Hawkeye: What’s hidden in plain sight in episode 6

The New York Holiday Gala

Now the main plot for “So This is Christmas?” is that Clint and Kate, having heard that Eleanor wants out of her arrangement with Fisk – and knowing full well that Fisk won’t take that lying down – decide to infiltrate, along with the NY LARPing guild, Eleanor’s Christmas Eve party overlooking Rockefeller Center. Sure enough, Kingpin hires Kazi (Fra Fee) to gun down Eleanor, and the situation becomes even more complicated when Yelena arrives to try and finish the job of killing Clint. Much like the car chase from episode 3, this plot also pays homage to the Matt Fraction Hawkeye comic.

Of course, the plot from that particular issue (Hawkeye Vol. 4 #2) couldn’t be more different. Instead of a fancy Christmas Eve party, it’s the grand opening of a upscale “6-star” hotel. In attendance are not only New York’s elite, but all of the major figures in organized crime, including Wilson Fisk. Also in attendance is the Circus of Crime, who have rebranded themselves as a spin-off of Cirque du Soleil. One of the performers also happens to be a protégé of Clint’s former teacher, the Swordsman, and the Circus of Crime is attempting to rob all the attendees at the grand opening.

Another attendee at the opening in this comic is one Whitney Frost, a.k.a. Madame Masque. One of the leaders of the Maggia crime family, and former lover-turned-enemy of Tony Stark, Madame Masque, as the name implies, hides her face behind a gold-plated expressionless mask. She also, it turns out, has a connection with Kate. In comics, it wasn’t Kate’s mother who was indebted to organized crime but rather her father. And the mob boss her dad was partnered with wasn’t the Kingpin but Madame Masque. Furthermore, Kate once disguised herself as Madame Masque in order to procure a security tape that showed Clint’s assassination of a despotic dictator, which was being auctioned off to various criminals in Madripoor.