Spoilers

Kate and Clint need to escape from Echo and the Tracksuit Mafia…

Episode 2 ended with both Kate and Clint being strapped to rocking horses and waiting on the judgement of an unnamed boss to whom the Tracksuit Mafia apparently reported.

However, before we get too much into the episode itself let’s talk about the Tracksuit Mafia.

They are glorious. Gloriously inept, gloriously small minded, gloriously human and definitely gloriously funny. They bring almost all the laughs and they do so through tight writing, great performances and excellent staging. Whether it’s a rambling conversation about Imagine Dragons or a man being folded into a shopping trolley they are used creatively and really bring a sense of Wacky Races to the proceedings.

Their boss, Echo, is to my mind the most compelling element of the show so far. We see a substantial exploration of her backstory as a person who cannot hear, how she coped and a lot about the kind of person she is now as a result.

Echo comes across as fierce and driven, surrounded by men who are not a fraction of her worth. I want more of her in this show because there’s a righteous anger that comes from a justified place and seeing it play out on screen for the short time she got to express that side of her character was the most compelling part of the show.

If you’re watching carefully there’s also an allusion to a character I would LOVE to see on screen again because he was portrayed perfectly where he appeared most recently on Netflix. There’s every reason to think he’ll be back and if they can bring continuity with the actor I will be a happy viewer. This allusion is nothing more than the pinch of a cheek and chuckle but it’s there and I’m here for it.

So, Echo brings the thrills and the emotional power to the episode – her presence on screen is a challenge to anyone and everyone she encounters.

Right up until her father’s murderer beats her up. It is not a good look even if understandable from a narrative point of view.

The thing about Ronin though is this: Clint has worn the suit and, now, so has Kate Bishop. It’s entirely possible someone else did too. I wouldn’t put it past the writers to bait and switch us into thinking that it’s Ronin who killed Echo’s father when it wasn’t.

To do this would be a nice twist except it would put Clint even farther away from facing his crimes.

Someone noted to me how Clint hasn’t yet admitted to anyone that he was Ronin and perhaps when he does so all the emotional walls will come crumbling down. We shall see.

There’s also the looming shadow of Yelena Romanov promising her arrival – we know she’s gunning for Clint because she was explicitly told he was responsible for Black Widow’s death at the back end of the eponymous movie. I fully expect things to get more complicated before they get resolved.

Which leaves us with a show that’s reached its midway point with all its threads fully open and a lot of dangling possibilities. Which is as it should be – except for the emotional journey here. I can’t figure out what Clint is doing. In some ways it’s nothing more than Home Alone, Avengers style. Yet unlike that movie, it’s trying to move emotional weight through its themes and, with only three episodes left, it doesn’t feel like it’s got space to address these issues.

Will Echo get to confront Clint properly or will she be sidelined so her, potentially famous, boss can be the big bad? Will Yelena Romanov eclipse them all only to discover she’s been lied to?

I won’t begin to speculate.

I want to see how this will end. I am also no more convinced after this episode that the show is going to do the honest work of treating Clint the same way it treated Zemo and Bucky for their crimes. The only reason I can see for that is they are ‘bad guys’ while Clint is a hero and so, apparently, he gets away with it.

It’s a really odd suggestion to say that Zemo, who was legitimately annoyed by the Avengers’ actions and how they led to hundreds of thousands of deaths without any recourse, is the criminal for taking the law into his own hands. Especially when Clint has murdered without provocation and has faced no questioning, no scrutiny within the MCU. Is Marvel really saying there’s one rule for ‘criminals’ and one for ‘the good guys’?

I feel like I’m going on about this so let’s finish on the communication between Clint and Kate during their car chase (and then afterwards too). It’s a lovely piece of writing which showcases their personal problems with communicating, not simply with one another, although that’s where it’s focussed, but on their overall shortcomings in engaging with the world around them.

Kate is happy to talk, to pretend she knows what she’s doing simply by telling the world at large that this is the case. When Clint can’t hear her this doesn’t stop her continually talking at him because that’s what she was doing before anyway. Whether he hears isn’t important for her.

As for Clint, he is entirely capable of living his life without hearing from anyone, and to a lesser extent, talking to anyone. He’s not just the strong silent type – his hearing impairment gives him a great excuse for being a taciturn loner.

They breeze through their violent encounter only for Clint to come unstuck in a call to his family. It hits home that for him to be the human being he wants to be he needs to connect, to receive incoming communications, because if he doesn’t that loneliness is bleakly isolating.

What’s lovely about the scene is that it’s Kate who bridges the gap for him, who shows him what he’s missing and in doing so sees for herself the strength of those connections with others. I felt like Kate, for the first time, realised just how important it is to listen to someone else, to really listen. Hailee Steinfeld’s work here is understated and easily missed but it’s solid craft and I loved it.

And suddenly they’re a team. Both receiving loud and clear where earlier they’d literally been on transmit only.

Verdict: This show can bring it and I’m invested in where it’s going.

Rating? 8 perfect copies out of 10.

Stewart Hotston