What fans have been waiting weeks for finally happened on today’s penultimate installment of Hawkeye. Episode five of the Marvel TV series saw Vincent D’Onofrio make his grand return to the MCU as Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin. He made his last appearance on Netflix’s Daredevil before the series’ premature end back in 2018. We didn’t necessarily get a glimpse of the big guy in action, but the episode’s cliffhanger confirmed his comeback.
Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) is sent an image by Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), which reveals her mother meeting with a shady figure — none other than Fisk, the true boss of the Tracksuit Mafia. After “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” hilariously plays over the credits, the sequence concludes with the unmistakable silhouette of Kingpin outlining the Hawkeye logo.
While he’s been keen to dodge spoilers before now, with the truth out there in the open, D’Onofrio has broken his silence Kingpin’s big comeback on Twitter. The star shared a screenshot of the Kingpin silhouette and quoted one of Fisk’s most iconic Daredevil lines. “When I was a boy…” he captioned the pic.
D’Onofrio’s tweet got fans losing it all over again…
Thanks to D’Onofrio, it’s all canon again!
The King(pin) has returned.
Though the way episode five avoided showing Kingpin in the flesh suggests D’Onofrio may not have actually shot anything for the series, Marvel fans are now keeping their fingers crossed that he will turn up on screen in next week’s finale. And when he does, he won’t just have Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), Kate and Yelena against him, but also his niece Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), too, who now knows he sent Ronin to kill her father.
This betrayal obviously paves the way for the upcoming Echo spinoff series, which may be something of a backdoor Daredevil revival, with D’Onofrio and Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock rumored to be playing major roles. But first, let’s see what the Hawkeye finale has in store for us when it hits Disney Plus next Wednesday, Dec. 23.