Hawkeye Episode 3 Review: King of Echoes

Hawkeye’s third episode is one of the best pieces in the MCU machine and really excelled the character development in the show.

We’re not at the halfway point of Hawkeye, 3 episodes in leaving only 3 to go, which gives us more of a backstory into the past of Maya Lopez/Echo as well as seeing the relationship between Clint and Kate develop. The episode titled “King of Echoes” focuses on the narrative between both Maya and Kazi who are leading the Tracksuit Mafia’s operation in New York, while on the other side of the coin we’re seeing the bond between Clint and Kate develop even to a point of them fighting side by side in an explosive action sequence, which showed that Clint was starting to see Kate as more of an ally than a babysitting job. The episode itself was brilliant and one of the best segments of the MCU TV we’ve had so far. It really showed that the two archers are a perfect team. As we have Clint who has some troubling psychological issues with his troubled past goes hand in hand with Kate’s upbeat persona who is both kind and also determined to do what needs to be done. When you add into Echo’s character as well, you really do feel for her and understand why she wants to track down Ronin.

WARNING!! THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR HAWKEYE EPISODE 3!! DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU’VE WATCHED THE EPISODE!!!

With the introduction of Maya Lopez/Echo at the end of episode 2, I had a feeling we’ve be given some flashback segments in this episode focusing on Maya’s past and how her story led her to where we find her in the present day. The episode takes us back to 2007 in the Maya flashbacks, showing her as a young child that struggled with school and showed how some words from her father helped her to keep going, proving that she wasn’t a quitter. We see her becoming a strong kid, both with her natural abilities as well as the new skills she picks up from martial arts training. During the flashbacks, Maya even asks her father, William, why she wasn’t going to a specialist school for deaf children with his response being that this would be better for her in the long run, mentioning how “you will heave to learn to jump between two worlds”. Now being in the MCU, this can be taken figuratively and literally. By the end of the episode, I felt like there were hints that this “other world” could be that of the Daredevil Netflix series as in the comics, Echo was from that corner of the Marvel universe.

We see a few instances of Echo being in martial arts training and in the second occurrence, her father mentions that her uncle will take her home after training. Not to read too much into it, but you could argue that this was a tease for the Kingpin. We never see his face in the episode and no sighting of Vincent D’Onofrio but Marvel are definitely putting things in motion to connect the ever growing universe. We see that Maya has a prosthetic leg but it doesn’t slow her fighting ability down, she shows how she is a very talented fighter which leading up to the present will show how she is a force to be feared. The flashbacks do lead up to events in the present, which explains why she has it out for Ronin.

The next thing we see if what happened to Echo that led to her having this vendetta against Ronin and why she wants revenge on him. We see a scene during the flashbacks in which we see William being murdered by Clint during his time as Ronin, when he was just enraged during the 5 years where the Thanos snap happened. He went to the warehouse to completely annihilate the Tracksuit Mafia which answers the question why Echo was after both Client and Kate. She wants revenge on Ronin for killing her father, leading us up to the events in the present.

Now we understand what has led Echo to where she is now, it’s safe to say that Hawkeye is hitting us with the emotional complexity for these characters and on some level, we sympathise with each of them and can see reasoning in the justification of their actions. We know that Clint did far more good as Hawkeye than his brief stint as Ronin, but unfortunately the actions of his killing spree during those give years are coming back to haunt him. Even though he took down a vast majority of criminal elements, he’s realising that what he did wasn’t justifiable by any cause and now he’s having to deal with the consequences of what he did during Avengers Endgame.

Clint is one of the OG Avengers and with half of the original lineup gone in the MCU, I’d have to see another founding member killed off especially as Jeremy Renner has been an integral part of the MCU. Over the past 10 years, his character has developed and shown that he is one of the heroes that is the glue and will fight when he feels it’s needed and wouldn’t just suit up for the sake of it. I think this show is just a culmination of everything Hawkeye has gone through and we’re seeing him realise that maybe he shouldn’t be in the hero line up work anymore. One thing that’s becoming clear though is the truth about him being Ronin is going to come out at some point, further endangering him and possibly Kate as well. There was instances during the episode where Kate came close to suspect the identity of Ronin and he came close to telling her at one point but I think inevitably he will tell Kate or it will get exposed one way or another. I picked up that during the episode whenever Ronin is mentioned, you just see Clint filled with this tremendous amount of guilt for what he did as Ronin and on some way, wishes he probably could take it back. It’s like Clint has a triple identity crisis happening at this point in the MCU. One on hand, he’s Clint Barton, then there’s the heroics he undertook as Hawkeye as one of the Avengers heroes and finally we have the Ronin persona. You can see the toll his past has taken on him both physically and mentally, with the loss of Natasha being that gut wrenching blow, so these last 3 episodes will be a test for him.

I thought that the car sequence where Clint and Kate are trying to escape the Tracksuit Mafia was brilliant and exactly the kind of action you would hope from a Marvel project. It was cool to see Clint handing the rains to Kate, teaching her while trying to escape with their lives intact. I loved the sequence and I give props to both Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld as I thought they were brilliant in this action set piece. The way Clint was teaching her what arrows to use and ways in which to shoot them really was this mentor/student type moment and was cool to see them feed off of each other. I felt that Kate really held her own and eventually could take up the mantle of Hawkeye and think the character would be in great hands with Hailee Steinfeld.

With this episode, we’re halfway through the Hawkeye series and I’m hoping that some of the unexplained sub plots get looked into like what has been happening with the Avengers and how the compound is not in use for the sounds of it and also with Kate’s investigation into Jack so I’m hoping these get expanded on and fleshed out in the closing part of the show.

Overall, I thought that “King of Echoes” was a brilliant episode and one of the finest segments of MCU TV in the Disney+ shows. It had everything from the action, to character development to further developing the story to an interesting point. It’s safe to say that we’re getting closer to the identity of Ronin being revealed, teases that this “uncle” could be the Kingpin coming into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the theme that you should never meet your heroes as they may not live up to expectations. Hawkeye has been brilliant so far, it’s been a nice change of pace in the MCU and has been really surprising to watch. I’m really looking forward to seeing the second half of the series but also worried on what the future could hold for Clint Barton.