Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the cosmic circle this is the official podcast for thecosmiccircus.com where the site's writers get together to chat about comic book, Sci-Fi and fantasy films and TV series.
This week we'll be talking about the premiere of the latest MCU Disney Plus series, Hawkeye. I'm Uday Kataria, writer for the Cosmic Circus, and joining me today are my fellow writers Isla and Brian. How's everyone doing today?
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Pretty good. Hi, I'm Isla. It's my first time on the Cosmic Circle podcast and happy to be here.
[00:00:49] Speaker C: Hey there. It's Brian. Great to be back.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: So this Thanksgiving, Marvel gave us two awesome episodes of TV and added a pretty cool new character to the franchise we all know and love. What did you guys think of Hawkeye's double premiere? Brian, do you want to get us started?
[00:01:04] Speaker C: Absolutely. I was very excited for Hawkeye going into the you know, the show has been branded as a Christmas show. It definitely feels like that family friendly adventure that we're all kind of looking for for many reasons. When Hawkeye was announced, I was super excited for the show, mostly for the introduction of Kate Bishop, but also just to see Clint Barton again, who has been an excellent avenger up to this point and just to hear all around. So I was very excited for the show to drop, and it was even better to finally get to see that first two episodes and experience it with my family and friends.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I was also pretty excited about it. I love the whole Christmas theme, and it's just been really fun. Mostly I was excited about it for actually Haley Steinfeld, and I hope I'm not saying her last name wrong, but I saw her in Dickinson recently and she was just amazing and was such a great actress. So I really was excited to see what she brought to Hawkeye as Kate Bishop, and I'm excited to talk about it.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I definitely agree. I was super excited that Haley Steinfeld was cast. I was like, just waiting for so long. I was really worried when it seemed like she wouldn't be cast. But one thing I will say right off the bat is I'm not a fan of Christmas media. I've got nothing against the holiday love Christmas, love Christmas time, but I'm just not the biggest fan of Christmas movies and TV shows. So when the trailers and stuff for Hawkeye started coming out, all of the excitement was sucked out of the room for me. With each new TV spot we got, I got less and less excited. But I actually really enjoyed the first two episodes. So that's kind of what I wanted to ask you guys about. What do you think about the whole vibe of the show? Like, not just the Christmas theme, but know, kind of the fact that they're more street level than even something like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, where we're just dealing with the mob and criminal conspiracies.
[00:03:00] Speaker C: I wrote a whole series of articles about kind of the standing of the MCU from phase four on and kind of where things went. And this definitely initially was the one I was banking on for street level, know, kind of like that Daredevil feel, but without the violence or the maturity that Daredevil and Jessica Jones and all those had. And so I wasn't disappointed by this. I liked that we kind of got the more nitty gritty, like a closer feel to the ground, but still feels very Marvel Studios MCU esque. I wasn't disappointed in that aspect. I will say that it feels like they are maybe playing a little bit too much into the Christmas vibe, but I don't think that that is going to necessarily take away from the show. I think that's actually just going to continue adding that pressure know, Clint getting back home in time. But no, the whole vibe. I like the street level. I like the closer to Daredevil we're getting without that mature esque feel.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: I agree that, know, feels a little bit more geared towards, I guess, family audiences and that it's not as gritty as a Jones or, or even really I love the I love, you know, New York in the winter. And I'm digging that style. I think the ticking clock where they've got six days to will he or will he not get home to Christmas is really fun. So I'm enjoying that.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: I definitely agree. I think that out of all the shows we've had so far, this definitely feels the closest to the Netflix ones already. And to me, that's a very good thing. I loved the Netflix shows. They definitely had their problems at like I obviously like that Hawkeye is more polished. I like that it's higher budget. I like that it's more connected to the franchise than any of those shows ever were. But it wasn't until I watched the first episode that I was like, yeah, I've been missing this. I've been craving those street level New York vibes. And it just made me really happy that we're finally getting it from Marvel Studios.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Yeah, you mentioned the budget and I think it's amazing what you can do with $25 million for an episode of TV. I think that was what they said each episode cost, or it was rumored to have cost.