Hawkeye: What’s hidden in plain sight in episode 2

In the second episode of Hawkeye’s two-part premiere, we take a closer look at Clint’s hearing loss, Kate’s mom’s fiancée… and LARPing.

I suspect that when the trailers for Hawkeye first appeared, many didn’t expect that it would involve Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) looking around the city for one of his old costumes. Or that said costume would also be worn by Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), and thus get her in trouble with Russian gangsters. And they especially didn’t except that that same costume would also be worn by a New York City Firefighter (Clayton English) as part of a weekend fantasy get together. Then again, buddy action comedies, of which Disney Plus‘ Hawkeye clearly is, has to have some degree of quirkiness.

It also makes for some rather unusual topics regarding our latest deep dive into searching for clues and Easter Eggs in the second of the series’ two-part opening, “Hide and Seek” (an aptly named title if there ever was one). And while some may not stand out as much as, say, the “Thanos Was Right” graffiti last episode, they do offer opportunities to look closer at the more hidden aspects of the Marvel Universe, and some real life subcultures. And to start, we have to look at what appear to be, so far, Clint and Kate’s main adversaries in the series…

The Tracksuit Mafia

“Hide and Seek” marks the second time we’ve seen this group of bumbling Russian gangsters, and you’re probably asking yourself, “What’s the deal with these guys?” For starters, they are your stereotypical group of Russian mobsters who wear red track suits with gold trim, and (in the comics) open face motorcycle helmets. Also, Clint in the comics refers to them as the “Tracksuit Draculas,” probably because of their accents. They also tend to say “bro” a lot.

However, while Clint ran afoul of them as Ronin in the MCU, there was an altogether different reason why the Tracksuits set their sights on him in the comics. See, Clint’s apartment building was owned by one of the Tracksuit’s enforcers, Ivan Banionis (Aleks Pauovic). And when Ivan started evicting tenants, Clint decided to buy the apartment building with his Avengers money. Ivan refused, and Clint resorted to plan B – start throwing punches.

Things got even worse for Clint when he picked up a woman named Cherry and the Tracksuits tried to kidnap her. Turns out Cherry just happened to be Ivan’s wife and that she was trying to run away from him. Eventually, their feud escalated to the point where they hired an assassin known as the Clown, who began a systematic intimidation campaign to force Clint to give up the apartment building, including murdering one of the tenants. Incidentally, the Clown’s real name is Kazimierz Kazimierczak (Fra Fee), whom we’ve already seen in the series sans makeup.

Here, however, it looks as though the Tracksuits are being led by whom we can assume is Echo (Alaqua Cox), who was never their leader in the comics. And since the Tracksuits have it in for Ronin in this series and given Echo’s connection with Ronin in the comics, perhaps this explains why the series seems to have made such a bizarre creative choice.