is I like the overall idea of that, but in order to bait and switch the audience, you really got to make the bait work. And doesn’t just mean laying it on thick with step-dad, that means really believing something ELSE about the mother character / what she wants and just having a more interesting relationship story with her daughter in their first place - all to better misdirect (when nothing’s happening it just points so clearly at the fact nothing’s happening). And if I’m wrong? Well, then I’m wrong and all this story is just clearly going where it’s going. Anyway, speaking of parentage...

Rich Kid Superhero Part Infinity - Just ONCE I would love a superhero who isn’t insanely wealthy or royalty or miraculously gifted instead of cursed. Maybe I’m overreacting to the intern-ification of what they did to Spider-Man, I just feel like it’s all been such a warped way to look at the world and responsibility of being a hero. It’s like everyone in these movies just slides right into these ready-made hero lives and nothing’s ever that hard or has consequences and… gah… I’m worried it’s all just in the established DNA of the MCU at this point and it all seems normal to them.

Episodic Choices - Why in a six episode season would you keep your two leads separated the whole time in the pilot? Especially when there’s a lot of treading water to get there? I don’t know why people always do this kind of stuff. A pilot should be you going off to the races, not building up to your meet cute. Do they just not have enough race in store afterward? Why has the MCU done this twice now with the other being Falcon and Winter Soldier? It’s all apart of faux structure and the ways I worry they’re just blowing up two hour movies instead of telling an actual six part story.

I Still Like It Though - That’s the whole thing. After all these complaints it may seem like I don't like it and want to tear it down a peg, but 1) I’m just pointing this stuff out because I feel like it’s education and 2) I’ll take clunk over vague / hiding nonsense any day of the week. Besides, there’s a lot of things that are just more fun about this show when we get into their main dynamic. Moreover, there’s a lot of fun little bright spots that get you from moment to moment. Most of which is found in…

RANDOM THOUGHTS / BEST JOKES

-So any depictions of New York at Christmas is, like, absolute crack to me and I adore it.

-When we first saw her dad in a wide shot I thought that was vintage Steven Segal for, like, .5 seconds.

-There were a few shots I liked in the opening scene that capture the terrifying reality of big scary invasion things happening on ground level. It was just really well done. But then, of course, white kids go out and stare at danger and I’m like shouting RUNNNNN.

-The “I Could Do This All Day” musical number from ROGERS is the most unabashedly fun, least cool thing the MCU has done in years and I’m here for it.

-The second we meet the new step-dad and we’re like “who the hell is this guy?” I was wondering why they did not cast Paul F. Thompkins.

-When Simon Callow (from Four Weddings) showed up I screamed.

-Re: her relationship with mom, also notice how a lot of their dialogue is hard to track trying in term of mamet rules (who wants what / what happens if they don’t get it / why now) and also notice that it really isn’t into their last conversation in episode two that we actually understand even the most basic things when it comes to their relationship. That’s too long.

-Winky dog i lub him *cries forever*

-I know they hang a hat on it in the opening scene, but there really is A LOT of eavesdropping in these two episodes. It’s funny because there’s an old adage of screenwriting advice that if you’re doing that you’re writing an eavesdropping scene, you should really thing about whether or not these people should be talking NOW and you’re just delaying conflict.

-“Gary sent me down,” this is basically how my friend in high school would walk into liquor stores and steal beer. Also did she just blind guess Gary? I feel like how we were supposed to be reacting wasn’t tracking.

-Was a lot of this filmed during covid? Just noticed a lot of spacing in interiors and crowds. Not a knock mind you! I'd be glad if that was the case!

-Re: Rich kids, the second she went to her apartment I was like “wait, whose apartment is this?” and of course she had one, and then an aunt that was away, because rich rich rich ghahhh.

-“You’re hawkeye!” I liked how they handled the disconnect of fame stuff in the first episode, but did it feel like a lot to anyone else by the time we got through the second?

-“Thanos was right.” No he wasn’t, but it’s good to know edgelords have a new cause.

-Re: Clint’s hearing - “What happened” / “too hard to tell? That flashback sequence probably got my biggest laugh.

-And “No, that’s katniss everdeen” is a solid gag.

-The final scene of the second episode makes me realize that the MCU has maybe broken my story brain. When they said “she” I was like “ohhhhh they’re Russians and given that we saw Florence Pugh say that she was gonna get Hawkeye at the end of Black Widow, she must be the one who shows up in this scene and that’s gonna be a big wow movement!” And, of course, that didn’t happen and I was like “I don’t know who that is.” Was she introduced earlier? Or is this probably more of an issue in a story sense because I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean story-wise… unless there’s some easter egg I’m missing? Oh god, my brain really is broken by this stuff.

Damn the marvel industrial complex!

<3 HULK