she retreated last episode and Hawkeye had her pretty much beat this episode.

Who knows, but that’s how it felt at the time. We only see Yelena for a few seconds before Val cuts in, but she walks up to the gravesite and just looks at the headstone before Val blows her nose.

That makes sense on a certain level, except that Clint was already out in the open by coming to NYC, and even Kate’s access to Bishop Security is able to easily track his location. Including the Ronin gear as causal rather than coincidental just makes it make all more complicated, IMO.

Sorry for so many different replies, but the reason Yelena needed to be hired for this is because without it, she has no reason to want to kill Clint, and the plot needs her to attack him before they’re able to talk.

Well, for starters, there’s the Chekov’s gun of Jack’s swordplay, Kingpin’s confirmedly in play, and honestly, I’m not sure Maya’s convinced? Fisk is her uncle whom she’s been close with since she was a child, and Clint’s only got his word that he was behind the hit on the Tracksuits. I don’t read her confronting Kazi…

Yelena’s a spy, so I don’t think her following Eleanor really needs to be explained; it could be Val scheming, it could be Yelena doing more background work, it could be happenstance. It’s not explained, and though it might be getting saved for more worldbuilding, it doesn’t particularly have to be.

Possibly? But we’re having an unseasonably warm December in the mid-Atlantic right now and the trees are bald.

I don’t think there’s much to explore with Clint morally, tbh. He feels terrible about the things he’s done, but only to the extent he suffers no consequences for it. It’s why he leads with the threat, which feels pretty nonsensical under the circumstances.

Yelena’s shadowing Eleanor because Kate said she should question why she was hired. The implication is that Eleanor called Val when Clint left their penthouse and that’s why Yelena’s in NYC. It doesn’t really line up with the BW stinger, which you could rationalize as happening as late as early fall, but even then,…

Yeah, it’s a pretty colossal muddle. Clint can’t be allowed to beat Maya cleanly, so his threat’s a bit confusing, and even to the extent he was misled in to killing everybody at that Tracksuit meeting, he hasn’t and doesn’t intend to do anything about the person he blames for it. There just isn’t any room within the…

FWIW, I doubt it. There’s no clue given about who it was that Eleanor called, and given the way Eleanor talks about Kate to Jack I don’t think it works to have Yelena make her attack while Hawkeye isn’t alone.

If Jack did indeed don the Ronin suit, hearing him make a verbal blunder while masked might be a give away. But who was around to record it?

I think it works fine as shorthand, and in the moment the what of Yelena’s appearance matters more than the why/how. I’m guessing they’ll stitch that up whenever Yelena and Clint reconcile, because Clint pretty much has to know who Yelena is to be able to talk her down.

Please do not construe this as an endorsement of the fight scene, but Yelena grabs the zipline to kick Clint in the face and then hits Kate when she comes in. Why Kate does not simply pull out her phone, turn on her flashlight, and drag Yelena for being a millennial wearing night vision goggles in an urban…

Sure, but it’s a little weird to think it wouldn’t have come up either on their flight home from Tokyo or after.

Even in your paraphrasing, the intent is clear: “if Daredevil is ever in the MCU, it will ONLY be Cox.” This only makes sense if they’ve got Cox under contract.

* I don’t think Clint killed Echo’s Dad, largely because I think given Zach McClarnan’s sympathetic performance, the killer has to get a comeuppance and I don’t Marvel wants Clint dead. Since anyone could be Ronin, the leading suspects are Kazi, Jack and Kate’s Mom.

Not really fair to compare, I think—this had a much freer hand in sticking the landing. WandaVision and F&WS both had premises that were impossible to resolve in a satisfying way and also had to further bigger MCU narratives.

Plus if, The Infinity Crusher had worked, that would have just left the Checkov’s Gun that was the Zola Arrow literally un-fired.

What’s to call bullshit on, though? Richmond are in their first year in the championship, have held their roster together, and now they’re in the mix for promotion and made an FA cup semifinal.