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Yeah, you can definitely tell even just like the way it's filmed, right, versus something like Daredevil, it really does make it feel like prestige TV. And I think that's really awesome. But I wanted to ask you guys what you thought of Kate Bishop. Because for me, I was really, really surprised that the first episode focused so much on her and only had like a couple of scenes with Clint.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: I love Kate Bishop back when they announced know, me and everybody else in the world, as soon as they were know, we're going to bring Kate bishop into this. I was so excited because I wanted Haley Steinfeld, obviously also that this was Kate's, such an interesting character. One of the lines that her mom says really kind of sums her up perfectly. Know kids think they're invincible and rich people think they're invincible. And unfortunately, you've been like, this is someone who's kind of had a lot of given to her life and she still wants to be the hero and still doesn't mind getting dirty and into things. And I think that Haley Stanfeld did a really good job of translating her to screen. Just the lines, the way that they're delivered and the snarkiness, it kind of gave me like a Veronica Mars kind of feel of just someone who's living moment to moment but trying to survive in a way that in a world that she doesn't quite feel like she fits into in different ways. And I don't know, I thought that Kevin K. Bishop is finally like this huge turning point in the second generation of heroes that we're finally going to start seeing kind of unfold throughout the next couple of projects.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: I think that's a really great point that you bring up, that she's part of this whole second generation of heroes and we kind of see her own fandom of Hawkeye in this show. And I think that's really shown really well in the CVS scene. I guess it's a CVS. It's a pharmacy scene where they're getting supplies and she's like super excited and think they're going to do trick arrows or something like that. But no, it's just the day to day superhero stuff. As far as Kate, overall, she's a lot of fun. And I think there's one part, I guess, of the pilot that really shows so much about her character and it's her mom and her discussing this clock tower, stain Tower, by the way, having been busted. And her mom says part of the way that she can make it up to her is by wearing this red dress to this charity auction. And we see Kate a little bit later at this charity auction, which turns into the black market auction. And she's in this tuxedo. And it explains so much about who Kate is as a person that even though she's in the red with her mom, she's still not going to do exactly what she wants. And it says so much about Kate's relationship with her mom.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: I agree. I really loved that touch in particular. Also, going back to the comment about Stain Tower, I was rewatching like half of the first episode today. And I also noticed that and I was like, is that really an obadiah Stain reference in 2021 in the MCU? So I thought that was really funny. But yeah, I think that Haley Steinfeld is just doing such a great job with Kate. She's so instantly likable.
She is that character. The casting for a lot of MCU characters is really great. But I feel like this is one of those super rare cases where it's just like ten out of ten. Perfect.
[00:08:19] Speaker C: Absolutely. And one of the things about Kate as a character, too, that I thought was very interesting to see this time around was kind of her origin story in a way of, like when she was a kid. Seeing hawkeye and being in the battle and how living in that penthouse felt like it fell, like it was a part of the battle. The aliens are going overhead, and she sees hawkeye. And up to this point, as the second generation of superheroes are kind of coming out, we haven't really seen this because all we really had is spiderman, and he was already established in a weird way as being a hero that's been going around, but she was 100% this inspired by hawkeye. And getting to see that kind of play out and seeing how that changed her whole trajectory of life, that could have been something entirely different. That beginning scene of the first episode probably very high up there on the list of scenes that are my all.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Time favorites, I think they handled it really well. I just started reading the comics, and it's very different than her origin story in the comics. And I think this gives her much more agency and being much more control of her own fate. Like, she sees hawkeye saving, essentially her from the Chitauri, and she decides, okay, this guy is a hero. He's got a bow. This is what it means to be a hero. I want to do that because it's going to help me protect my family.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I absolutely loved that opening scene. I had that on my notes to ask you guys about later, but, yeah, I definitely agree with you. Brian right up there with one of my favorite. It's just it's done so well. And yes, things like this, you can call them retcons if you want to, but to like, that's the beauty of having a franchise like the like where it's gone on for so long that nine years after the first Avengers movie came out, you can find out that little Kate Bishop was like watching Hawkeye jump off the roof in slow motion. Like when we were watching it too. And I just think that it was really awesome. And, yeah, I really loved the way that all of that was staged. Like, just the way that she was in that battle. It was great.