One Mistake Future MCU Shows Must Avoid From Hawkeye's Finale

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Marvel's Hawkeye.

The much-awaited Hawkeye finale was plagued by a fatal mistake that undermined several of its characters, one that future MCU shows will have to learn to avoid. The series, serving as Kate Bishop’s début into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, showcased the young hero’s journey as her path collided with the titular Hawkeye. In a similar fashion to the previous Disney+ Marvel series, such as Loki and WandaVision, Hawkeye did an incredible job at showing its characters dealing with the consequences of earlier MCU events. The first half of the series cements this with the main conflict of the show being driven by Clint Barton having to confront the enemies he made during his time as the Ronin.

However, this also comes at a cost due to the fact that while the start of the show sets the ground with new characters and explores the past, it ended up having to do more legwork to advance the plot towards the finale. Although Hawkeye featured a colorful array of characters, like Wilson Fisk/Kingpin, Maya Lopez/Echo, and Yelena Belova from Black Widow, many of them were only introduced in the second half of the show, along with new plotlines attached to them. An example of this would be Maya Lopez, whose full introduction in the third episode, “Echoes,” helped cement her abilities but hardly captured the bare bones of her backstory, especially when it came to her relationship with the Kingpin.

Having too many backstories and plotlines led to Hawkeye's fatal flaw in the finale. Hawkeye struggled with its pacing, which can be felt in the series’ hourlong finale as a result. First, there’s the issue of Kingpin, whose first actual appearance was left until the finale. As a result, several key plot points were also moved to the finale, such as Eleanor Bishop’s justification for her actions and Maya’s betrayal. It’s significant because all the converging plotlines don’t have enough breathing room being crammed into the finale. While Eleanor herself is missing for a large part of the episode, the audience is hardly given an insight into what her role was, why she was so crucial to Kingpin’s operations, and what her plan was for surviving his rage. Maya’s character also faces this very issue where her betrayal of the Kingpin may have been more emotional, however, the only interaction we see between the two is after she suspects him of killing her father. All of these flaws boil over into an unsatisfying conclusion for the Hawkeye series, and it's a pattern that future MCU shows will have to break.

Unfortunately, it's a criticism shared by almost all of the previous Disney+ Marvel shows, including WandaVision, Loki and Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Many of these shows left too many plot points to be explained until the very end, something that ultimately became the downfall of the Hawkeye series ending. Characters are either introduced at the very end to set them up for the future or hyped up only to have little impact on the actual narrative. Already, Marvel's Disney+ shows are running the risk of copying the movies, which often feel less like complete stories and more like two-hour setups for what's next. Now that there's already been a year of new shows under its belt, Marvel Studios has to do a better job of balancing the story being told with what's ahead and address the pacing problems that massively hampered almost all of their Disney+ shows this year.

Ultimately, the issue isn’t the Hawkeye finale itself but simply how much better it might have been executed had it not all been crammed into the end. Giving Kingpin more direct agency in the plot or even simply elaborating on what his relationship with Maya Lopez was would have added a lot more gravity to his seeming final moments. Future MCU shows will have to focus on actually fully developing plotlines, a pitfall that, sadly, tripped up Hawkeye right at the very end.

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