Hawkeye’s fourth episode gives out more intriguing clues, including the possible identity of an almost forgotten-about wristwatch.
If you, fellow viewers, were starting to wonder where Disney Plus‘ Hawkeye was going (if going anywhere) its fourth episode, entitled “Partners, Am I Right?”, will likely set your mind at ease.
Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) became true partners and friends over a mini-Christmas, only for it to potentially fracture when Clint realized the danger his new protegee was in. Another MCU character finally showed up to make Clint’s week even more complicated. Kate’s mom (Vera Farmiga) is displaying even more suspicious behavior. And what we thought was a minor plot point ends up being far more important.
We also got more Marvel-ous Easter Eggs, including the return of the phrase “Thanos was Right,” this time on a coffee mug. There’s also Kate’s “Laika” T-shirt, which is a perfect match for the one she wore in Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye comic (and, itself, a reference towards the first dog launched into space). And there’s also a movie poster in Kate’s apartment starring a fictional actress, Moira Brandon, who, in the comics, is an honorary Avenger and donated her mansion to the West Coast branch of the team. Those are just the little Easter Eggs, however; there’s a lot more to go cover, including a few revelations. Some of them point towards certain theories, while others debunk them. And one of those theories that got debunked is…
The real history between Clint and Jack Duquesne
Or should we say the lack of history between Clint and Jack Duquesne? Because as it turns out, Kate’s stepfather-to-be only knows Clint by his reputation as an Avenger and nothing more. He doesn’t even know Clint’s proper superhero name (“Oh my God! You’re Archer!”). Looks like actor Tony Dalton wasn’t lying when he said that Jack being Clint’s mentor was “completely not happening.”
This also suggests that neither Clint or Duquesne were ever circus performers, either. Certainly in the comics, the Swordsman was never the head of his own company, shell corporation or otherwise. Nor was he sponsoring the Tracksuit Mafia, either. Duquesne was a thief, however. That’s what ended up severing Clint’s ties with Duquesne in the first place, as he caught his mentor in the act of stealing money from the circus’ ringmaster and Duquesne almost killed him as a result.
That’s too bad, because having Duquesne be Clint’s former mentor would’ve have given us a little more insight into Clint’s past prior to becoming an Avenger or even an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Certainly, it would’ve made Duquesne a bit more complex. For now, it seems like the MCU version of Duquesne is yet another in a long line of crooked businesspersons who also just so happens to be really, really good at fencing. It also lends further credence to the theory that Kate’s mom, Eleanor, is crooked, too, perhaps with ties to organized crime and a certain Kingpin?
The LARPers
Just when we thought we’ve seen the last of these would-be slayers of orcs, dragons, and other monsters, the LARPers make a surprise return in episode four. Moreover, Clint calls them his friends, so he really did have a great time playing “Vikings vs Samurai” in the park.
Now during our deep dive of episode two, we discussed that one of the LARPers, Grills (Clayton English) is named after a supporting character and neighbor of Clint’s during Matt Fraction and David Aja’s run on the Hawkeye comic. As it turns out, Grills isn’t the only LARPer named after a character from the original Marvel Comics. Even more interesting is that two of the LARPers share the same names as two supervillains.
We learn that one of the “Vikings,” the same one who made the sword-clashing sound-effects during Clint and Grills’ “fight” in episode two, is named Orville (Robert Walker-Branchaud), and there’s quite a couple of Orvilles in the comics. One of them is an Orville Smythe, a con artist and thief who hired Luke Cage to unknowingly steal an experimental space suit from Tony Stark. The other Orville is Orville Bock, the real name of the second person to wear the mantle of Oddball. He doesn’t have any superpowers to speak of, but he is an expert marksman and juggler. Moreover, he belongs to an entire group of villainous super-jugglers called the Death-Throws.
