Hailee Steinfeld, who plays Kate Bishop in the Disney+ the character of Kate Bishop, pseudo-hip in Earth's Mightiest Heroes paid off her development across the series. Fans also saw Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) finally return to his family after tying up the loose ends caused by his time as Ronin and the death of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in Avengers: Endgame. In Hawkeye episode 6, Clint and Yelena (Florence Pugh) finally shared in their mutual sorrow for Natasha's death rather than causing more bloodshed because of it.
Hawkeye also started to build bridges between Netflix's MCU titles and the current Marvel canon with the return of Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin, who appeared at the end of episode 5. The villain then went toe-to-toe with Kate Bishop in the season finale in a defining moment for the new Hawkeye, saving her mother's life and defeating one of the franchise's most menacing villains in the process. For Bishop, it rounded off a character arc that began in episode 1's flashback to The Battle of New York from 2012's The Avengers. A young Kate was saved by Hawkeye's arrows, but ultimately lost her father in the chaos brought by Loki and his Chatauri army.
Speaking to ET, Steinfeld revealed her thoughts on what Hawkeye means for the future of Kate Bishop's hero-in-training, and whether or not she's ready to take on the trials and tribulations of an Avenger. After fending off a fully-trained Black Widow assassin, the Tracksuit Mafia and the notorious Kingpin, the series managed to throw multiple threats against Barton's new partner. Nothing close to an "Avengers-level threat," but according to Steinfeld, enough for Kate Bishop to understand the realities being a superhero.
"She, I think, is forced into the reality of what it means to be a superhero. It's not all jumping from buildings and making people smile ... There's, as she says, collateral damage that can go along with it ... But that doesn't stop her ... I think it throws her and it alters her outlook, but it doesn't stop this burning fire within her to ultimately help people and protect people. She knows she's capable of that. And I think that that alone can take us anywhere."
The Hawkeye season finale exemplified the collateral damage to which Steinfeld refers. After knocking out Kingpin and saving her mother, Eleanor Bishop (Vera Farmiga), Kate stands by as Eleanor is arrested for her criminal dealings with the mob. It acted as an interesting diversion from the usual superhero trope in which the death of a hero's parent(s) is the root cause of their desire to fight crime. Instead, Bishop's ties to the criminal underworld are much more personal, setting up an interesting, albeit fraught, mother-daughter dynamic in the future.
For Steinfeld, ing the MCU has been a joy, and it's an excitement that bled into Kate Bishop's persona as a truly likeable protagonist with plenty of heart, wit and grit to thrive in the MCU. The best example of this is in the now-fan-favourite apartment scene in which a saucepan of mac and cheese is shared between Kate and Yelena. It's an interaction that perfectly summarised Bishop's belief in the Avengers, her ability to keep cool in the face of danger, and willingness to run into oncoming traffic to save a dog. Given all this, Kate is surely a worthy inheritor of both the Hawkeye title and the Avenger name.
Source: ET