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: The one thing about k bishop, though, I want to ask the two of you is it feels like the age drop a little bit compared to the comics. And I'm not 100% sure. It's been a while since I've read them. But being 22, do you feel that takes away from the young avengers feel of the second generation that's coming out? Or do you think that having her age up a little bit, be a leader is something that could add to the future.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: I can't really speak to that because I don't know very much about the ages of the young Avengers from the comics. So I'm going to sit this one out.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: I was going to say the same thing. I know I've seen a lot of people complain about it on Twitter. I'm not a big comics reader, especially not like Marvel comics as much. I'm much more like Archie comics. But from my understanding, I thought that Kate was kind of the leader of the young Avengers in the comics anyway. And honestly, I don't see an issue with her being 22. She's still young. She's still way younger than most other heroes. Most other MCU heroes are solidly in the 30 to 50 age range. So I think that her being 22 and being a leader, it seems like a good fit and I do like it if that's where they're going. The only thing that would give me pause is if say like Billy and Tommy from WandaVision aren't aged up for some reason. If they remain as ten year olds and we have like a 15 year old America Chavez and then we have a 22 year old Kate Bishop, then that seems like a weird team to me. But if everyone's like 1516 and she's 22, then I don't really see it as an issue.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: I wonder how the snap will play into any of that because based on the show so far, kate Bishop wasn't snapped. So she is, like you said, 22 and she's a college student and I don't know, I'm just curious what they will do with the other presumably young Avengers.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: So now, moving on to the guy that's supposed to be the star of the show, what did you guys think about Clint? Do you like the direction that they're taking him in this series? Because like I said, I was surprised that he had so little screen time in the first episode. And I'm not a Clint hater. He's not my favorite. I just don't really care about him, to be honest. So I wasn't complaining that he wasn't around, but it's not like I don't.
[00:12:21] Speaker C: Want to see know I wasn't upset with his screen time in the first episode. I am a big Clint Martin fan. He was one of my favorite back in Avengers and Thor, and I like that he wasn't second string, but he wasn't like one of the main Avengers that seemed to have their individual movies. And so I like that that was still true to who he was. He was still funny in the face of danger and the sense of responsibility that he has to fix up his messes and take care of his family and all of that was still there for me. So I didn't take away the fact that he didn't have a lot of screen time in the first episode. I think that it's a really cool concept of how do you deal with the repercussions of the life you lived when you thought everything was gone and now you have it back? That, to me, is going to be really cool to see out in the next four episodes.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: He also doesn't seem to be very comfortable with this fame that he know he's gone to see this Steve Rogers the Musical, and he turns off his hearing aid when the Black Widow dances across the stage. He's dealing with a lot of issues. He's got some sounds like he has some trauma there from when his family was gone. I think it's been super interesting seeing him more of this family role because that was a lot of the fun parts of, I think, Civil War, seeing him with his kids, seeing him just in this totally different, non superhero, normal person role.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: So on that note, I want to get back to the mention of Black Widow first about his trauma. I'm really excited to see the show explore more of his time as Ronin because I feel like it's not like Endgame had much time for it. But I really would have loved if they had spent maybe even like a know, maybe a minute more just examining what it means to Clint that that's who he that during that five year gap during the Blip. So I am excited to see that in the show, but honestly, because I have no idea what he did as Ronan. For me, the second episode kind of dragged I hesitate to call anything Filler, but the second episode felt a little bit like Filler to me because I loved his and Kate's banter, but he was so dead set on getting the suit back. And yeah, I get that you don't want people to know that you were this murderous know, because you're supposed to be like a celebrity. So I get that he doesn't want his identity out there, but he was so hyper fixated on getting the suit back, and then he had to jump through all those stupid hoops like at the Renaissance Fair, and I was just getting really bored with his plotline in the second episode.
