Hawkeye: What’s hidden in plain sight in episode 4
By Mike McNulty
More trick arrows and other skills
Despite Clint telling Kate that he’s running out of trick arrows, we still get quite a few more during this episode. Both the tracer arrow and the sonic arrow are straight from the comics. We’ve mentioned the sonic arrow before, though during this episode, it acts more like a flashbang grenade along with triggering a shockwave that propels both Maya and Yelena backwards. Interestingly enough, Clint doesn’t have a Zipline Arrow in the comics like he did during this episode, which you would think would come in handy. And although he doesn’t have a Boomerang Arrow in the series (yet), he definitely has one in the comics.
We also learn that Clint’s amazing marksmanship isn’t limited to bows and arrows; apparently, like Bullseye, he can make any object into a potentially lethal projectile. And yes, this is one Hawkeye’s skills in the comics, too. In fact, his other mentor, Trick Shot, taught him knife-throwing along with archery when he was still in the circus. And over the years, Clint taught himself how to aim and throw various objects with precise accuracy. Little wonder then that the first volume of Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye series was subtitled “My Life is a Weapon.”
Yelena Belova, a.k.a. the new Black Widow
Ever since the post-credits scene from Black Widow, in which Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) told Yelena about “the man responsible for [her] sister’s death,” we figured that the new Black Widow would be showing up in Hawkeye at some point. And true to those classic superhero scenarios in which there’s a huge misunderstanding between two good guys that cause them to fight each other, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) is out for Clint’s blood.
In keeping her being the new Black Widow, Yelena seems to have fully incorporated her sister’s arsenal into her own, including the Black Widow’s Bite gauntlets and taser discs, although hers give off red electricity instead of blue. Also, her multi-lensed night vision goggles are a direct nod to the ones Yelena wears in the comics.
One other difference is that, unlike Natasha, Yelena doesn’t seem to mind to be working for bad guys so long as they pay well enough. (Then again, her targeting of Clint is very personal so it’s not a matter of money in this case.) That’s also true for the original comics, too. In fact, Yelena in the comics tended to work for the villains far more often that not, including Hydra, A.I.M., and group of rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Also, she wasn’t nearly as sisterly towards Natasha in the comics, either. This was especially the case when Yelena found out that Natasha, along with Nick Fury and Daredevil, arranged to have her and Yelena’s faces surgically switched with one another’s a la Face/Off (1997) as a misguided attempt to reform her.
The ambush at Maya’s apartment
Speaking of misunderstandings, there does seem to be some confusion about how Yelena happened to be on the very rooftop outside Maya Lopez’s (Alaqua Cox) apartment. After re-watching the scene a second (and a third) time, things become much clearer. Yelena isn’t at all connected to the overall plot of the series; her being there at the same time as Maya is pure coincidence.
That being said, the Rolex wristwatch being in Maya’s apartment was a definite trap. Likewise, the list containing information about Clint’s family definitely belonged to Maya, too. Someone gave her that information and hired her to take out Clint. It’s just that Maya didn’t expect Kate to be there instead.
So who hired Maya to take out Clint? Ten to one it was her “Uncle,” a.k.a. “The Big Guy,” who I think many already suspect is Wilson Fisk. And Fisk very likely set her on the path to kill Clint as a favor for… Eleanor Bishop. Think back to the phone call Eleanor made after Clint left the Bishop residence and how “urgent” it was. Not to mention the none-too-subtle way she tried to get Clint to back off the case, using her own daughter’s safety as leverage. If we didn’t think Eleanor wasn’t super-villain material before now, this definitely made her look more suspicious than ever.
Which reminds me…