*Contains spoilers*

Recap: Clint Barton, who plays Hawkeye, in many other marvel movies. This series is meant to go deeper in detail on Barton and his character. The new series is set in New York City following the events of Avengers: Endgame and is believed to be the “current” Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Summary: Episode one, “Never Meet Your Heroes”, starts with a flashback to 2012 where Kate Bishop is a young girl. Her father sadly passes due to the attack on New York City caused by Chitauri. Hawkeye among others saved the city but Hawkeye in particular became Kate’s biggest role model. Moments before Kate’s father had passed he promised to always protect her; this pushed Kate to tell her mother the same. Kate promised to always protect her mother and even learned archery after her hero Hawkeye. 

Bishop was brought into the show as an adult when she is pictured with her friends. She made a bet to ring a bell in a clock tower with her archery skills. This went horribly wrong and the tower was destroyed. As it is almost Christmas time, Kate is getting ready to go home for the holidays. We are able to see that her New York City penthouse has been restored since 2012. Since Kate was forced to replace the clock tower her mother requested that she go to a charity ball. Bishop puts on a blackc suit to blend in with the crowd of wait staff but by chance meets a very rich man. She soon realizes that it is a man named Armond who happens to be the uncle of her mothers fiance Jack. Kate tried to follow Armond because he had shown that he wasn’t very fond of her mother and wanted to know why. While following him she stumbles upon a black market auction. The auction happened to have the suit of Ronin, Hawkeye’s other identity. While Kate is at the action another explosion happens blowing out the wall. This allowed Kate enough time to grab the Ronin suit and hurrys everyone out of the area. All of this is caught on the news and catches the attention of Clint Barton who is watching. He notices someone (Kate) dressed up as his alter identity, Ronin. Barton is introduced while watching an Avengers play that is supposed to depict the events of when the Avengers saved New York City. Barton’s son asks why the actors are singing and dancing about everything that went down with the Avengers. We catch a glimpse of when Barton is watching the news and notices someone in his Ronin suit. This is when Hawkeye goes to hunt down the person in the Ronin suit to prevent anything bad from happening. Kate, who is still wearing the Ronin suit heads back to Armonds home only to find him lying in a pool of blood, he seemed to have been stabbed. Kate was clearly being followed and was outmatched only to find herself saved by some mysterious hooded figure. Upon entering the light she comes to realize that it was Hawkeye himself.

Episode two, “Hide and Seek”, picks things right back up following the conclusion of episode one. The pair hurry back to Kate’s apartment where everything is going fine. Unfortunately the men who were following Kate find the pair and start throwing things through the windows of her apartment. The two leave the apartment and the Ronin suit behind. Barton decides to return back to the apartment dressed as Hawkeye. Hawkeye cannot find the Ronin suit anywhere but manages to find a firefighter disguise. This allows him to go back into the apartment where he finds a sticker that later leads to being able to dress up and pretend to fight. Though hawkeye starts tense and uncomfortable it is easy to see that he is enjoying his time. Hawkeye finally finds the Ronin suit at the event where he lets someone fake kill him in order to take the suit back into his possession. Kate ends up having a duel with Jack, her mothers fiance, in which she tries to warn her mother about Jack’s real intentions. Kate is only shut down and forced to apologize. Barton doesn’t need to be rescued by Kate as everything he does has a motive. Barton tries to convince the men that Kate is Ronin but during her “rescue” she clumsily falls through the ceiling and onto the floor. We get insight on the boss of the group who followed Kate, it ends up being a character named Echo. 

Episode three, “Echoes”, starts with a flashback scene where Maya (Echo) is seen to be a victim of Ronin (Hawkeye’s alternate identity). Maya had to witness Ronin on the hunt and this left behind a burden on her. While Barton and Bishop are tied up they are greeted by Echo hersel. Echo is deaf and is signing most of the words that she is speaking. She proceeds to ask Barton what he is doing there. Hawkeye explains that Bishop is not Ronin and that the suit was put on by accident. Barton continues to explain that Bishop is too young to be Ronin. Echo continues to say that even though Bishop isn’t Ronin doesn’t mean Ronin is not back. This is said because Bishop beat up a few of Echo’s men and even came running to save Hawkeye when help was needed. Hawkeye continues to explain that Ronin being back is a rumor and he knows this because Ronin is “dead”. Hawkeye said that Black Widow killed Ronin and the way that he knows this is because he was there. Echo sees Bishop as a threat for putting the suit on and starts to choke her. Hawkeye looks at Bishop and decides that the two are going to work together to get out of this. Clint breaks free and runs away to a room away from Bishop where he proceeds to fight Echo’s men. Barton gets into a fight with Echo where he is kicked in the side of his head and loses his hearing aid. Echo steps on the hearing aid, breaking it to the point where it can not be used again. Barton retrieves a bow and arrow in which he uses to free Bishop. The pair proceed to fight off Echo, and her men enough to escape the building. The two finally escape, when they are settled back down Kate translates everything to Clint because his hearing aid is broken and he can no longer hear the people around him. Barton again promises his family that he will be home for Christmas. While sitting down with Kate, Clint gets into a deep conversation about how he is not a role model to anyone. Kate proceeds to say that Clint is a role model because he stuck around during the holidays for someone he didn’t even know. Barton and Kate go back to Armond’s house where they are looking for more evidence on what could have happened to Armond. The episode ends with Ronins sword across Barton’s neck being held by Jack. 

Episode four, “Partners, Am I Right?”, begins with Barton’s wife tracking the stolen Avengers watch. Barton and Bishop show up at this apartment only to discover that not only is the watch in this apartment but also a list with all Barton’s family members. Fight breaks out in the apartment and Maya (echo) even shows up behind Kate. Barton knew that it was a losing fight for Kate and decided to shoot over a zipline arrow. Maya is not working with the man who was fighting Barton and this easily turned into a fight between three different forces. Maya retreats after being struck in the arm by an arrow shot by Kate. Bishop and Barton were able to get the mask off of the other attacker only to notice that it is one of Black Widow’s sisters. The sister quickly retreats after her identity is discovered. Black Widow’s sister is out for revenge on Barton as she blames him for the death of her sister. Clint says that he is done working with Kate as it is too dangerous but later in the episode Clint finds out that Bishop was right about Jack all along. He was tied to some very bad criminal things and was pulling Kate’s mom right in with him. Bishop also finds out that Barton was also Ronin all along. 

Overview: I enjoy the addition of Hawkeye to the MCU. I feel as though it adds a lot of context to the stories that we have seen in other movies, especially Endgame. I also like to see the character development and how Hawkeye has a deep character that brings a lot more meaning to the series and Bishop has a more playful character. This really balances out the series and makes it more intriguing.