[00:14:42] Speaker C: The LARPing scene was amazing. What are you talking about, Mel? I totally understand what you're talking about. There was a lot it did kind of feel like Filler. I think that was probably one of the best ways that they could have done the two part season opener. I guess I shouldn't say one of the best ways, but it makes sense that when the second episode was like that, to pair them together because you have this excitement building up, then you kind of have the slowdown that they were individual episodes in individual week. If you're not like a Marvel fan, you may have lost some people in that episode. But going back to his hearing aid, too, I just want to say that I thought it was amazing that they just kind of dropped that and it was normalized. This is kind of what he happened after his life as a superhero. And for fans of the fraction run, that was very important part of who Clint becomes. And I think that it was really cool that they just had it in there. He was able to turn off the play that was awesome and horrible at the same time. And I think that it was a nice little touch. Yeah, I agree.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: I also really liked how normalized it was. I remember reading a review before the episodes came out, and it did say that, oh, his hearing loss is explained away by saying that it's just an accumulation of his time as a superhero. And I was like, okay, I like that. But I was really surprised when it came up in the second episode and they just played like that quick montage of all the crap that he's gone through. I thought that they were going to take a second to sit down and explain it, but I'm kind of glad that they didn't because, yeah, after years of being like, can a human really just smash through a glass window like that with not a scratch? It's nice to see that there are some consequences to the superhero life, especially for a character like Clint, who's always been about getting out of the superhero life and just retiring and being with his family.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: And it's Know, he doesn't have any special powers or anything. He's just a regular. So that that all tracks with Know, between having to know the best way to bandage his injury so he can heal, between having the hearing loss from the montage that they showed of the blasts and dropping him through things, it all shows like you mentioned. What, being a superhero, the dark side of it for you personally.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: And I feel like this is a good segue. Talking about the dark side of being a superhero. What do you guys think of how the show is handling Natasha's death? Do you think that Marvel's finally addressing her death in a meaningful way? Because when I saw his reaction to the Black Widow actress on stage during the musical, just that one glance with the music fading out, I think it's better than how Marvel has treated Natasha in the last two years.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: I definitely have to say, I think that they did a good job. There was a few moments throughout both episodes where you kind of got this feel of Natasha's loss and how a friend would respond to that. I love this scene when Clint's daughter came and talked to him and was just like, hey, it's okay if you don't want to be here. You lost someone. This is a painful reminder, and that's real to a human. To a person, you're going to feel something. And it feels like over the past couple of years, we just kind of continue going on. We brush past, Know, yeah, we had a Black Widow, but never really dealt with the death and the loss of Natasha and the impact it has on everybody. And so I'm really glad that they're actually taking a moment to breathe and to really explore what that loss means. And with Yelena coming in there too, potentially, after what we saw in the end of Black Widow, how she's dealing with the loss of her sister and how the two of them maybe can relate to having lost someone so important to them, I think it's about time that we gave Natasha her due.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it shows that her death actually has some I think, you know, Clint's experience with grief.
He he became the Ronan because he thought his family was dead. So that was kind of how he was grieving the snap. And now he can't become the her. He's grieving Natasha in a different, you know, the grief is still there. I think the show takes place a year or two years after everyone came back. And he still has these very deep feelings. I was surprised actually, a little bit that they were even at the know, there were no other Avengers there. The kids didn't seem to enjoy it very much, even though they were there, presumably to spend family time. So I was a little was the musical was awesome, but I was a little surprised that they were even at that type of venue, know, Natasha's death would surely have come up or Natasha would surely be there.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: That's a good point. I kind of just interpreted it as basically Hamilton, as like the MCU's Hamilton. Like, oh, this is the insanely popular musical about an American hero that's on Broadway right now. So we're in New York. We should go check it out. But yeah, you're like I would also think that you would know what you're going into, but certainly background to Yelena. Brian, I keep forgetting that Yelena is in this show. Definitely in the lead up to it. I was really excited for her. But now that the episodes are out, now that I've seen them, I keep forgetting that she's going to be coming in. And every time I remember, I just get so much more excited. Because if I'm loving the show this much now, how am I going to feel when Yelena shows up and starts fighting Clint?
