Marvel’sHawkeyeairs its highly anticipated finale tomorrow. Ahead of the final episode, lead starHailee Steinfeld, who plays Kate Bishop in the show, recently talked about the bombshell twist in last week’s episode. A SPOILER alert is in effect for those who haven’t watchedepisode 5 ofHawkeyeyet. Titled “Ronin,” the episode came with major revelations like confirming Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin as the big baddie of the show and Yelena’s reasons for going after Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner). It turned out that Kate Bishop’s mother, Eleanor (Vera Farmiga), hired Yelena (Florence Pugh) to kill Barton. This revelation came as a shock to Kate, who previously thought the world of her mother.
In an interview withThe Hollywood Reporter, Hailee Steinfeld talked about Kate’s tragic backstory and how it was working with Florence Pugh. When asked if she felt sorry for Kate after learning of her mother’s duplicity, Steinfeld said,
“Is it heartbreaking? Absolutely. The one person that Kate has been trying to protect this whole time is now not to be trusted and possibly not to be protected? Maybe Kate is meant to be protected against her. So I think I was more scared for her than I felt sorry. With everything happening around her, Kate has grown very quickly in a short period of time, and she’s learned a lot. I think she’s more capable of protecting herself than she was a few days prior, even though she has an Avenger by her side to help protect her. So I felt more scared for her than I felt sorry for her in that moment.”
Eleanor Bishop is also an antagonist in the comics, butHawkeyeseems to have merged the roles of Kate’s parents. It was Eleanor who died in the comics instead of Kate’s dad, Derek. How this reveal will play out and what Kingpin’s role is are questions that will likely be answered in the finale ofHawkeye.
Hawkeyealso featuresFlorence Pugh as Yelena Belova, the younger sister of Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). Pugh reprises her role fromBlack Widow. Episode 5 sheds light on her true intentions for trying to kill Clint Barton. It was inHawkeyethat both Steinfeld and Pugh, as well as their respective characters, interacted for the first time. Their conversation was part intimidation by Yelena and part fun banter, but it also raised some intriguing issues, like Kate defending Barton’s past as Ronin. Here is what Steinfeld said about her first scene with Pugh.
“Florence showed up, she showed out, and she was so incredibly prepared. And obviously, having spent some time in this universe as her character Yelena Belova, she came in and knew exactly what her objectives were, if you will. It’s a really interesting scene and one of my favorites in the show. Once I got over my excitement and the idea of working with Florence and having this moment between Kate and Yelena, we dug into this scene, which felt very fun and the banter was amazing.”
She continued, “They’re both living through these very high stakes and are trying to protect those that they love. So it pits them against each other in a way that they aren’t willing to accept, really.” It remains to be seen if Yelena will succeed in her mission to kill Clint Barton or if she will align with him to take down Kingpin. Moving forward, we can expect a lot more interactions between Hailee Steinfeld and Florence Pugh in the MCU.Hawkeye’sseason finale premieres on Disney+ on July 08, 2025.
