HANGIN’ WITH HAWKEYE - EP 5 - Oh, Hey There Movie Star… (Patreon)

We’ll get to the big guy at the end! As always, let’s go subject by subject…

Hell-Yeah-Lena - So Florence Pugh is just so outrageously good. Like, it’s stupid how good she is. It’s so stupidest stupid that ever stupided. Every movie she walks into she dominates like this force that can swing in any and every direction. She was the brightest spot of Black Widow, with her character featuring a perfect comedic delivery that wasn’t ever “jokey,” but instead this mix of fresh faced innocence that aptly mixed with confident guile. She’s never telling a joke. She’s just being 100% committed to the truth of her character. And when the tone of the scene switches? She doesn’t overplay it, it just feels like more unveiling of truth. Her pain, her certainty, the way she can pick apart how Kate Bishop sees Hawkeye and it all just hits so damn hard. I’ve been talking this whole show about the strengths of these actors and how I really love how that it’s gotten to shine through. But everything about Pugh’s appearance just pushes it to another level. And better yet, what I love about her scene with Kate is how it starts unpacking everything critical to the story. And even pushes buttons I’ve wanted to push for a long time…

Avenger Domming - “He’s an Avenger!” / “What does that world even mean?” Thank you, Yelena. Because she’s not wrong. The MCU has been in this odd space where they’ve taken so much of these characters for granted. The fandom at times, feels much like Kate. A kind of unrelenting hero worship that feels disconnected from their actual behavior. I mean, I like these movies. They’re fun. But I’ve spent a decade and a half now always pointing out things like “are we ever going to talk about how weird or selfish X behavior is?” And every time it gets brushed aside as we hurl ourselves toward the next thing. Virtually every thing Yelena says to Kate is right. And they are all things that have NOT really been addressed. And of course, the key point of her and Hawkeye’s conflict is a misunderstanding about what happened up on that mountain. Which means the real thing these two are heading toward is an UNDERSTANDING of their conflict and mutual grief. If you can make that moment and the turn of putting them together work? Then it’s the exact kind of catharsis we need. As much as I doubted the initial set-up at the end of Black Widow (also are we retconning that JLD had nothing to do with this? Which is fine by me), everything about it seems like it’s pointing in the right direction. I even like how Yelena’s introduced at the top…

Now I Rock A Snapback - We’re X movies in and this is the first we’ve seen the snapback from the experience of someone who actually went through it? Am I wrong? Wait, didn’t it happen to Photon? I’m probably forgetting something, but there was something genuine to this portrayal of the snapback that captured the genuine sense of horror that comes with it. This is a realistic trauma, folks. But this always ends up being this whole thing where the MCU made a decision to make a big beat work in Endgame, but if you think about it for like 10 seconds all these huge, complex questions come out of it. At first, the MCU joked about it (I’ll never forget the “now he’s my older brother! that’s weird!”) and we really felt the callousness of it. Then they’ve flirted with the personal costs, the political fallout, and the various theoretical issues it may have caused, but that’s the whole thing. They don’t REALLY want to get into it. They don’t want to ever bring it all too far down. Even if the material itself is BEGGING to do just that, especially if they want to be true to the interiority of these characters. But it’s the exact same reason they cut away from the moment Yelena would learn the news about her sister. Marvel is always so damn afraid to break your heart. To go to a REAL place of grief or sadness (so much that they made a show about avoiding it). And I think it’s the reason the whizzbang MCU circus glides ever on with ease, but I think it’s also silently taking the air out of how much we can really be invested at the same time. If they went there, no matter where “there” happened to be, I think the whole enterprise could have been even better (again, I hate to keep using Black Panther as the standard bearer, but it shows exactly how well all this can work if you work without fear and go for the jugular dramatically and thematically).

Clint’s speech - So for me, the episode starts so, so strong and then hits this slightly weird problem in a way that may not be apparent at first. Because Yelena’s scene ends and she has all these questions about Clint and they seem like they’re going to be answered when the two of them face off against each other… But then the narrative answers them immediately. His speech to “Natasha” AKA the plaque is touching. Really. It is. But it’s one of those things where we are IMMEDIATELY answering any lingering concern that Yelena just raised about “who Clint really is.” Which sort of feels like it’s putting the dramatic stakes out of order, and expressing the catharsis to the wrong people. It’s the same kind of fearfulness I mentioned above. It’s like you can feel how much the MCU is saying, “It’s okay, you don’t REALLY worry about this person! They’re good!” But then he asks for forgiveness for what he’s about to do which seems bad, but then he goes and seems like he’s going to murder… but then… doesn’t do murder.

