Hawkeye Episode 6 Confirms What We Suspected About Laura All Along

The season finale of Marvel's latest Disney+ streamer "Hawkeye" is finally upon us, and with its arrival comes all manner of shocking twists, and legitimate narrative surprises. We'll go ahead and drop a Major Spoiler Warning here, as reading any further will certainly ruin some of those surprises. Count yourself warned. 

Now, among the biggest surprises in the "Hawkeye" finale was the appearance of a certain iconic Marvel big bad with ties to one of those canceled Netflix series. Just as surprising, however, was a major plot twist involving Laura Barton (Linda Cardellini), whose own backstory has now gotten every bit as interesting as that of her husband Clint (Jeremy Renner). That's not entirely a shock to Marvel diehards, as her continued and direct involvement in Clint's holiday adventure with Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) has left many pondering whether she might've been more involved in the superhero life than simply playing wife to one.

That theory is confirmed in the season finale of "Hawkeye," with Laura Barton's ties to SHIELD finally coming to light.

Those ties are direct indeed, with "Hawkeye" essentially announcing Laura Barton as the SHIELD agent known as Mockingbird. While that name isn't used directly, it's clearly alluded to that Mrs. Barton is the Mockingbird. The finale reveals that the problematic Rolex Hawkeye dared to retrieve in "Hawkeye" Episode 5 actually belonged to Laura. The tipper was that said Rolex bore the engraved SHIELD logo and the number 19, which is Mockingbird's designation in agency ranks (per Marvel.com).

Some might rightfully point out Mockingbird's real name in the pages of Marvel is Bobbi Morse. So too was the live-action version of the character on the ABC series "Agents of SHIELD," where she was portrayed by Adrianne Palicki. Name change aside, Mrs. Barton's crack sleuthing skills are very much in line with those of Mockingbird. So too is her marriage to Hawkeye, with Marvel.com confirming the duo were wed in the final moments of a 4-book "Hawkeye" mini-series from 1983 — though their marriage was apparently a bit rockier than Clint's and Laura's.

Still, Laura's super-spy status makes it a little easier to understand why, as revealed in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) went so far out of his way to set the Bartons up with a posh country home well off SHIELD radar. In any case, now that Mockingbird has more or less officially joined the Marvel arena, the question becomes what exactly MCU bosses have in store for the character. And we cannot wait to see what's next.