If you haven't seen Hawkeye yet it is worth your time.

Let's talk Hawkeye! <<<SPOILER ALERT>>>>So this latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Disney+ was a delight to enjoy over the holidays. Honestly, the entertainment choices for the holidays were premium this year, so I was a very happy camper. With regard to Hawkeye, I (at first) was wondering why the Marvel machine would want to moor this particular series so closely to a particular time of year. But after I got to watching it, I realized that it would be more than just another thing that one might view when Christmas rolls around (Home Alone, Elf, etc.). And there was more there on the screen to talk about than just trick arrows and flashing light bulbs.

First, and this one seems a bit obvious, but Disney is probably looking to replace Clint Barton soon with the much younger Kate Bishop. This seems like an excellent choice although I will miss Jeremy Renner. But people (unlike superheroes) get old, and Jeremy's contract with Disney is almost up (I think). So, as much as people like me are fans of his work, it's probably time to get ready to say goodbye to this character so that the cinematic universe can keep plodding forward. That's the neat thing about Marvel...there is an endless array of new characters that can be added to the ever-progressing storyline. And Kate Bishop was fantastic. She was charming, witty, and a really good fighter with a compelling backstory that wasn't shellacked with trauma. I'm kind of getting tired of the "superhero" that has to be varnished with trauma to get to be a sympathetic person and start saving people (looking particularly hard at Spiderman right now).

I also loved that we got to see Yelena again (from the Black Widow movie). She stole practically every scene in that show from Scarlett Johannson. That may have been a disservice script-wise to Scarlett's character, but her trailblazing performance and run as Black Widow was really good. I'm pretty much satisfied with original Widow's entire character arc minus the unpleasantness of her death, which I felt was a disservice to the character. However, I'm not a fan of Endgame. I think the only thing I like about that movie is when Scarlet Witch grabs a hold of Thanos with all her power and almost crushes him. So that's like two minutes. The Yelena/Kate frenemies fight was also spectacularly good. I adored Yelena's whole energy of, "You are out of your league, Kate Bishop, but I want to be supportive of your efforts here, even though they will not stop me." This is nothing new, since Widow and Hawkeye have always been pals. It's just fun to see that this is going to continue with these new leading ladies in their respective roles.

However, not all resolutions in Hawkeye were given the depth that I hoped for. This is a strange feeling, because I get the sense that Disney + is a place where stories should be richer, because time is not a factor. For example, Tomas (who was part of the Tracksuit Mafia) had a connection with Kate Bishop, because he asked her for advice on dealing with his girlfriend. They went to a Maroon 5 concert though, and it should have been Imagine Dragons, because he said earlier in the show, "I love Imagine Dragons."

I did like that Jack turned out to be nothing more than some comic relief. I like the actor a lot, because he plays a very intelligent, clever, and charismatic villain in the Breaking Bad spinoff called Better Call Saul. He brought some of the smarmy-ness of that role to Jack, and who knows, he could end up joining the LARPers, which weren't treated as a colossal joke. Instead, the series showed the fact that they are real, normal people who happen to have a nerdy hoppy. This was a refreshing pace over how LARP is typically portrayed: an entire society of people who never break character and that the LARP is their reality and they cannot function in the real world.

Seeing the Kingpin was great, because it was yet another confirmation that the Daredevil and other properties on Netflix (which I thought were very high quality) are now a part of the MCU. In other words, those series mattered. I also don't think that Fisk is dead. That being said, without watching Daredevil, there is no clear way to feel how much of a threat this guy really is. I mean...he's bad. However, I was a little disappointed that Kingpin was only scary to me, because I've seen Daredevil on Netflix. And wearing a Hawaiian shirt didn't help things. In the one episode in which he appears on Disney+, there is no way to feel the intensity and danger that Kingpin represents. Point of note though: the way in which Vincent D'Onofrio just threw Hailee Steinfeld around looked awesome and properly Kingpin.

I suppose the final thing that I want to say about Hawkeye is that it is nice that Marvel didn't sweep the whole thing of Clint's stint as Ronin under the rug. There were consequences for what he did, and he essentially made Maya what she was in a revenge-seeking pseudo villain. And speaking of Maya, it was wonderful to see someone with disabilities portrayed as very functional and in no need of coddling whatsoever. That was awesome.

Was the show perfect? No...if anything it ran a bit short. However, it is easily a stronger entry in the MCU than WandaVision was. Have any of you who are reading this seen it yet? If so, what did you think?