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Oh, 100%. And we'll finally get to see how she's reacting to it too, because we saw that moment in the postcard scenes, the Black Widow, where she's like crying at the grave. And she's very sad. And she's been a trained assassin pretty much her entire life now. And she has a target. And that target also lost Natasha. And that whole dynamic, once the fighting stops and everybody makes it out, hopefully is going to really, I think, impact both of them going forward. And I hope that it heals them in a very, like, we can bond together over this, but it's going to have just such a huge impact for both of them. They're not alone in their grief anymore. And I really do think that Clint Barton is alone because at this point, there's not any real Avengers left. I mean, everybody's gone in different ways. And so he's kind of alone. And he has his family, obviously, but he has no one else that's sharing these experiences that has lost Natasha, who is and was so important to who he is in his journey this far. And someone else also has that story and hopefully they can connect on that. I'm so excited for that part. I just cannot wait.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: I think there's also maybe some parallels there with Ronan, with Know, his way of grieving with Ronan and now her way of grieving with presumably coming after him if the post credits and Black Widow lead us to that conclusion.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: So I agree with all of that. Yelena versus Clint is going to be like the Juiciest thing that the MCU's given us in all of 2021. And to me, that is also what kind of makes Hawkeye feel like more of a Marvel Netflix show. Like those personal character driven stakes, like just imagining a hypothetical fight between Clint and Yelena and all of the history that's behind it for both of them and this person that they lost. That's the kind of emotional heights that the Netflix shows reached that I don't think any of the other Marvel shows have reached. I am a huge WandaVision fan, but that show really had to do a ton of legwork in getting us to actually buy into Wanda and Vision's relationship because, again, I love them, but their relationship was not developed at all in the movies. Like, they were just coworkers, flirting and then together, like all off screen. And then even Falcon and the Winter Soldier, like Bucky and Sam never had as much drama with anyone in that show approaching what we're going to get in. Hawkeye and Loki, of course, didn't either. So I'm really, really excited to see that.
[00:22:11] Speaker C: I totally agree with you. As much as I love WandaVision, we didn't have a huge relationship with the two of Know. If we had like a show or a movie of them off on an adventure together by themselves, the stakes would have felt a little bit higher. And it did have a lot of legwork, and in the end, I think it reached its mark, but it took a long time to get there. Where this one, we don't have Know for Yelena and for Clint, we don't have to do that legwork. We can just jump right in. The moment Elena hits the ground, she's going to want to kill him. And that's a different, you know, speaking again, kind of going back to the grittiness of it. That's what we kind of want to see out of a Hawkeye show or like a Black Widow movie. Is like the fighting, the choreography, the grittiness, and with the likes of being introduced to echo and stuff like that, you want to have that gritty feel because they're the more down to earth characters and they've kind of been through a lot of negativity and a lot of the know to bring a lot of peace and harmony throughout the world.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: I'm excited about the Yelena scenes, but I think I'm also very excited to see what the inevitable Kate and Clint kind of their relationship changing. Right. Because Kate is presumably going to find out that he was, you know, she doesn't know he's he's her hero right now. He can do essentially no wrong. And he's going to fall from that pedestal that she has kind of set up for him when she finds out that he's done all these horrible things. And I'm very interested and excited to see her reaction to that and how they resolve that.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Definitely. And talking about Echo and grittiness, what did you guys think of that cliffhanger ending to episode two? Because I thought that that was an incredible introduction for Echo.
[00:23:58] Speaker C: I got chills the moment I saw her hand touching the speaker and the music's blaring.
I instantaneously chilled. I was like, what is happening? I know exactly who it is. But just that feel, that red room, and it's red and it's dark and it has that gritty feeling again. And just to see Echo standing there and how she made that grown man look terrified, I was like, oh, yeah, we're in for some amazing scenes from this actress. I mean, she is going to kill it. And so I'm just so excited just from that cliffhanger. That was the best way to end the episode, too.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: It was really perfect, the song. And she's such a wonderful actress. I think this is her first role. I'm not positive on that, but it was so well done. And like you said, I got chills, too. And it's just, you know, shit's about to go down.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: So it was once, once again, I definitely agree. And once again, I also forgot about, like, this is the thing. Hawkeye has just been sucking me in. Even when I was getting bored, I was still watching the show. It's not like I was on my know, but when they started talking about her and who they need to deliver Clint and Kate to for some dumb reason, even though I have seen the clip where Echo is chasing after them in a car and she's clearly with the tracksuit mafia, I was like, oh, my God. Who is like, who could it be? And so I just love that I was still surprised by that, even though I knew that it was coming in the back of my mind. So, I don't know. I feel like that's how you can tell that a show is good if it's sucking you into that level that you're forgetting about things. That you know are coming up that you're excited for.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: And it's such a great way to introduce a character, right? If you don't know the comics, if you don't know the know, it's kind of almost a pilot, like a way to introduce Echo before her own show and get people interested.