Another member of the Death-Throws is Bombshell, the moniker for one Wendy Conrad. Wendy Conrad (Adetinpo Thomas) is also one the LARPers we meet in this episode, too. As an added Easter Egg, she even has “Bombshell” embroidered on her gym bag courtesy of her wife. Of course, the Wendy Conrad from the comics isn’t a married police officer, but a mercenary. Furthermore, she was taught by the first Oddball how to juggle. As the name implies, the comic book version of Bombshell is also a demolitions expert, with her weapon of choice being hand grenades. Moreover, she’s had frequent run-ins with Hawkeye, as she was one of the mercs hired by Crossfire – the same Crossfire who captured Clint and Mockingbird which, in turn, lead to Clint’s hearing loss. Bombshell was also part of another group of mercenaries hired by Crossfire to get rid of Clint’s shooting arm, and also joined an all-female group of villains calling themselves the “Femizons.”
As for the other Death-Throws, they include Nick Grossman, a.k.a. Knickknack, who favors juggling swords, knives, clubs, and axes; Alvin Healey, a.k.a. Tenpin, who arms himself with bowling pins; Throwdown, the newest member of the group who dresses like Uncle Sam; and Charles Last, a.k.a. Ringleader, the leader of the group who favors metal rings. They also recruited a new member calling herself Throwdown. If, save Grills, the LARPers are the MCU version of the Death-Throws, then it’s very probable that Missy (Adelle Drahos) is the MCU equivalent of one of these four.
Also, I do find it quite amusing that the LARPers may end up being the ones who will make Clint’s classic Hawkeye costume. Though they could always borrow the one from the their fellow LARPer who dressed like the comic book Hawkeye if they really wanted to be lazy.
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…
Who does that Rolex belong to?
Between all the ruckus cased with the Tracksuits mistaking Kate for Ronin, Clint trying to get the Ronin suit back, the murder of Jack Duquesne’s uncle Armand, whatever is really going on with Eleanor Bishop, and two women trying to kill Clint for two different reasons, is the reason for why this whole mess started. That reason is that the Tracksuits tried to steal from the secret auction a seemingly simple Rolex wristwatch.
Considering that the Rolex was among the other possessions found at the destroyed Avengers compound, it had some connection to one of them. Well, it seems as if Hawkeye knows who the Rolex belongs to, telling Kate that it “Belongs to someone [he] used to work with.” The natural assumption he’s talking about a fellow Avenger. But when Kate presses about it further, Clint adds, “They’ve been out of the game for a long time, but their identity is still attached to [it].” He also stresses that if the wrong person gets their hands on this watch, then his friend’s cover gets blown.
Note that the way Clint talks about this person, he seems particularly close to them. Note, too, that Clint is using the present tense, which means the person he’s talking about is still alive. That eliminates Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff right off the bat. It also rules out Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and definitely Thor as all of them have very public identities. So if Clint isn’t talking about an Avenger, he’s likely talking about a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. That certainly leaves out Nick Fury and Maria Hill as they’re very much still “in the game.”
But there’s one other possibility that we may have been overlooking: Clint’s wife, Laura (Linda Cardellini). After all, she’s the one who texted Clint that the watch wasn’t destroyed and that it’s still acting as a location beacon. How would she know about that? And why would she be concerned about this watch anyway? Moreover, the episode reveals that she’s multilingual – which would be quite an asset for an undercover operative – speaking German so as her kids wouldn’t overhear about the watch. Clint even texted her to run a background check on Duquesne’s shell company, Sloan LTD. Come to think of it, Laura’s always been comfortable with the idea of being married to a secret agent turned superhero, hasn’t she? And she definitely treated Natasha like a member of the Barton family, too.
All of this suggests that Laura is more than a mere housewife, And if the Rolex belongs to her, then Laura may not even her real name. So what if she’s actually the MCU version Bobbi Morse, codenamed Mockingbird? Yes, technically there’s already a Bobbi Morse in the MCU who starred in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., who had been married to someone else and had no ties to Clint Barton whatsoever. Then again, it’s questionable whether Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is even part of the official canon of the MCU. Thus it’s likely that Hawkeye could pull a retcon and reveal that Laura Barton is the real Bobbi Morse, instead.
But even if Laura isn’t, the odds that she’s a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent turned homemaker is very high. And we will very likely will find out more about her mysterious past, along with her husband’s, either next episode or in the finale. One thing for certain: if Clint doesn’t take care of things soon, the Barton household could wind up having a few uninvited guests for Christmas.
Any other potential clues or Easter Eggs that we overlooked in episode four of Hawkeye? Let us know what they are, and what you think they mean, down in the comments section.