“Hawkeye” Episode 3 Recap and Review - The Dual Lives of Dragons and Disney
by Rob LoAlbo
All photos courtesy Marvel Studios
Tracksuit Mafia...Assemble!
With the Keystone Cops now on the chase for our titular hero and his perky sidekick, Hawkeye complicates and enriches matters with one of the most multi-dimensional characters since Killmonger, a villain with a rich empathetic backstory and an interesting possible future. But does it grant the show any depth to it whatsoever? Well, like a good Christmas fruitcake, just enjoy its nutty sweetness and try to think too much about what’s in it.
Full spoilers ahead NOT ONLY for episode 3 but possibly for future episodes, as well. (You’ve been warned!)
“I’m not sure what the sign is for broke, morally compromised failure of a father, so I’ll just wave my hands around and hope she doesn’t notice.”
It’s time to head back to 2007 for our big bad introduction. We see young Maya getting the short shrift at school as she’s not getting her educational needs met and is placed in a non-supported classroom.
“I thought I was going to school with kids like me?” Maya asks her dad.
“It’s impossible. See, you are one of a kind.“ Sweet, but that’s just something neglectful dads say.
Despite her situation (as she is not only deaf but has a prosthetic leg, as well) Maya decides to rise above it. She learns that her opponents underestimate her, so she uses that knowledge to her advantage to sweep Danielson’s leg. She smart, strong, tough, and a fighter. And thankfully an interesting character has been handed to an interesting actor. To see newcomer Alaqua Cox in action as Echo is just plain thrilling (and that her child actor counterpart looks so uncannily like the grown version is astounding).
Her character is richly realized, thoughtfully executed, and sympathetically rendered as we see her up against the world a number of times, with Ronin as a cause of much of her pain. She’s also interesting to watch because we have so few in the MCU like her-- and I don’t mean just for being hearing impaired. Like Killmonger, she’s a bundle of competing emotions, with some winning more often than others, and not always the right ones; we understand her thinking even if we don’t always agree. As Cox’s first acting role EVER (other than a background character in a high school play, really), she’s clearly a find with her strong stage presence, and if you know her character’s backstory, it’s even more exciting to see what could become of her in her own series. She’s living in the world of Hawkeye AND Echo!
The theme of co-existing between two worlds also threads itself throughout the episode with just about every character (yet, isn’t that EVERY superhero’s dilemma, the pull between their real and super lives?), but with the introduction of Maya’s Uncle, who in the comics is Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin, we might finally be bridging the worlds of Disney+ and Netflix. (That was so clearly Vincent D’Onofrio’s laugh when her uncle pinched little Maya’s cheek, and Maya’s hideout “Fat Man Auto” just gave it away.)
Girls get it done!
However, as Echo’s father's words reverberated (echoed?) in my brain for a half hour about how Maya needs to learn to jump between two worlds, I couldn't help but think that we’re not just living in the world of Hawkeye here but also of Loki, with the show structurally matching a lot of the same beats from that series.
Think about it… By episode 3 in Loki, we were complaining that there was too much backstory and not enough action, so before giving us some key backstory to a main perceived villain (Echo or Sylvie), the script puts us on a multi-dimensional thrilling chase through portals (city streets?) and abandoned worlds (KB Toys?) while being chased by suited faceless hordes (TVA or TSM?), only to end up with our two leads having some empathetic coming out banter about their strengths and weaknesses in life. Sound familiar?
This guy knows what I’m talking about!
It's not necessarily a complaint as much as it is the observation that the Marvel Mouse House found a formula and just adds layers to it instead of reinventing the wheel. They’ve decided to work with a formula instead of against it which isn’t necessarily bad: sure sticking to the railroad tracks limits your movement, but the distance and destinations you get as a result are worth it, hence the introduction of the complex character of Echo, a clear and welcome stop on the Marvel Express.
And again, as I mentioned last week, as long as you are willing to go along for the screwball ride, you’ll be just fine. It’s high entertainment, but thematically rich it is not. What we DO get though is some great comic book storytelling with the narrative threads of a few major figures being intertwined, despite Jack and Eleanor being left on the cutting room floor. (And wasn’t Florence Pugh supposed to be in this show somewhere? We’re running out of episodes…)
If you aim at having no themes in your show, you’ll never miss!
Once Clint and Kate meet up with Echo, Marvel decides to hire a choreographer, and we finally get a chase that’s worthy of the MCU. The in-car one take is unique and small-scale enough that it feels fresh without distracting us from the witty banter that comes as a result of Hawkeye breaking his hearing aid. The two finally get to show off some chemistry and comic timing, something that solidifies their relationship for the audience. Comic book movies don’t always need to aim for the large laser beam into the sky action scene, and sometimes a quiver of trick arrows does just the, well, trick.
And small-scale also works for emotional stakes here in Hawkeye. The most heartbreaking moment of the episode comes from a phone conversation between father and son about coming home for Christmas, where Clint can’t hear him and Kate needs to write down what lonely, bored Nathaniel is saying. That the show’s main stakes revolve around a holiday family get-together reveals just how skillful and Hallmark-y a low-stakes, thematically absent show can be. Sometimes, it’s okay to skip the vegetables and get right to dessert. I just wouldn’t make a full diet of it. Too much junk food will make us sick. If Disney can manage to straddle the two worlds of the thematically rich and the lighthearted, we’ll belly up to the buffet for it.
Hey Kazi! Shenanigans!
With a killer Christmas soundtrack (really, put it on your infinite playlist this season), the script becomes less pandering this go around and doesn’t spoon-feed us material like last week. It’s a step up, but it’s still breezy like a Sunday morn, for better or worse. Good news: like most other holiday specials, it could become a perennial favorite, as long as they don’t add 15 minutes of nothing but Wookies.
Next Week: If Kazi is the Lynchpin, and Maya is Queenpin, there’s just one more step in management to go.
Star City Rating: 3.5 out of 5