As the 4th episode of Hawkeye begins, Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) is held at sword point by Jack Duquesne (Tony Dalton). Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) comes rushing to his aid before Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) enters and is surprised to have an Avenger in her home. Jack removes the sword from Clint’s throat when he recognizes him as Archer although Kate quickly corrects him by saying Hawkeye. They sit down at the dinner table so Kate can explain her relationship with Clint to her mother. Although Kate calls them friends and partners, Clint denies both. Eleanor learns about Kate logging into her work account. Kate denies having anything to do with it though. While Jack thanks Clint for saving the world, Eleanor demands that Kate begin telling her the truth.

Kate confesses that she logged into her account to research an actual case. While Clint admits it sounds weird, he confirms they’re working on a case together. Clint looks at the sword nearby before Eleanor offers to see him out. Once Clint grabs his coat and they head for the door, Eleanor says she is worried about her daughter because Clint has seen people die before. Clint responds that he can’t drop the case, but he will make sure her daughter stays safe. When Clint leaves, he contacts Laura (Linda Cardellini) to get her to research Sloan LTD for him. We also see that he took Ronin’s sword. Eleanor calls someone and asks them to call her back because it is urgent. Clint gets a call from Laura who confirms the Tracksuits are involved in Sloan Limited and Jack Duquesne is the CEO of the company. Clint breaks the news that he won’t be able to leave yet.

Laura asks whether the Tracksuits stole the Rolex although Clint thought it was destroyed years ago. She agrees to check the signal through the transmitted. When the call ends, Laura lets the kids know that their father is going to be away for a bit longer. Meanwhile, Kate listens to her mother talk about her being obsessed with Hawkeye. When Jack gets up and goes for a drink, Kate tells her mother she wants to talk to her about him. Eleanor changes the subject because she doesn’t want to hear it. Jack returns and says there should be dancing at the party although Kate claims her mother doesn’t dance. They surprise her when Eleanor gets up and dances with Jack. They laugh at Jack before agreeing there is nothing worse than being alone for the holidays.

Clint takes his wife’s advice and begins icing his muscles. He is interrupted when Kate arrives with pizza. She has Dollar Tree bags and tells Clint this is the classic Hawkeye costume they’ve been waiting for. Since it is movie marathon night, she got movies they can watch and claims she is saving the holidays. Clint would rather talk about Jack since he believes Kate was right about him. She learns about Jack being the CEO of Sloan Limited. She believes they can come up with a plan to bring down his organization while celebrating the holidays. She goes for the slushy stuff while Clint puts on his ugly Christmas sweater. She says they need to get the cops off her back, get the Tracksuits to leave them alone, and find out how Jack is connected to everything. Then, they talk about the trick arrows that they’ll need to get back and the possibility of boomerang arrows.

While decorating the Christmas tree, they talk about Clint’s cool tricks. He believes he could knock someone out with one of the small decorations. When she admits she doesn’t believe him, Clint throws it and turns off the television with it. That changes her mind. Since Kate wants to learn how to do that, Clint begins teaching her. She finally gets it. Then, they sit down and Kate asks what is the best shot he ever took. He surprises her by saying it was the one he didn’t take although he won’t elaborate on that answer. He explains he was sent to take someone out, but when he got there he couldn’t do it. He felt she wanted a way out. He says he was right about Natasha who was the best there was. He says it is just part of it for people in his line of work before confirming he lost his family in the blip.

When he is asked if he is Ronin, he says everyone dealt with the blip in their own way and he just kept doing what he was trained to do. Although she says he was protecting people, Clint believes he was hurting people. He is here for that reason and he can’t go home until he fixes it. He thanks her for what she did today before encouraging her to get some rest because it is going to be a big day tomorrow. When Clint is alone, he remembers someone telling him that killing all those people won’t bring his family back. In the morning, Clint tells Kate that she needs to go to the LARPers to see if they can get their arrows back since they’re at a police lockup. He is going to spend the day talking to their friend Kazi. She immediately goes to the LARPers and tells them what she needs.

Officer Wendy Conrad (Adetinpo Thomas) introduces herself and learns that they need her to get Hawkeye’s trick arrows from the NYPD facility near the Manhattan Bridge. Wendy and Grills (Clayton English) agree that she can help them out if they wake it worth their while. Meanwhile, Kazi (Fra Fee) is ambushed by Clint when he gets into his vehicle. He finds his knife and gun missing. Clint says he needs to get out of the city so he needs to put the Ronin situation to bed first. He believes Kazi can help because he knows the operation better than anyone and what Maya’s boss wants. Clint says he doesn’t want anyone else to die and Maya’s need for revenge is going to get her killed. He argues that she is chasing a ghost and he believes Kazi is the only one who can convince her of that. When Clint returns to the apartment, he finds Kate hanging out with the LARPers.

Kate tries on one of their costumes which she likes. Grills comes up with a plan to get them the arrows in exchange for materials for a new costume. Kate says they can get enough materials to make the costumes plus two more because Clint needs help with his. Wendy arrives with the arrows. They promise to give the bag back to her before they leave in a hurry. They go onto a rooftop nearby so Clint can try to get the Rolex back after his wife sent him its coordinates. He gives her advice for planning a quick exit instead of a quick entrance. While he is talking, Kate walks up to the building and helps an older man with his groceries to get inside of the building. She eventually finds the room in question and picks the lock before entering. When she enters, she finds red alarms and quickly disabled them. Clint tells her that the person who is attached to the watch has been out of the game for a long time.

She finds the Rolex before finding a notebook with information about Clint and his family on it. Clint tells her to get out of there now because the light was a silent alarm for people who can’t hear. He is attacked by someone after telling her the apartment belongs to Maya (Alaqua Cox). Maya enters and attacks Kate. Clint deploys a zipline so Kate can escape the apartment although she gets stuck in the middle of the line. She eventually makes it to the other side and winds up at gunpoint. She runs and knocks the gun away to ensure they don’t get shot. They fight with Maya and a masked person until Kate is thrown from the roof. Clint believes she is a goner but the rope held her up. She asks him to pull her up, but he cuts the rope and tells her to go.

She returns to the rooftop and uses a stun arrow of sorts to stop the fight. She gets hit by Maya before shooting her in the shoulder with an arrow. Maya contemplates her options and makes a run for it. Clint pulls off the mask the other person is wearing and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) stuns him. Kate threatens to shoot her with an arrow, but Yelena throws down a rope and jumps from the building. Clint tells Kate she doesn’t want to know who that is although she says they can’t be partners unless he tells her what is going on. He reminds her that they were never parents. Then, he reveals someone has hired the black widow assassin so this has gotten real very quickly. Clint doesn’t want her involved and encourages her to go home.

Hawkeye Review

Although Hawkeye has gotten better in recent episodes, it still doesn’t feel right and the dialogue is a bit cringey. The scenes early in the episode were just odd because there doesn’t seem to be any real connection between Kate, her mother, or Jack. It doesn’t even feel like Eleanor is her mother at times and that can likely be blamed on the bad dialogue.

If anything stands out in Hawkeye, it has to be the relationship between Kate and Clint. While it is silly at times, it is also charming. Finally, some of the action scenes are a bit blurry and difficult to interpret. Regardless, Hawkeye is a fun show that younger people will likely enjoy. The episode was okay so I’ll give it a 6.5 or 7 out of 10. All Hawkeye recaps will be available on Reel mockery here.