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. 5: Ronin
• What’s it About:  Still 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 on Hawkeye: Ep.5:

Patrick:  With Spider-Man No Way Home consuming the Nerdosphere last week, Dave and I needed to take a step back from reviewing Hawkeye.  Fortunately for you, dear reader it means a double dose of Nerd Review as Dave and I wrap up the series with our reviews of episodes five and six.  Naturally in this article, we are hitting episode 5, Ronin. This episode largely focuses on Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova who was introduced in a dynamic fight scene to conclude episode four.  We also have a major turning point between Hawkeye and Maya. Finally, the episode drops a massive bombshell in the reveal of Wilson Fisk, AKA The Kingpin, as the mastermind behind the Tracksuit Mafia.

So, this episode starts with a flashback to moments before the blip from Avengers Endgame. Yelena is continuing the work she took on at the end of Black Widow, attempting to deprogram sleeper Widows around the world when she is dusted and then brought back. Yelena is then forced to reconcile her lost five years which brings us back to the present. Pugh does really well conveying Yelena’s confusion and horror during the conversation she has with the former agent post-blip.  It is a nice start to the episode that quickly adds a new dimension to Yelena’s motivations and helps the audience understand why she knows so little about Natasha’s life since the events of Infinity War

We then move to a brief, but important scene between Kate and her mother Eleanor wherein Kate comes clean to her mother that she believes Eleanor’s fiancé Jack is the “Big Guy”. Eleanor promises to have Jack looked into. Kate, satisfied returns to her apartment where she takes stock of the devastation caused by the Tracksuits. There Kate is confronted by Yelena in what is the highlight scene of the episode.  We’re going to see more of this in episode six, but the chemistry between Florence Pugh and Hailee Steinfeld is off the hook great. They play off one another so naturally and their comedic timing is impeccable.  Yet, while the scene is unquestionably funny, there is a sinister undertone to the conversation that gives it weight.

Meanwhile on the Clint/Maya front, we finally get the confrontation Maya has been hoping for with Clint/Ronin.  We get another fine action sequence that concludes with Clint revealing that Maya’s father was ordered to be killed by her current father figure.  Maya is of course stunned and refuses to believe it, but comes around later in the episode when she questions Kazi about his whereabouts during her father’s murder.  Alaqua Cox does well as Maya here, registering her disbelief against her desire for revenge, but the performance pales when compared to what we just witnessed from Pugh and Steinfeld earlier.  After the episode ends we get one final moment from Steinfeld as she learns her mother has had dealings with the “Big Guy” and was the one behind ordering the hit on Clint. The scene sets the stage for episode six as we are treated to a simple photo with the unmistakable figure of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin looming large.

Ronin as an episode serves one purpose: hype the audience for the finale. All the big reveals have happened and the stage is set.  There was a lot of good though, particularly the scene with Steinfeld and Pugh, you can see those two have a bright future in the MCU. I wish I could say I felt more for Maya and her emotional turning point, but I just didn’t.  I’m starting to think Maya is getting a little lost in the shuffle with all of these characters appearing.  Overall a strong episode that leads well into episode 6.

Patrick’s Rating:  4.72/5.0

Dave: The fifth and penultimate Episode of Hawkeye is one of the most important things that has happened to the MCU in 2021. No, that is not hyperbole. It represents a massive shift in the MCU and, in many ways, redefines the extent of the canon of the MCU, at least as far as street-level characters are concerned.

There are really two key aspects of Episode 5 that are worth discussing. The first is the macaroni & cheese dinner between Yelena Belova & Kate Bishop. Yelena tracks Kate to the apartment that she and Clint Barton have been using as a pseudo hideout. Yelena decides to make them macaroni & cheese and have a girl’s night in sort of meeting. During this meeting, the two women get to know each other. It is a fantastic scene and the chemistry between the two characters is immediate and powerful. They are clearly feeling each other out and probing each other for information and intent. But, at the same time, you can tell there is a lot of mutual admiration going on between two characters who figure to be very big parts of the MCU moving from Phase 4 to Phase 5. Without skipping too far ahead to the events of Episode 6, it has to be noted that the relationship between Kate & Yelena has the potential to be every bit as dynamic, deep, and emotional as the one that existed between Natasha & Clint. But it has to have an origin and this segment in Episode 5 is pretty much that. It is definitely a high-water mark of the series.

The other even bigger occurrence with Episode 5 though is what transpires at the very end. In my review of Episode 4, I questioned who was behind the hiring of Yelena to kill Clint. I even dared to dream that the MCU would follow the comics, to a certain, extent, and bring in The Kingpin. Well in the closing moments of Episode 5, Yelena tracks Kate’s mother to a location where she is meeting with someone. Earlier in the Episode, Clint is speaking with is wife, Laura, about the worsening situation and is very concerned that, sooner or later, “the big guy” was going to get involved. Once Clint said that, the dream seemed to inch closer to reality. But, in the closing moments of the Episode, the dream comes true. Yelena sends Kate a video of her mother speaking with someone and tells Kate that it was her mother who hired her to kill Clint. Kate shows Clint the video and Clint is able to identify that the man Kate’s mother is speaking with is who he has been concerned would get involved….and it is The Kingpin! More importantly, it is Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin who we see on the screen!

Now, for you Bandwagoners out there who might be like, “What’s the big deal?”, allow me to explain. Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin was a central figure on the Netflix Marvel series Daredevil. Charlie Cox played Daredevil in that series. Yes, the same Charlie Cox who we saw appear as Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home. This now means that the Netflix Marvel series, which always sort of referenced the events transpiring in the MCU, have now seemingly been made official canon of the MCU as we are now seeing seminal characters from at least the Daredevil series being brought in. If the Netflix series are now part of the MCU, this then creates the possibility for appearances from Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, The Punisher, & The Defenders. Phase 4 of the MCU, that seemed so focused on the cosmic element of things with films such as Shang-Chi & Eternals, in the span of just three weeks, radically made their street-level hand immensely stronger through this Episode of Hawkeye and by way of No Way Home. Daredevil, Kingpin, Luke Cage, Punisher, and others are all key characters in the comics, especially Daredevil and Kingpin who can rightfully be considered among the OGs of Marvel Comics. Their introduction into the MCU, albeit long overdue, is something to be very excited about and it set the stage for what ended up being a pretty epic conclusion to this series. As for Episode 5 though, it is as important an Episode to the future of the MCU as you could really get.

Dave’s Rating:  5.0/5.0

Overall Nerds’ Rating on Hawkeye Ep.5: 4.86/5.0