A table-setting Hawkeye serves up quite the stinger

Screenshot: Hawkeye/Disney+

Emotionally, “Partners, Am I Right?” fulfills a crucial role in Hawkeye’s first season. This is the episode that ups Kate and Clint’s friendship, forces him to reevaluate the trauma of potentially losing her, and then has him decide to cut ties so that it will be even more meaningful when they inevitably come back together again in the final two episodes. On paper, it’s a perfectly logical thing for the season to be doing at this point. In practice, however, it’s missing some of the spark of the past few episodes. “Partners, Am I Right?” isn’t bad, exactly. Hawkeye has a base level of competence that keeps this show very watchable. It just feels like it’s going through the table-setting motions rather than fully putting its heart into it. But, hey, it does give us another (brief) glimpse of Florence Pugh’s Yelena, and that’s fun!

It’s a reveal that will play best for those who saw the Black Widow movie, but didn’t happen to see the casting news that Pugh would be appearing in this series. (The Black Widow post-credits scene shows Natasha’s adoptive sister/fellow Black Widow being steered towards a revenge mission against Hawkeye.) For everyone else, it’ll either lack a little surprise, because they knew this was coming; or lack a sense of payoff, because they don’t know who she is. Still, I suppose that’s always a risk Marvel runs with its expansive, multi-pronged universe.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to see where Yelena goes from here, and I’ll be spending the rest of the day living off the thrill of seeing Emily Dickinson square off against Amy March in a rooftop brawl. But the actual mechanics of the Yelena reveal also speak to a certain clunkiness that characterizes this episode as a whole. Black Widow assassins pretty famously don’t wear masks (well, expect for those high-tech identity-changing ones). So the fact that Yelena spends most of her fight with Clint looking like Night Monkey is a moment the episode sacrifices some of the MCU’s worldbuilding in favor of delivering a big reveal, which can’t help but feel just a touch lazy.

There’s weirdness like that all over this episode. Clint and Kate are shocked when their quest for that stolen Rolex leads them to Maya’s apartment, even though it seems pretty reasonable to assume it was in the hands of someone from the Tracksuit Mafia. (Or to do literally any kind of recon before breaking in?) Elsewhere, the whole subplot with Kate befriending the LARPers in order to find a cop willing to retrieve the rest of Clint’s trick arrows from an NYPD evidence locker is a needlessly complicated detour that I’m not sure even makes much sense. Just walking up and announcing she’s friends with Hawkeye is enough to get them totally onboard with evidence tampering? And somehow the “trade” she offers involves them making her two new costumes?

Those are small enough details that they probably wouldn’t bother me in an episode that either dazzled me with style or fully hit me emotionally, but “Partners, Am I Right?” doesn’t quite manage to do either. Action-wise, it seems like the impressive chase sequence from last week is more of a one-off than a new standard for the series. And while Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld are talented enough to make the material they’re given work, none of the weightier scenes quite hit the highs of Clint’s devastating phone call with his son from last week.

Still, I have to give Hawkeye major credit for the fact that it’s finally making Natasha’s death feel meaningful in a way nothing else in the MCU really has—not even her own goddamn movie. Ever since the first Avengers, I’ve found Nat and Clint’s friendship to be one of the most emotionally moving parts of the Marvel universe, and it’s lovely to see it treated so seriously here. Clint’s joy at getting his family back doesn’t negate the grief and guilt he feels over losing his best friend. Watching Kate take a tumble off a roof brings Clint back to the moment he lost Nat on Vormir in Avengers: Endgame. There, Natasha pulled free from his grasp to nobly sacrifice herself. Here, Clint cuts Kate’s rope in hopes of saving her from ever having to make that kind of choice.

The later moment where Clint pushes Kate away by telling her they were never really partners is classic grizzled hero stuff, but it makes complete sense for the character and Renner plays it perfectly. Where this episode stumbles a bit is in giving Kate’s perspective the same amount of depth. The central idea here is that despite her outward confidence and constant teasing, Kate idolizes Clint to a degree that potentially prohibits a truly equal partnership, at least for now. The power imbalance is too big, and Kate’s inherit, maybe even unconscious belief that her favorite Avenger is always going to be there to save the day is going to get her into trouble when she leaps into danger assuming Clint will have her back no matter what.

It’s a theme that’s actually drilled home by Kate’s mom Eleanor in a couple of offscreen lines of dialogue. “Obsessed, completely obsessed with Clint Barton, ever since the attack,” Eleanor tells Jack (weirdly, right in front of Kate). But I think “Partners, Am I Right?” needed to find a more active way to dramatize that thread from Kate’s perspective too. Her impromptu holiday celebration with Clint is incredibly sweet, but the moment she confirms that he’s Ronin feels like it should be a bigger deal—either as a moment where her image of her idol is challenged, or, more unnervingly, a moment where she becomes instantly willing to justify murder because she’s so onboard with everything Clint does.

The latter is sort of what the episode goes for. Kate refuses to accept Clint’s distinction that there’s a difference between hurting people and protecting them; that he’s a weapon, not a hero. I just think the episode could’ve kicked that idea up a notch, especially since the ending requires we find emotional resonance in a separation we know is only ever going to be temporary. Or maybe the real solution is that those more meandering first two episodes should’ve been condensed into one, and the emotional drama of “Partners, Am I Right?” should’ve come a little earlier in the season.

If those are nitpicky critiques, it’s only because I think the show can hold up to them. There’s still a ton to like about this supremely watchable hour, especially in the melancholy of Renner’s performance. And, on the whole, I’m still finding Hawkeye to be a breath of fresh air among these Disney+ shows. What’s off here is only by a matter of degrees, and that’s hopefully something that a show about two master marksmen should be able to course correct in its final two episodes.

Stray observations

• I enjoyed how quickly last week’s dramatic cliffhanger became this week’s awkward family hang out.
• Two great Renner deliveries: The moment Clint refuses to give Kazi his gun back, and his completely neutral “okay” in response to Grills announcing the snickerdoodles are still warm.
• So what do you want to bet that the person whose secret identity is tied to that vintage Rolex is Clint’s wife Laura? Make Linda Cardellini a superhero, you cowards!!
• It wasn’t until Clint refused to answer Eleanor’s question about whether or not he has kids that I remembered his family is supposed to be a massive secret he hid from even his close colleagues. Weird that he was just openly wandering around New York City with his kids in the premiere then…
• Another clunky storytelling choice: Having Laura make that cryptic phone call to Clint right in front of their kids when she could’ve just walked into literally any other room in their house.
• I truly lol’d at Kate’s aunt owning a “Thanos was right” mug.
• Which is going to have a bigger payoff: Clint’s quarter trick, or the fact that Jack “CEO of Tracksuit Mafia” Duquesne regularly mixes up aphorisms?
• Please, will someone feed that dog something other than pizza and Chex Mix?!? I’m starting to get worried.