Hawkeye Episode 4: Partners, Am I Right? Review

For our review of the last episode of Hawkeye, click here.

For those wondering how the tense moment that ended the last episode would lead into this week’s episode, it would be an awkward exchange at the dinner table between Bishop and Barton with Eleanor and Jack. They recognized Barton immediately as Eleanor was just concerned with what her daughter was up to for perhaps not as noble reasons including the upcoming Bishop Christmas party. Each saw their dynamic a little differently but they still managed to talk themselves out of it with Barton promising that he’d keep Bishop safe while he settled things which seemed more and more likely to keep him away from his family for Christmas.

In fact Jack was the CEO of a company laundering money for the tracksuit mafia. But before anything else, Barton’s attempt at some recovery time made way for a holiday celebration with Bishop that was wholesome and emotional as the former finally opened up about his wide range of feelings about Natascha, the Ronin, and his family (Renner and Steinfeld were great here). At the end of the day, that infamous watch that was stolen during the auction was important so the two had to get it back somehow. As Bishop got the larpers help to get some trick arrows, Barton tried to convince Kazi to talk down Lopez and get her to stand down on her revenge mission against the Ronin which would be easier said than done.

This mission was certainly the highlight of the episode. Tracking the watch to an appartment, the Barton and Bishop dysfunction saw the latter take charge but little did they know, that appartment was Lopez’s who had been doing some recon on Barton and his family herself. What was a tense exchange between Lopez and Bishop led to an even more tense escape as Barton was dealing with a masked adversary of his own. Those two battles eventually came together to make up one larger battle with some great choreography but in the end, the takeaway will be the identity of the masked assailant which would be revealed as Natascha’s sister herself Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) who was already set on her own revenge mission against Barton in a post-credit scene in Black Widow. Her appearance in the series was inevitable but many would have thought she’d show up sooner.

Whatever happens from here remains to be seen but with 2 episodes left, Hawkeye remains a mess that does have its moments. There’s Barton and the trauma of his past, Bishop and her family issues, and the main mystery of the series and how everything fits together. It is certainly taking its time to do so which can be frustrating and puts pressure on the following episodes. Maybe it will get there? Let’s see where it will all lead.

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.