The fourth episode of Hawkeye was the weakest of the season, so far and I wanted, nay prayed that the fifth and penultimate episode would not waste time world building, like the others have been doing. But as the episode opened with a flashback on Yelena, I couldn’t help but feel that it was going to be good, even though it was visiting old ground. Thankfully, the story kept things going from there, but was it enough to push it towards the final episode?

There will be spoilers ahead in this review, so if you haven’t seen the episode, I suggest you do that first.

Having Yelena, brought to life again by Florence Pugh, be the focal point for the start of things was a smart move, not only did it provide context to her character, but it gave people who maybe hadn’t seen Black Widow a chance to learn who she was, so when she crossed paths with Kate later on, there wasn’t a lot of confusion as to what was happening. Speaking of Kate, I am very glad that the show didn’t waste the entire episode having her lay around the place, complaining about things falling apart with Clint, because too many shows and movies have done that before, but her deciding not to agree to his advice does make sense for her, she rarely listens to anything anyone else says. Her coming clean to her mother about the events of her work with Clint, re Jack and his CEO role in the shell company, also pointed to her wanting to speed things up, though she may have been a little to quick to move with that information.

For a few episodes now, we keep hearing about the man at the top, the number one in charge of the tracksuit mafia and a few others and having Clint call his wife and all but confirm that there is someone pulling the strings gave his reason to stay some real weight. Basically, getting confirmation to follow his gut means that the events of the last few episodes now start making more sense, he may have gotten involved because of the suit, but hearing that Maya had information on his family, secrets that not even Tony Stark discovered, when he hacked all of S.H.I.E.L.D.S files, it would rattle anyone. Even towards the end, having Maya start to doubt her reasons for her need for revenge, it provided hope that she was not going to become a Batman style vigilante in her own show, which Marvel already confirmed – thus undercutting the potential that she would be a villain.

Of course, the big reveal at the end that Kingpin, who is being played again by Vincent D'Onofrio again, a role he started in Daredevil, is behind it and that Kates mother, Eleanor is working for him, just cements elements that things are not as they appear to be. How all that shakes out though, is anyone’s guess and the final could end up with a self-contained story, or it could spin-off into more seasons and other shows, who knows, maybe it will be a backdoor pilot to a fourth season of Daredevil.

Last week, I called out the pointless conversation that Kate and Clint had, as it felt more like they were just dragging things out, to pad out he run time and then this week, there was another conversation, but with Kate and Yelena. What is interesting is that this week’s conversation lasted almost 10 minutes, from the time Kate entered her place, to when Yelena decided to freefall two stories up and it never felt drawn out. There was a solid connection between the two characters, from Kate’s extremely guarded front, which was totally understandable, to Yelena’s attempts to be charming, that succeeded. What I liked was that during it, it didn’t rehash story, it didn’t attempt to put context around characters we know, instead it raised questions around trust and why would you trust someone, their claim of a title like Avenger notwithstanding, it was a nice conversation.

The action in the episode was lighter than last weeks, but it did highlight just how dangerous Clint can be, once he is in his Ronin persona and while the fight was balanced, Clint drawing his sword back and then never striking sent a powerful message to Maya, one she learned from. The final moments though, with the Kingpin reveal, helped push the episode forward and seeing it come from them just chilling around a dinner table, just sold how much bigger the threat is.

The penultimate episode of Hawkeye finally got things going again, it started to fill in holes, some of which were predictable and more so, it brought in a great addition with Yelena. Having Kate basically refuse to accept Clint’s rejection after her chat with Yelena was also a wonderful way to have her join back into the fight, though her mother likely won’t see it that way. Now that we have traction, the wait for the final episode is going to be even longer, but this is what the showed needed to be all along, so I am glad it got there.