‘Hawkeye’ – ‘Never Meet Your Heroes’ & ‘Hide and Seek’


Even in middle-age, I’m still finding stuff out about myself… Like the fact that a mixture of Christmas music, fights and archery moments will get me really hyped up for Marvel’s latest mini-series, ‘Hawkeye’. They’ve been drip feeding the trailers for a few weeks now and I’ve just been getting more and more excited, which is kind of weird as Hawkeye is ok but he isn’t exactly my favourite Avenger (it’s Steve Rogers, of course it is, although I do have a soft spot for Ant-Man as well). Oh well, here we are now and Disney+ have been kind enough to kick things off with two episodes at once; I suspect that’s so they can get the finale as close to Christmas Day as possible but I’m not complaining, yesterday was a killer and a double dose of ‘Hawkeye’ was just what the Doctor ordered for the evening… 😊

Before we get started, I’m aiming for no spoilers in this post; it’s more about first impressions here rather than detailed plot discussion. If you’re after a recap of the plot, so far, then Tor.com do a pretty good line in recaps, click Here to read theirs. If you’re still here let’s get to talking about ‘Hawkeye’, shall we?

So… If these first two episodes are anything to go by, I think we’re looking at another winner here. What we get in ‘Never Meet Your Heroes’ and ‘Hide and Seek’ is a well balanced mix of mystery, action, character introduction and a surprise Depeche Mode song right at the end of it. The Depeche Mode song isn’t really relevant to the plot but I love Depeche Mode so ended up doubly impressed by ‘Hawkeye’ at that point 😊

And back to the actual plot…

I did wonder if ‘Hawkeye’ is being set up too obviously as a ‘passing the baton’ show (which is ok in itself but if you set something up too early then you lose a lot of the point in following it) but when you see how much is going on here, it almost doesn’t matter as ‘Hawkeye’ is shaping up to be a show that’s more about the journey rather than the destination. The destination is important but, you know what I mean 😉 The first part of ‘Never Meet Your Heroes’ is all about introducing us to Kate Bishop so yep, definitely a journey here. I’ve got a soft spot for origin stories and this one really hit the spot. You can really see exactly why Kate follows the path she does and how it leaves her when we hit the ‘present day’, wanting to do the right thing (protecting her Mum) but with an attitude that gets her into more trouble than it solves. And then we have Hawkeye who is nearing the end of his journey; seeing his dead best friend reduced to a bit part, in a Broadway musical, his body slowly giving up and really just wanting to be with his children now. Pushing him and Kate together, solving different mysteries that seem to be dovetailing, works not only in terms of the plot but also watching two very different characters bounce off each other. Well, Kate bounces off Hawkeye (with all the ‘starstruckness’ that you’d expect) while Hawkeye makes it pretty clear that he’s not planning on bouncing off anyone at all. You know that’s all going to change though 😉 Hailee Steinfeld is already looking brilliant in the role with just the right mix of belief in her own abilities tempered by the realisation that she might just be in over her head. I’m not sure if Jeremy Renner is actually world weary at this point or if he’s just really good at looking like it. Either way, I think he nails what Hawkeye is all about at this point in his career.

It pretty much goes without saying then that I’m into ‘Hawkeye’ for the long haul (which does sound weird, there are only four more episodes left now). It’s brimming with potential for fun and there are a couple of mysteries that are boiling up nicely…

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