Overall, Hawkeye is my favorite of the MCU shows. Probably at the top of all of MCU content. Perhaps it may just be that my expectations were low considering the other MCU shows, and this one being about ... well, it's Hawkeye, right? "The lame Avenger"??
But man, this show was what I thought all the other MCU shows were going to be about. Spending time with these characters and getting to understand them. All the other shows didn't hit the mark for one reason or another. And in fairness, I think the premise of this show is lower stakes, so maybe it didn't have as big of shoes to fill. But either way, it achieved what it set out to do.
There were three key scenes for me that really stuck out in this show, that really sort of encapsulate what was going on, or what this show was about
- Hawkeye adjusting his hearing aid, while reliving all those battles he was in, with the explosions, hence his hearing loss
- The scenes of him relaxing, adjusting the ice packs
- Kate's speech to him, explaining why she looks up to him, why she's following in his footsteps
Overall, it legitimized Hawkeye and Kate Bishop. Speaking of, I only had a tangential understanding of who Hailee Steinfeld was. I thought she was sort on the Ariana Grande/Demi Lovato tier, like former Disney star/singer turned actress, so I was surprised by what I thought were moments of brilliance in her performance. But then I realized she was the one who had her fist big starring role in True Grit, and even back then she was earning accolades for holding her own with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, so then I was kinda like "oh yeah, she
is actually very good at her job, they didn't just hire her because she was the next, young, popular female star"