In my Freshman Year of college, I had two posters in my dorm room. One was a movie poster of The Bourne Legacy and the other was of Hawkeye from The Avengers. If you couldn’t tell, I had a crush on Jeremy Renner at the time. Hawkeye was one of the Marvel characters in the film franchise where he was forgotten about at times. He appeared in the various Avengers films, but didn’t get the same spinoff treatment as the other characters did. It’s a shame because I felt there was a lot more to explore with his character. It’s a surprise to me that it’s taken me this long to watch Hawkeye considering how big of a fan I am of Hawkeye as a character. Watching Hawkeye was the perfect way to kick off the holiday season.

Kate Bishop (played by Hailee Steinfeld) witnesses the attack on New York which put The Avengers on the map. She sees Clint Barton (played by Jeremy Renner) falling off a building and grappling himself to safety. Since then, Kate is determined to never feel helpless again and decides to take archery lessons. Flash forward to the present, Kate is in college and gets in trouble after destroying a clock tower. She comes home for the holiday break and is forced by her mother to attend a charity event. Kate investigates a secret auction which puts her in a perilous position. She’s saved by Clint, who has taken his kids to New York for the holiday. Clint realizes that Kate is in way over her head and agrees to help her investigate further.

As someone who read Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye comic run, it’s clear this series takes inspiration from the comics. There’s the appearance of Lucky, the dog Kate Bishop runs into, who becomes a close companion throughout the episodes. The way that Hawkeye and Kate Bishop’s costumes look which were designed by LARPers. As a comics fan, I love how this felt like an adaptation of Matt Fraction’s series.

I thought Kate and Clint had a good working partnership together. Kate is similar to Kamala as she’s been a big Hawkeye fan. Clint, from his experience with S.H.I.E.L.D., is professional and is wanting to wrap this up as quickly as possible, so he can spend the holidays with his kids. For only six episodes, I thought Kate developed a lot as a character. In the first episode, she’s naive, immature, and spoiled. She doesn’t realize that Clint is giving up the potential to see his kids on Christmas to help her. I do think Kate comes around and is grateful for Clint’s help along with taking her role more seriously.

Can we also talk about the LARPing? I loved how Clint and Kate ended up teaming up with the local LARPing group and how they ended up designing their costumes. Also when Clint needs to retrieve his suit, he shows up to claim the suit at a LARPing event. How fun! I thought it was cool to see them team up together in the final episode.

If all of that wasn’t enough, the guest appearances were top notch. For not watching Hawkeye for two years, it was not at all spoiled that Wilson Fisk (played by Vincent D’Onofrio) would make an appearance. I was shocked in the best possible way. I am a big fan of the Marvel Netflix shows and Wilson Fisk was a standout. I liked how this was tied into Kate’s mom. Besides Fisk, I liked Kate’s banter with Yelena Belova (played by Florence Pugh). I knew that Yelena would appear in Hawkeye which I thought tied into Clint’s backstory. With Yelena discovering the death of Natasha and how she blames Clint for it. Clint, accepting Natasha’s death and how he couldn’t have prevented it. I thought it all came together nicely in the end with both Yelena and Clint accepting Natasha’s death and learning to let it all go.

Hawkeye, in my opinion, did justice for Clint Barton along with tying up various story elements from the other films. I would love to see more of Yelena, Kate, and Clint working together. I hope this isn’t Jeremy Renner’s last portrayal of the character.