[00:25:57] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: And speaking of Echo's own show, so you were right. Ayla, this is Alakwa Cox's very first role. I've seen her speak about this before. She was talking about how she was like an Amazon warehouse worker with no acting, like professional training or something. And her friends encouraged her to try out for this role. And so I love that Marvel is so confident in her that they gave her a spin off show in March 2021. She's a supporting character in a show about, no offense to him, but one of the lesser of the original six Avengers. And they're already green lighting a spin off for her like eight months before the show is out. That is some serious commitment. And so that's definitely gotten me even more excited to see what she's going.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: To bring to the table and circling back to this idea of kind of forgetting the things that are coming up. I think one of the things that's very magical about Hawkeye and the way that they filmed it is that there wasn't a lot that was leaked or there was leaks. But I don't know, it seems like every other day now there's something coming out about Spider Man or the Marvels and stuff like that. But Hawkeye, the way that they filmed it, it was almost like I had no information about it other than I knew that it was going to be based off the fraction run. So I really like that. And as well, I think that for fans, too, part of the feel and the intensity of when you finally see Echo is the implication of who's coming next. We know that in the comics, Kingpin is her adoptive father and that definitely is kind of like, oh, okay, so we have Echo. Are they going to change her story? Are they keeping it what's coming? And I think it also speaks to the dynamics of fathers and role models and heroes and who is your hero and who do we follow? So all of that implications, too. When I saw Echo, I was just like, yes, I knew she was in the show. I wasn't expecting that being her introduction. And now we know what else is coming behind Echo. This is huge. This is changing everything. This is really building that street level hero that we've kind of been lacking in the MCU so far.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Okay, sorry, I don't have much to say to that because I just agree with it all. Ayla, did you want to say anything or can we move on to the next topic?
[00:28:13] Speaker B: Oh, no, I pretty much agreed with Brian. I think there's a lot of with Echo's introduction, there's a lot of, like he said, promise. There's promise for Kingpin, and there's also the promise for the part of the universe that is still kind of in limbo for everyone. There's still part of the Daredevil universe that people are not sure what's going on there. Is it canon? Is it not canon? Are people coming?
Lot of it represents a lot.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: So, lastly, to touch on the villains a little bit, what do we think is going on with, like, do we think that he's the one who actually killed Armand, or is it going to end up being someone else?
[00:28:54] Speaker C: I do not think he killed Armand. I think that that is a total red herring in classic villain movie TV style. They've been feeding too much into him being the villain for him to actually, come on, be the villain. I'll be 100% shocked if he turns out to be the villain of the show. Instead, I think that he helps take the focus off of someone else, which, after we touch on Jack, we can maybe come back to that. But I think that he is 100% a misdirection.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree that he's a misdirection. Whenever I see him, I just get these evil Ron Burgundy vibes, and I don't know why. I think he's very well portrayed, but I don't think he's the one who killed his uncle. I think there's something funky going on with Kate's mom, and I don't know entirely what it is. And I'm excited to find not I don't think she's on the up and up.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Oh, I definitely see honestly, whenever you see a rich person with that much influence in a TV show or movie, you're like, you're definitely up to something sketchy. And I think it's really funny because I've seen people tweeting and they're like, oh, so Eleanor is a total villain.
[00:30:02] Speaker C: Right?
[00:30:03] Speaker A: And someone on my timeline was like, my mom watched Hawkeye with me, and five minutes in, she was like, oh, that lady's the bad guy. And I just think it's really funny. But I'm very excited to find out what's going on with her. I'm really liking her. I really like Vera Farminga, and so I can't wait to see where she goes.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: The very first, I guess, scene in introduction with the mom, there was something that kind of I don't want to say that made my spidey sense go off about her. So there's an attack. Her daughter is upstairs while this attack is going on. There was such a long period of time that elapsed between her finding her mom and the attack starting. So something was happening there, and I don't know what it is, but that kind of makes me think she's not exactly a good person.
