Hawkeye is a pandemic fable

Salon.com

The Marvel series is, in part, "about saying goodbye to the life you thought you knew," says Alison Stine. "As Kate can't return to her ruined apartment, so too she can't go back to being just a college archer with a really rich mom. Not after knowing what she knows now. And though Clint has left the bloodthirsty Ronin behind and is back to being a family man, his actions still resonate, ringing through Yelena, who says, 'The trail of blood that follows him, it could wrap around the entire world.' Yelena and the Ronin have more in common than they realize. Yelena never got the chance to grieve. Clint didn't allow himself to, instead becoming the Ronin. Characters never get the opportunity to speak their truth, or like Maya, are not understood when they do. Which is something that may resonate especially now as we approach year three of the pandemic. Many viewers have commented on the setting of Hawkeye at Christmastime, which gives it a kind of Die Hard joviality. And loneliness. And so perhaps Hawkeye is a pandemic fable too, about how some of us never get to say goodbye or grieve, about loss we can't even count or imagine how it will live in us forever, not yet."