This review contains spoilers for episode 6 of Marvel's Hawkeye, ‘So This Is Christmas?’, now available to view on Disney+. To remind yourself of where we left off, check out our review of Hawkeye episode 5.
Is there a better Christmas gift than a fantastic season finale? Because that’s exactly what Hawkeye delivers. Its final hour is the best of the six-episode run, and completely fulfills its promise of festive-flavoured fun with plenty of heart beneath the action-packed wrapping. It also satisfyingly brings Kate and Clint’s first story together to a close, and while not every other character gets the same victory, this is a chapter that doesn’t leave you wanting for much else beyond a second season.
Episode 5’s introduction of The Kingpin suggested that Hawkeye’s roster of heroes and anti-heroes would be united for the finale, all with Wilson Fisk in their crosshairs. That never happens, but is actually more interesting for it. The last hour is broadly split into three showdowns; Clint versus Yelena, Kate versus Fisk, and Maya versus Kazi. While this means the characters are somewhat siloed off from one another for most of the second half, by splitting the action into separate encounters Hawkeye is able to more intimately wrap up its individual character arcs. Thankfully, this format never allows the storylines to stray too far from each other, and so the end result remains a very cohesive conclusion for the tale at large.
The most important of these individual conflicts, of course, is Clint’s, who has spent this entire season quietly battling his grief over Natasha’s death. Yelena’s insistence on killing him, despite her conversation with Kate and (presumably) a fantastic intelligence network, does feel somewhat contrived. The special whistle moment that interrupts their fight also feels a bit convenient and a little too close to the ‘Martha’ get-out clause from Batman vs. Superman. But their grief-drenched argument allows Clint to express his regret for not stopping Natasha from sacrificing herself, and voice aloud that she was only able to do that because she was better than him. Clint has never been to therapy, and so just talking about what happened with someone who shares the same kind of love for Natasha seems to be the final step required on his path to healing.
Yelena splitting Clint and Kate up means our pint-sized archer must go up against The Kingpin of Crime solo, which is a mismatch for the ages. Vincent D'Onofrio’s Fisk is shown to be substantially more powerful than he was in Daredevil, able to send Kate flying with a punch and even tear a car door from its hinges. It raises the question of whether this even is the same Kingpin from the Netflix show, especially with that horrendous dress sense. Regardless, the situation provides a bit of a David and Goliath aspect to the fight, which Kate entertainingly overcomes with smarts rather than brawn.
Kate doesn’t get the final blow in on Kingpin, though. Instead, Kate’s big finale moment is actually with Eleanor, and it’s satisfying to see her mother treated as a villain for what she’s done, rather than someone accidentally in too deep. It creates a massive moment for Kate, in which she rejects her biological family and embraces Clint as her partner and surrogate dad. I’ll confess, seeing Clint bring her back to his family for Christmas made my eyes a little misty. So much of the MCU has worked with the theme of found family, and Clint and Kate’s relationship has been one of the most effective examples of that.
Kingpin’s fate is instead left in Maya’s hands, who naturally has the most personal vendetta with him. Looking back over the series, Maya never really experienced the growth she required to make her part of the finale ring true, but it’s still enjoyable to see her settle the score with both Kazi and her ‘uncle’. Shooting Kingpin point blank in the face is a surprising moment, largely because Vincent D'Onofrio has only just arrived, but the act happening off-screen seems almost certainly television code for “things aren’t as they seem”.
It would be a shame for Kingpin to be gone already, because D'Onofrio is once again a phenomenal presence as Fisk, even if this single episode doesn’t allow him the nuance that Daredevil did. His ability to blend sophisticated giant and unhinged mob boss personas means he still remains one of the MCU’s greatest villains, and the terror he provides completely outmatches any of the threats Hawkeye has served up in its five preceding chapters.
By bringing the conflict with Kingpin to a head, the finale also serves as the most accomplished episode for action. We finally get a scene in which the Tracksuit Mafia throws bro after bro at Clint and Kate, who fight them off with a brilliant assortment of trick arrows. There’s a Home Alone vibe to this sequence, thanks to the toy-like nature of the arrows and the increasingly absurd ways in which the Tracksuits are dispatched. That feel, along with the ice-rink setting, really delivers on the ‘superheroes at Christmas’ promise, something that Hawkeye has never quite wholeheartedly embraced until this moment.
Between all these big scenes are dozens of smaller moments that only add to the joy this finale brings. Jack fencing with a bunch of goons is a lovely nod to his Swordsman persona from the comics. The LARPers helping out in the final investigation and battle turns them into something akin to Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars, which perfectly fits into Hawkeye’s detective show framework. The Tracksuit Mafia thug thanking Kate for her earlier girlfriend advice is one of the best jokes of the series, and is quickly topped by the even funnier Pym shrinking arrow gag. And, finally, Clint burning the Ronin suit is a lovely metaphor for the end of his dark period. With the expulsion of his grief comes a new, better Hawkeye that I hope we see more of in the future.
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