Hawkeye review: Episode 5, “Ronin”

“Does Clint think you’re a superhero? No…and I don’t either.” Spoilers for Hawkeye season 1, episode 5 follow.

Kate and Hawkeye have gone their separate ways after their fight with Maya and Yelena Belova, much to Kate’s dismay. But once she’s on her own, Kate has another confrontation with Yelena.

White Widow

This episode starts with Yelena, specifically Yelena after the events of Black Widow as she tries to free Widows around the world from their brainwashing. However, it’s not that simple. It turns out Yelena was actually dusted in The Blip, which provides a really good explanation as to why she never appeared before now. Seeing her come back is just as harrowing as watching Monica return in WandaVision. And then seeing her beg to see Natasha to make sure that her sister knows that she’s alright…it’s heartbreaking.

We then segue to Yelena and Kate properly meeting each other, and it’s pretty great. These two characters are very, very similar, but while Kate’s overconfidence comes from being better than the average people around her, Yelena’s comes from being better than the extraordinary. Yelena dominates the conversation from beginning to end. But even so, it’s clear that Yelena respects Kate, even if they aren’t friends yet, which obviously they’ll become sooner or later.

Florence Pugh and Hailee Steinfeld play off of each so well in this scene, alternating between humorous and serious notes at the drop of a dime. By the end, Pugh especially is just terrifying; she makes you believe every threatening word Yelena says.

Doubts

As for Kate and Clint, “Ronin” focuses on the doubts that they both are having. After the fight at the end of Episode 4, Kate’s confidence is shattered and she’s probably feeling self-doubt of the kind she hasn’t dealt with since childhood. This is probably something that everyone can relate to: you think you’ve found your path, but then the rug is pulled out from under you. That’s exactly what has happened to Kate here, and seeing her overcome it and track down Clint, regardless of what he tells her, is inspiring.

Clint has his doubts as well. He goes to “talk” with Natasha at a plaque commemorating the Avengers and later speaks to his wife. Unlike Kate, Clint gives in to his doubts. He becomes Ronin one last time. However, he doesn’t kill, but focuses on helping Maya. He knows who he is and doesn’t want Maya to walk down the same path as him.

That doesn’t mean that the Ronin fights in this episode aren’t great. Seeing him take down the Tracksuit Mafia is very reminiscent of Batman’s first appearance in Batman Begins. The fight between Echo and Ronin looked a lot like a fight from Netflix’s Daredevil, which is a big compliment.

The King

Speaking of Daredevil, we find out that Vincent D’Onofrio’s version of Kingpin exists within the MCU, and that he’s Kate’s mom’s boss. We only see him in a picture for now, but hopefully we’ll get to see more going forward.

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