Welcome to this week’s edition of the Nerd Review!  Every week the Nerds give you their take on entertainment from the Nerd-o-sphere.  This week, Patrick and Dave continue their review of the MCU Disney+ miniseries Hawkeye!

• The Show:  Hawkeye Ep. 4: Partners, Am I Right?
• What’s it About:  Stil struggling to rebuild his life after the battle with Thanos, Clint Barton is spending Christmas in New York with his children. When someone is spotted fighting crime in the guise of Barton’s dark alter ego Ronin, Clint knows he must take action. Barton finds himself facing his past demons and mentoring a new hero.
• IMDB Score: 8.3/10

The Nerds’ Take Hawkeye Ep. 4: Partners, Am I Right?:

Dave: Three words best summarize Episode 4 of Hawkeye: Yelena Freakin Belova!

If you read my review for Episode 3, I posed a few questions that needed to be answered. One of the most prominent was the query as to when Yelena Belova would show up. You knew it was coming. But a healthy number of us in the Nerd community figured that she might show up at the very end of Episode 6, creating a cliffhanger that could be used as a launching pad for a second season.

Surprise! The new Black Widow showed up at the end of Episode 4, changing the landscape of the series considerably moving forward. More on that in a minute.

Episode 4 was my favorite Episode so far by a healthy margin. The relationship between Clint & Kate grows considerably in this Episode. Kate does her best to create some good old-fashioned Holiday nostalgia for Clint, who you can tell feels very down in the dumps over the prospect of not being with his family, as he had hoped, for Christmas. They do fun stuff like order pizza, trim the Christmas Tree, and watch Holiday movies. Along the way though, Clint tells us all about the best shot he ever made as a super-archer being the one he did not take, referencing his decision to not follow orders and eliminate Natasha Romanoff. The memory of Nat, and the impact her death still has on Clint, continues to be felt more prominently each Episode and it all kind of comes to a head in Episode 4. It is Clint’s growing affection and respect tor Kate that really directs his decisions in the closing moments of the Episode. The fact that Clint, to a certain extent, told Kate’s mother he would keep her safe and away from all this super-hero craziness, also weighs heavily on him at the end of the Episode.

We also learn that Jacques Duquesne is definitely involved with the Track Suit Mafia and that there is someone who pretty much everyone, including Kazzi and Echo, are answering to. This then leads to the tremendous conclusion to this Episode, an epic rooftop battle that sometimes resembled a Fatal Four Way involving Clint, Kate, Echo, and a masked assailant who we ultimately learn is Yelena Belova. It is a damn good fight and Clint does everything he can to extricate Kate from the situation. As Clint explains to Kate, “someone” has hired a Black Widow assassin and, for lack of a better term, shit has now gotten very real. Clint needs to protect Kate from a widening and increasingly worsening situation but we all know that for Kate to emerge as the new Hawkeye, which is obviously not going to happen. The Episode ends with many more questions and Yelena vanishing into the shadows, setting us up for a wildly entertaining final two Episodes.

Of course, the biggest questions coming out of the Episode now are who is pulling the strings for the Tracksuit Mafia, who hired Yelena, and are they one and the same? Many people out there are anticipating the appearance of The Kingpin. It would certainly make sense…. if we are sticking to the comics. If we are talking about the movies and streaming shows thus far, then not so much. We know from the end of Black Widow that Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine got into the head of Yelena and, seemingly, set her on a path to avenge her sister’s death by taking out the man allegedly responsible, Hawkeye. So, it would seem logical that Madame Hydra, or a variation of her, is really the one pulling the strings here. But that doesn’t feel quite right either. If it is the Contessa, or Val as she kind of, sort of, likes to be called, will we get an appearance from US Agent, John Walker, joining up with Yelena to try and take down Hawkeye? On the other hand, if it really is The Kingpin, will we see Vincent D’Onofrio make his official debut in the MCU?

Oh, the possibilities are simply delicious.

Hawkeye continues to get better and better each week as the world around our two heroes expands and contracts at the same time. I cannot wait to see where Episode 5 leads us and whether there is any sort of cross-over with Spider-Man: No Way Home between now and Episode 6. Excellent stuff all around.

Dave’s Rating:  4.75/5.0

Patrick:  Hello fellow Bandwagoners, we are past the halfway point of the MCU limited series Hawkeye! This week we, have a fun little episode that goes a long way in solidifying the budding mentor-mentee relationship between Clint Barton and Kate Bishop before reintroducing the MCU audience to Yelena Belova.  All in all, it’s another solid addition to the mini-series that looks to be building to an thrilling climax.

The episode picks up right where the previous one ended with Clint and Kate snooping in Eleanor’s apartment for more clues about the track suit mafia and their mysterious leader.  Clint turns a corner and finds the Ronin sword at his throat, held by Jack.  Once Kate and Eleanor settle everyone, we are treated to the first real interplay between four primary characters.  The entire case plays things delightfully awkwardly with Vera Farmiga playing an exasperated Eleanor terrifically.   Eleanor is not here for any BS but she loves Kate enough to play along a bit.  However, as the encounter comes to a close, she makes it clear to Clint privately that she wants him to cut Kate loose.  Renner and Farmiga play off of one another extremely well, and the tension is palpable.

Later after some additional family angst for both Kate and Clint, we are treated to my favorite scenes of the series to date. Clint is alone in the apartment, having recently learned that Jack is connected to the Tracksuits, when Kate comes with pizza and holiday movies. What follows is a montage of Kate and Clint bonding through alcohol, holidays and trick shots.  Clint and Kate’s relationship really matures here, with Clint teaching Kate the secrets of trick shots and the two having nearly having a breakthrough talking about Natasha.  Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld really sell this scene well and I could feel a real mentorship developing between their characters.  The two looked incredibly natural together in this scene and for me makes the episode special.  It also helped me buy in to their partnership when we reach the finale.

Said finale is a rooftop battle between Clint, Kate, Maya and a mysterious assailant.  Clint and Kate enter into this battle after breaking into Maya’s apartment to retrieve a Rolex stolen from the rubble of Avenger’s tower.  Clint guides Kate into the apartment while keeping watch from a distance, but both realize only too late that the apartment is alarmed and a trap.  In their bid to escape, Maya combats Kate and the mysterious assailant attacks Clint.  The action here eventually leads all four combatants to the same rooftop.  Eventually the mysterious combatant is revealed to be Yelena Belova, by Florence Pugh reprising her role from Black Widow.  Clint makes it clear this is bad news and sends Kate home. I’m sure that will toootally stick. This action sequence, by the way, was a ton of fun.  There was some dynamic choreography and Pugh steals the scene much as she did during much of Black Widow.

The episode once again ends in a bit of a cliffhanger, but Clint has a new sense of urgency even though he foolishly send Kate away to face this new threat.  I love how this series has built itself episode by episode. Reviews for this episode are down compared to last week, but I disagree with that assessment.  I loved the holiday interaction between Renner and Steinfeld. This was the first time I really felt the two actors click into their roles. It made the relationship between Kate and Clint feel the most authentic it’s been so far.  I am excited now to see where we go next. Finally introducing Yelena to the series was just a cherry on the top.  Partners, Am I Right gets high marks from me.

Patrick’s Rating:  4.58/5.0

Overall Nerds’ Rating for Hawkeye – Episode 4: 4.66/5.0