[00:30:52] Speaker C: I 100% agree. From the moment I saw it, I thought I turned to my family. I was like, there's no way that your daughter's screaming for you throughout this penthouse and you're not going to find her unless you're doing something. And I fully believe that she was killing her husband. I can't prove it yet, but we have four more episodes. There is no other reason why to not the mom or the dad to find Kate. And I do think that part of something that is going on is going back to that statement that she made to Kate about young people think they're invincible and rich people do. And she made a comment about how taken from someone who wasn't. And so I think that this is someone who's definitely not afraid to get what she wants because she doesn't want to go back to having nothing. And so in a way, she's going to use her power, her influence, her money to survive. And so I think that really ties into who she's going to develop as. But she's 100% villain of the story.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: You get the sense that she definitely will fight to keep her lifestyle. And I don't know if she killed her husband. Is he really dead? We didn't see a body.
Well, we saw a gravestone of a relative, but is he really dead is my question.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: I don't believe that he's or actually, that's not true. I believe that he could be dead. But something that we haven't talked about also is the beautiful opening credit sequence for the first episode. But I noticed that the actor's name, I thought his name appeared in just the regular in the regular billing, like he wasn't billed as a guest star or anything. So if he's a series regular, then either we're going to get a ton of flashbacks with him or he's still alive. And I feel like it'd be easier if he was just still alive.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Well, in the comics, Eleanor was still alive, right? She was the one who originally died or was thought to be dead.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: Yes, I do believe she was originally thought to be dead in the comics. So they're definitely changing it up so he could 100% be alive. My only thing, though, is that if he is alive, why hasn't he found his daughter yet? Because now she's 22 years old and she loved her father and you could tell that he loved her very much. So for all these years, you're just gone. I don't know, that just seems a little sketchy to me, I suppose. But again, you're right. We didn't see a body, so we don't actually know if he's alive or dead. That would be like a really great revelation later on to find out he's still alive. And what does that mean for Kate and how she built him up in her mind?
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Again, more really great juicy drama. Like, I can see her confronting her father over his criminal activities and staying away all these years in my mind's eye. But yeah, I'm really excited to find out what's going on. I think I'm not super invested in the whole murder mystery because I don't care about Armand, but I'm invested in just the criminal activities as a whole. I don't really care about who killed about I guess I care more about why they killed him. But yeah, so very excited to find out about all of that.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: Can we talk about how cool the Tracksuit Mafia is and how on point their portrayal is and all the bros and just how it's perfect?
[00:33:57] Speaker C: Real quick before we do that, because 100% we have to talk about them. But going back to Armand, someone pointed out on Twitter, and I have to agree with agree with them that when they're talking about Armand II's death and someone said, Why would Jack kill him? Because he's not the next in line. I mean, there's four other Armands potentially in the you. He wouldn't be the next successor in line for the empire. So he has no stake in killing this man other than, I guess, maybe a crime of passion. So I just think that's very interesting of it kind of helps to seal the deal that he's maybe not the villain of the story and someone else kills him for another reason.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Sort of related to that, I kind of stuck on a line in that exchange between Jack and his uncle where Jack said to Armand that he's going to inherit eventually and he's going to have the money to pay for these things that he wanted at the black market auction. And that really stuck out to me because I didn't know if he was going to inherit from Armand when Armand eventually died. Like you just addressed Brian or if they were talking about something darker where Jack marries Eleanor and then Eleanor dies and Jack inherits.
[00:35:16] Speaker C: That's a great point. I guess that's definitely something we'll have to see as they unfold, because where are the other moms and what does Jack think he's going to inherit and how maybe there's a grander plan out there. I mean, obviously there's a grander plan out there, but hopefully we get some answers on that as we go along.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Do we have anything else you guys wanted to talk about? Because I kind of feel like I've gotten out everything I wanted to say.
