The Season Finale Of Hawkeye Explained

Warning: Contains spoilers for "Hawkeye" Season 1

In the blink of an eye, "Hawkeye" Season 1 is over. Over the past five weeks, we've witnessed the street-level adventures of Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), and a handful of lovable LARPers. Episode 5 ("Ronin") left us on quite a cliffhanger, as Kate received a text from Yelena (Florence Pugh) that had a photo of Eleanor (Vera Farmiga) chatting with Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio).

We picked up immediately with Kingpin and Eleanor's conversation, where it's revealed that Kate's mom is only involved with the mobster due to the unpaid debts of her late husband. She admits to handling Armand and setting up Jack (Tony Dalton) and tries to walk away from the life she was thrust into. Of course, Kingpin isn't going to let this happen, and the future looks grim for Eleanor.

Maya (Alaqua Cox) also tries to fool her Uncle and Kazi (Fra Fee) by saying she is back on mission but needs a few days to clear her head. Naturally, they know she's lying, and she finds herself in a similar situation to Eleanor.

Kate and Clint are now determined to bring all this nonsense to an end, and it all starts with the Bishop holiday party. Several uninvited attendees show up, including Yelena and the Tracksuits, all hellbent on killing Clint. Here's where we wind up at the end of the "Hawkeye" finale and what it all means for the future.

At the Christmas party, we see that Jack (Tony Dalton) has been released from custody, and it looks like his name has been cleared. He shows up with a sword at his hip, which comes in handy later in the episode when he saves Kate from a Tracksuit ambush. It turns out Jack was just a red herring after all and became a charming hero.

The party comes to an abrupt end after Kazi shows up and tries to snipe Clint from across the block. He fails, so he starts shooting up the building, which sends our heroes and the party guests running. While the chaos ensues at the get-together, Yelena keeps a level head and stays on her mission to kill Clint. She's thwarted for a little bit while by Kate, and we get a better sense of where this duo's inevitable friendship is going. We definitely have a new Clint and Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) on our hands.

Now that the party has made its way outside, it's time for Yelena and Clint to come face-to-face once more, while Kate must also face her mom. Eleanor tries to tell Kate that everything she did, she did for her daughter, and there's a sense of smugness to her that doesn't make you feel sorry for her in the least bit. She ends up getting arrested, but not until after Kate goes toe-to-toe with Kingpin, who appears to have some superpowers — or is wearing some specialty suit underneath his white sports coat. We get no clarity on that, which suggests we might get more Kingpin in the future. Maya, we think, shoots him in the head at the episode's end for ordering the hit on her father, but it happens off-screen, so we don't suspect this is the end of Wilson Fisk in the MCU. It would be a total travesty to bring back D'Onofrio just for one episode that kills him off.

Yelena and Clint battle it out on the ice-skating rink of Rockefeller Center, and the latter holds his punches and doesn't put up much of a fight against his best friend's sister. She says she needs an answer before killing him and asks what happened. Thankfully, Clint doesn't give her the whole Thanos-Vormir-Soul Stone shebang, because as he says, she wouldn't believe it. He tells Yelena that Natasha sacrificed herself and saved the world. She refuses to believe this, and the two go in for round two.

After subduing Yelena, Clint insists it was Natasha's choice to die and says he tried to stop her. He also notes that Natasha was better and smarter than him, which is why she got what she wanted. Still unconvinced, Yelena continues to go after Clint and gets the upper hand. As she's about to deliver a (possible) final blow, Clint whistles a familiar tune. It's the secret call she and Natasha had with one another, and it brings Yelena back down to Earth. If Clint knows this call, then he truly had something special with Natasha.

Clint and Yelena share a moment, both admitting how much they loved Natasha. And just like that, Yelena leaves and spares Clint's life. She finally gets closure on her sister's death and now has a better understanding of what happened to her and Clint's true role in all of it.

All is right with the world, and Clint makes it home in time for Christmas. He travels to the family farm we saw in "Avengers: Endgame," where Laura (Linda Cardellini) and their three children await him happily. He didn't come alone, though. Kate was brought along for the holiday festivities with Lucky in tow as well.

As the kids open up their presents, Clint reveals to Laura that the Rolex was on the black market, and he was able to secure it. He hands it to her, and she flips it over to reveal a SHIELD logo on the back of the face, along with the number 19. This confirms what we've been suspecting, that Laura is based on Barbara Morse from Marvel Comics. Barbara was also known as Agent 19, or Mockingbird, meaning there's a reason she's the most understanding housewife of all time. We don't dive into it any further than that, and we might not get much more in the future.

At the end of the episode, Clint takes Kate outside, and they burn the Ronin suit on a grill. As they watch it burn, Kate starts throwing out some superhero names for herself like Lady Hawk, Hawk Eve, and Hawk Shot. Clint scoffs at all of them and interrupts Kate saying, "You know what? Actually, I have an idea." We immediately cut to the end title-card with "Hawkeye" filling the screen, suggesting that Kate is now taking on the mantle in the MCU. It's something that was hinted at for quite a while, and there's no one better to do it.

For now, we don't know if there will be a Season 2 of "Hawkeye" as there was no confirmation in the credits.