Hawkeye Episode 5: Ronin Review

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

After making her triumphant return at the end of the last episode, what has Yelena been up to since we saw her last? The answer to that is not much as far as the flashback that started this episode was concerned but it wasn’t necessarily her fault as she was snapped and lost 5 years of her life along with half the population while in the midst of her mission of freeing other Black Widows. This of course preceded the Black Widow post credit scene where she was tasked to kill Barton.

With that out of the way, on to the episode itself. Bishop and her mother had a moment as the former reeled from being ditched. Eleanor was on her side. As far as Yelena was concerned, she was still around and made sure her presence was known to Bishop in her own charmingly devious kind of way over some mac n cheese, making for a fun scene between Seinfeld and Pugh. She let Bishop know about the kind of person Bishop seemingly aligned herself with and vice versa. In the end, whatever was going on was clearly bigger than Lopez’s revenge.

Bishop’s warning to her mother also led to Jack being arrested though however that will end remains to be seen. Barton didn’t really have to be in this episode but for whatever he was about to do, he needed a confidence boost in order to finally end things to protect his family. His plan was a face-to-face meeting alone with Lopez. However, she was clearly not going to be alone for which Barton obviously anticipated, disposing of a group of tracksuit mafia as Ronin with ease. Nevertheless, he got to deliver his warning to her and also the news that he was hired by her boss to kill her father after the two were engaged in an exciting albeit short battle. Meanwhile, Bishop needed some purpose after being ditched. She wasn’t done with Barton therefore she managed to find him just in time and save him as he looked to be in some real trouble.

The big reveal came at the end of the episode when Yelena followed Eleanor to none other than Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) who she found out had hired her to kill Barton, presumably making him the series’ big bad. While this answer definitely helps shed some light, there are still plenty of pieces to connect thus giving next week’s finale quite the task of putting them all together. Hawkeye hasn’t exactly given itself a wide margin of error here.

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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.