[00:35:38] Speaker C: Just going back to what Isla said, the Tracksuit Mafia was 100% exactly the presentation from the comic book that I wanted of them just very Broy, very over the top. I was laughing so much. My mom was like, Why are they saying bro? So and like, for me, having read the comics, it was hilarious to see that and see how that kind of translated to television.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: They were such good comic relief. Know that lightness that we expect from a lot of the MCU stuff. They were bumbling, but somehow these horrible just they were fun.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: So on the topic of the bro thing, again, I have not read the comics, so I was kind of wondering why they kept saying bro. I thought that they were kind of outlandish. Like everything else in Hawkeye feels very real and to me they feel very fictional, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I do think that they're hilarious. They are great comic relief, but I think that even though I expected them to be a little bit ridiculous because they are a track suit mafia, I wasn't expecting quite this level. But I think now that I know what to expect, I'm going to start liking them more. But it's not like I dislike them.
[00:36:47] Speaker C: Now 100% in the comics. They are that outlandish and to the point where sometimes they're just saying the word bro back and forth to each other, you're just laughing because it's like, nobody is this idiotic. They're like the bumbling henchmen. So it plays very well into the whole dynamics that we have going on in Hawkeye so far. I think that they could show up again.
This isn't the last time we're going to see them. We're going to see them kind of being those Bumbling henchmen for other villains throughout the MCU.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: I thought that the first fight between Kate and the Tracksuit mafia was really funny because I think you had the one guy walking off with a bust from the black market auction, and then you had the bottles of wine and the bottles of wine being used in the fight were just so awesome to me because of just like, the thunk noise that they made and that the bottles of wine didn't explode. And I just found that really entertaining.
[00:37:43] Speaker C: You know something about that fight, too, which definitely I'm looking forward to seeing more. Two things. First off, what's going on with this watch and why is it so important? I thought that maybe it was the watch from Civil War that Tony had. It's not. I looked up the image, I watched the scene multiple times. And then also Pizza Dog 100% is just such a shining good boy in this whole show. I was just so excited to see him.
So far has been fantastic, even though he hasn't been in it much. I just can't wait to see more Pizza Dog and how it was cool seeing how he helped Kate in that fight kind of get away. I don't know. I really was glad that they brought Pizza Dog into this and we got to see him on screen.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Pizza Dog is, I think, you know, lucky is exactly the way it is in the comics. I totally want a Pizza Dog funko now. And I think a great way to make the audience like you and have people like a character is to have them save a dog. And Kate saves a dog very early and she prioritizes the dog. So that's awesome. I was also very curious about the watch and like you, Brian, I looked it up and I was very curious because they spent a lot of time lingering on the item number for the auction, and I think that was two six eight. And I looked avengers two six eight up, and it has to do with Kang and it's a watch. So I don't know. I wonder if something's going on there.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: That's a good find. Yeah, I wasn't really thinking about it that deeply. I'm kind of just along for the ride.
But yeah, that would be very interesting.
I would not peg hawkeye as tying into the multiverse saga, but even ignoring the screwed up COVID schedule, hawkeye was always supposed to come out around this time. So maybe it will eventually tie into the multiverse somehow.
[00:39:34] Speaker C: That would be absolutely huge. That was a great find, to think that to lay that little piece of groundwork. Many, many projects before we see king again in loki season two, or ant man and the wasp Quantumania, that small little bits and even hinting at it, maybe at the end of the show of just like, what holds this watch? Is it time travel technology or something to do with king? This blew my mind. This was like the highlight of this podcast for me.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Well, along that note, I thought it was really cool, too, from the auction, that there was this prehistoric skull, and I looked that up, too, and is that kind of a soft way to bring in the x men savage land? I don't know.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: That would be cool. That feels like a bit of a reach to me just because it's just a triceratops skull. And I'm not surprised that rich people would want to buy dinosaur fossils because I know if I had two and a half million dollars, I'd also be trying to buy a triceratops skull. But yeah, that would be a cool hint because I know that there were some rumors of something like that happening. Well, that about does it for this episode. We'll do a hawkeye series retrospective when the show finishes, but hopefully you'll hear something else from us before that. I hope you guys had a good time listening to this episode, and please stay tuned for more. In the meantime, look for more news and reviews from us on thecosmicsrcus.com you can also follow us for updates on instagram, twitter and facebook at mycosmiccircus. Thanks for listening.
