The deeds of Endgame follow Clint Barton home while he struggles to accept his past and deal with his present i.e. Kate Bishop. The fourth episode of Hawkeye shows the first joint mission of Clint Barton and Kate Bishop. Clint’s past gains upon him time and again in different ways.
Watch: Hawkeye Episode 4 ENDING “Hawkeye Defeats Yelena”
I’ve Lost People Before
At the end of episode 3, Clint and Kate are discovered by Jack Duquesne. At the beginning of episode 4, we find Jack and Eleanor talking to our duo. It’s not during but after the discussion that matters to us. Just before seeing Clint out, Eleanor tells him that no matter what, she cannot lose her daughter. That she is trying to make him understand how she cannot lose anyone anymore, to us, it is pure irony for us. Clint had lost his family. He still somewhere holds himself responsible for Natasha’s absence. And Eleanor’s words, “I’ve lost people before. I know, in your line of work, you have too”, rubs salt in his wound, and in the wound we share with him.
But after Clint leaves, Eleanor calls someone and asks to call back. Whom does she call? Is it Jack? Or Kingpin? Or is it Valentina Fontaine?
A Christmas for Hawkeye that Isn’t
On one hand, Kate tries to find solace in his new family. Jack seems like a nice guy who clearly loves Eleanor and leaves no stone unturned to make her feel special. He even sings and dances with her in front of Kate possibly to make his intentions clear to her. Or maybe that was the plan all along. But at the back of our mind, we keep on telling ourselves that he just might have a plan B. But we don’t know what. All that we know is that the Swordsman is both good and bad based on the comics.
On the other hand, we have a tired Clint Barton who will have to spend Christmas eve alone. Or so he thinks. Just when he is about to find some slumber, Kate turns up. Our duo tries to make the most of their Christmas celebration. The scene begins in a light mood with Clint teaching Kate one of his tricks, the first of many to come. But then when Kate asks him about his best shot, Clint replies that it is the one he didn’t take. He was sent to take “her” out. “And when it was time…I couldn’t do it. I just had this feeling that she wanted out. Turns out I was right.” Just as Kate understands, so do we that Clint is talking about Natasha. So this means that Clint was sent to the Red Room to bring Nat down. But as fate would have it, Nat made it out of there, probably with Clint, and joined SHIELD. “Turns out I was right.” Here Clint seems to talk about the events of Black Widow when Nat went back to bring down the Red Room.
The next few words by Clint sum up the journey of pretty much every superhero there ever was. “When you do what I do for a living, it’s just a game of managing loss.” He accepts to Kate that he is the Ronin. And that his mistakes are tied to his family. He cannot leave without fixing them.
A Face from the Past
What follows is Clint Barton meeting Kazi to convey a message to Maya. He wants her to stop looking for Ronin as it won’t end well for her. This is a sign that Clint still has a Ronin side to him, one that he keeps hidden or has locked away inside him. We might see this side of him in episode 5. Will we?
Kate is able to recover Clint’s arrows from the LARPers. What follows is the joint mission to recover the watch from the auction, the one that was signalling all along. The importance of this Rolex is yet unknown to us. We know that it belongs to someone Clint used to work with. He needs to recover it before the Tracksuit Mafia do or else it will blow that person’s cover, a friend of Clint. But Kate’s attempt to recover the watch is foiled by someone we all had been waiting for. While Maya attacks Kate, Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova strikes upon Clint. Black Widow post-credits scene showed Madame Fontaine giving Yelena her next target i.e. Hawkeye. She set him up as the reason for Nat’s death. And now Yelena is back for revenge.
Hawkeye and Kate Bishop Aren’t Partners
But there is a particular moment where time stops for Clint Barton and us, the viewers. As Kate hangs from the roof, parallel forms between Nat’s final moments and that we see here. His expressions say it all. He cannot risk losing another partner. At this exact moment, Clint realizes the risk his motive poses towards Kate. And thus he makes the call, “get outta here.” Things have gone too far. He didn’t want Kate to get involved in all this in the first place. And now that a Black Widow assassin has turned up, he knows things will get worse. Will Kate leave? Will Clint be able to deal with it all by himself?
Hawkeye episode 5 comes on Wednesday, December 15 exclusively on Disney+.
