Vincent D'Onofrio Explains How The Blip Affected Kingpin

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Hawkeye episodes 5 and 6.

Hawkeye star Vincent D'Onofrio explains that Kingpin's hold over New York City needed to be strengthened after The Blip. The Blip is the massive tragedy that struck the Marvel Cinematic Universe during the events of Avengers: Infinity War when Thanos collected all the Infinity Stones and used his Gauntlet to erase half of the population of the universe. The MCU is still picking through the wreckage of this world-altering event, which was reversed during Avengers: Endgame but left a shaken and disturbed world behind as the people who were erased came back just as suddenly, missing five years of their lives. The Marvel projects that came after Endgame are still working to establish who was blipped and who wasn't, including Hawkeye's recent reveal that Black Widow's sister Yelena was one of the unlucky 50 percent.

The MCU's version of Kingpin was introduced in the flagship Netflix series Daredevil, which ran for three seasons from 2015 to 2018. He was a massively powerful crime lord who ruled Hell's Kitchen with an iron fist and quickly became Daredevil's archenemy. While his triumphant return in Hawkeye sees him almost in full form, there have been some major changes to the way he operates that the show didn't expressly cover.

Speaking exclusively with Screen Rant, Vincent D'Onofrio explained more about the discussions around how The Blip specifically affected Kingpin's operation. Although he didn't confirm one way or another whether Kingpin himself was blipped, from the context it seems clear that he was not. Instead, it seems he was left sifting through the wreckage of New York. From The Blip, "he had lost some of his power, and he needed to get his city back." He used the same backstory and motivation to fuel the character, but The Blip, and its effect on both his staff and the people around the city that they were influencing, destabilized him considerably in the meantime. Read the full quote below:

Well, it was going to be the same Kingpin – that it was after the blip, that he had lost some of his power, and he needed to get his city back. That's the way I approached it. That was the storyline. And as far as the character himself, I used everything that I used when I did it for Daredevil. It's the same emotional life. The same character. Everything is based, whether it's joy that's happening, or sadness, or frustration, or anger, whatever is going on with Kingpin, it's all through his emotional life as a child.

Kingpin looking down at something in Hawkeye.

Kingpin's effect on the world around him certainly seemed reduced during the events of Hawkeye. Although the character's prodigious strength still allowed him to withstand some powerful attacks, his position in the world of crime seemed less lofty than before. He found himself being betrayed left and right by former loyal servants, including Kate's mother and his devoted Maya, and though the Tracksuit Mafia certainly had a lot of goons at its disposal, they were a rather low-rent operation for Kingpin to be leaning on entirely.

Hawkeye has been the second Marvel show to deal directly with the fallout of The Blip, after The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which primarily focused on an extremist group formed by Blip survivors. The latter series certainly had more worldbuilding in terms of how the world has moved on, but Hawkeye deals entirely with the fallout of the activities of both Hawkeye and Kingpin during that dismal five-year period. It's a true testament to the Marvel universe that it's able to work this element into so many disparate stories and use it to inform and alter characters who have already been long-established.

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