I genuinely get confused about the intent of this sequencing. I know it’s trying to milk tension, but it feels like something that is all a part of that MCU instinct to say “don’t worry, you’re never THAT bad” to the characters / audience. That in the end, you’re unassailable. You can do terrible things that never actually cost you anything, with no real atonement beyond the lip service, especially when you imply you go right back right into some weird cycle. After all, we’ve had so many warning shots and seen Echo and Clint fight and pull away so many times now. Why didn’t he tell her this earlier? For the first time, I’m honestly just a little tired of the back and forth. But it’s just so easy to get distracted by the emotion in the moment, isn’t it? That speech reminds you he’s a good actor. And it’s the little things he does, like that quick glance to the side when his feelings well up, like he’s having trouble looking “her” in the eye. It’s all compelling… But in the end, it feels like it plays one fake out game too many, like we always get crushed under the weight of marvel circus instead of just getting to where the conflict itself already wants us to be. Speaking of which…

The Mystery Mom of It All - So the episode opens with a really nice scene between Hailee and her mom, one of those things where you really see them connect with one another. And I want to highlight how much stronger Hailee’s been in dramatic scenes, especially her aspirational notions about “being one of them,” which play so well off Farmiga’s careful concerns with questions like, “does Clint think you’re a superhero?” This is really the kind of scene we have needed all the while, especially if we want the final dramatic turn to have any kind of meaning to us at all. So far, all we’ve felt so far was the delay. Because it’s like, yes we knew that mom was involved with bad somehow because you can’t misdirect the audience WHEN WE DON’T SEE FARMIGA DOING ANYTHING ELSE OF NOTE. A misdirect needs an implied different direction with the character. And she was always just… there. But now, the cats out of the bag, but the first thing that genuinely concerns me about this show is the way they did that reveal…

A Text Message??? - My jaw’s kind of on the floor, because it’s the worst way to dramatically reveal something for the audience. There’s no cinema to it. No drama. Not even any panache. And because they just get this sudden info there’s no way to play the dramatic irony of the audience knowing what’s up without them knowing either. I mean, think about the potential other ways that could have gone. With Yelena going up there to kill her mom we think and what’s that? She’s meeting Kingpin! What the fuck! Instead, it’s just… the single most inert choice of execution possible. Look, I know everyone is going to go crazy at the mere mention of Kingpin alone, but that’s EXACTLY why you got to give him an entrance moment that deserves the fervor. I genuinely can’t get over the laziness of this choice. It’s the MOST lazy way to do that. It’s honestly the last thing I would ever pick for Kate finding out about her mom / introducing that Kingpin… to the point that I kind of have a bad taste in my mouth about it? I have to imagine there was some production issue? And even worse, I can’t even tell the actor from the fuzzy screenshot. Is that Vincent? Blurgh. Again, I know everyone’s excited. You should be! But the whole point of these write ups is to really get in there and look under the hood of execution. The MCU makes good stuff. There’s never any problem with talking about the ways it could be better.

Especially when it gets this dang lazy :/

BEST JOKES / RANDOM THOUGHTS

-This is the first time I noticed the “Trust A Bro” moving company sign, which is amazing.

-“Do we look like Royal Tenebaums?” / “Yes”

-Also, I think I brought this up at some point in the last few years, but are Russians tired of still being some of “go to thugs” in American movies? I mean we’re way past cold war shit and now it feels weird? I know there was a big shift recently where I felt like every group of baddies was sort of generic Serbian ex-army type, but that feels like a weird extension of it, too. It’s a bigger problem, really. Most action movies require a whole bunch of henchmen to get beaten up, but we also realized there’s this massive problem in who you decide your “thugs” are and all the racist shit that can be implied along with it. Who is “safe” to use? Especially when it always runs up against the simple, humane knowledge that “everyone’s just a person,” which gets in the way of all that beat em up, don’t it?

-Random: when did this season first allude to or mention “the big guy,” I’m trying to remember.

-MCU-stuff - So yeah, something’s definitely up with Linda Cardellini’s past and perhaps her involvement with Kingpin? I also want to mention I liked their conversation and they seem like good partners in a way I often don’t see in a lot of these kinds of relationships.

-That “Used Cars” sign feels like a nod to the Zemekis movie, but I can’t identify why.

-It’s funny, as this episode was going on I was really enjoying it and even falling into this “oops all bangers” designation for this show, but with all these lingering feelings about the ending and some of the existential questions I had in the set-up, and ESPECIALLY knowing there’s only one episode left… I’m suddenly really worried about how it’s going to finish.

As much as I hope it rocks, I’ve been conditioned by these shows to worry!

<3HULK