Hawkeye Deleted Scenes Prove Disney+ Wasted Kingpin

Hawkeye's deleted scenes prove Marvel wasted Kingpin on their Disney+ TV show. For months there were rumors that Vincent D'Onofrio would be reprising the role of New York's Kingpin of crime in Hawkeye, returning to the part he'd played so well in the old Marvel Television Daredevil TV series. Fans' hopes became a reality at the end of Hawkeye episode 5, when Clint Barton was shown a shot of Kate Bishop's mother Eleanor talking with a man he recognized at once; Kingpin had officially become part of the MCU.

And yet, as fan-pleasing a moment as Kingpin's debut may have been, in the end, Hawkeye felt as though it wasted him. The show hadn't been subtle in setting Kingpin up, but because he only played a major role in the final episode, many of the twists lacked emotional impact. It was difficult for viewers to really feel the scale of Kingpin's betrayal of Echo, for example, simply because viewers never really got to see the dynamic between them. It didn't help that, although Hawkeye treated Kingpin as though he was a big deal and showed him to be far stronger than his previous Netflix iteration, he was handled pretty easily; rookie vigilante Kate Bishop was able to take him on, and he was apparently killed by Echo in the end. It seemed as though Disney+ had wasted Kingpin, at least so far.

Marvel Studios has recently released a number of deleted scenes for Hawkeye, and unfortunately, they support this view. One deleted scene was an extension of Hawkeye episode 3, showing the interaction between young Maya Lopez and her uncle. A second showed a conversation between Eleanor Bishop and Kingpin shortly after the Battle of New York, with Eleanor agreeing to work for Kingpin for a time; Kingpin's clothing style in that particular deleted scene corresponds with the attire he wore in Daredevil season 1, which would have been set around that time. Together, these deleted scenes would have helped embed Kingpin in Hawkeye's narrative, making his betrayal of Echo more impactful while subtly pointing to the loose relationship between Hawkeye and Daredevil. He's dangerous and imposing, feeling every bit a crime lord at the height of his power.

Kingpin and Maya in Hawkeye Deleted Scene

Marvel Studios cut these deleted scenes because they wanted Kingpin to be a "villain twist" at the heart of Hawkeye's story. The various live-action MCU Disney+ TV shows have all depended on villains twists to some degree; think Agatha Harkness in WandaVision, He Who Remains in Loki, and the Power Broker in The Falcon & the Winter Soldier. But not all of these villain twists have been equal in terms of effectiveness. Hawkeye's was one of the worst because it was too obviously signposted throughout the series. It wasn't hard to figure out who the real villain was, and discussion about the Kingpin pretty much drowned everything else out. Marvel would have been wiser to keep these signs, not bother with all the secrecy over Kingpin, and actually develop him as a character in Hawkeye.

There is probably one other reason the conversation between Kingpin and Eleanor was cut; tonally, it feels very different from the standard MCU fare, a step closer to Daredevil and Marvel Netflix. Marvel may well have felt it wasn't quite a fit with their Disney+ TV shows, because it was a little too dark and chilling. Ironically, if that was indeed a factor in their calculations, the Moon Knight trailer suggests the studio is about to go a lot nearer to Daredevil - because Moon Knight promises to be a lot more brutal and violent than anything Marvel has released on Disney+ to date. They really didn't need to be so conservative with Hawkeye's Kingpin.

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