Hawkeye Episode 6 Credits Scene Explained: The Most Important MCU Moment In Years?!
Spoilers abound for episode 6 of "Hawkeye."
Last night's series finale of "Hawkeye" put a bow (that's a very intentional pun right there, for those who pay attention to such things) on an incredibly busy year for Marvel Studios' superhero output. Things first kicked off in January with "WandaVision," eventually leading to the debuts of "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," "Loki," "Black Widow," "What If...?," "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," "Eternals," and "Spider-Man: No Way Home." After the multiversal "Spider-Man" extravaganza raised the bar even higher for entries with massive ramifications on the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans began to clamor for some sort of game-changing reveal or crossover in "Hawkeye" — some even convincing themselves that the end of "No Way Home" would directly tie into "Hawkeye" with an appearance by Tom Holland's Spider-Man.
That ... didn't happen, to the chagrin of some viewers who may have convinced themselves otherwise. But even though "Hawkeye" may have come to a somewhat low-key conclusion, focusing on quietly wrapping up the stories of all its main players as opposed to tying itself into knots in an attempt to connect to the wider MCU, viewers were at least treated to the studio's typical tradition of a post-credits tease. At last, this finally made up for any potential disappointments and provided all the shared universe connections, hints about future storylines to come, and mind-melting cameos that any fan could possibly want.
Okay, just kidding. It did absolutely none of those things.
Episode 6 ends with Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) thwarting the Tracksuit Mafia and the menacing Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio), allowing the archer Avenger to it back to the Barton family home in time for Christmas while neatly setting up Bishop to inherit the Hawkeye mantle (or at least share it, for the time being). After the credits roll, we suddenly find ourselves right back amid the audience of "Rogers: The Musical," the Broadway play that Clint had to walk out of back in the very first episode of the series. This time, we get to see the uninterrupted rendition of the obnoxiously catchy "Save the City" number, detailing a delightfully goofy interpretation of the climactic New York City battle in 2012's "The Avengers."
Complain all you want, but we could use more of these types of post-credits scenes nonsense moving forward.
Unless...
...or is it all nonsense? Wake up, sheeple, and look a little deeper!
For one thing, the very first line of the song opens with, "Something strange in the air today." Something strange, hmm? Well, consider how this episode of "Hawkeye" aired the very same day that Marvel released the new "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" teaser trailer (which plays at the end of the credits in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"). Coincidence? I think NOT. "Hawkeye" may not have provided any larger MCU cameos than the return of Kingpin or Florence Pugh reprising her role as Yelena Belova from "Black Widow," but everyone who rolled their eyes at this seemingly inconsequential post-credits scene missed the obvious clue that was right in front of their faces all along. No further questions, please.
The other major reveal in this extremely important "Hawkeye" post-credits scene has to do with the somewhat confusing aspect of how certain movie-specific lines of dialogue like "Avengers assemble," "I could do this all day," "Hulk smash," or even Tony Stark wanting to get shawarma end up in a Broadway play. You might assume it makes little sense that any of this would become popular enough in the cultural lexicon for everyday people living in the MCU who, you know, haven't actually watched the Marvel movies like we have ... but you would be wrong! Aren't these details just a little too specific for some random songwriter (whoever the MCU equivalent of Lin-Manuel Miranda is, essentially) to come up with?
That's why I have no choice but to propose the theory that one of the Avengers themselves must have played some sort of role in this. Look back at the roster of heroes featured in the production and you'll likely be drawn to one in particular who has no business being included here — Scott Lang's Ant-Man. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but Paul Rudd's Lang has always been something of a star-struck fanboy with the Avengers. I'm not saying that 2023's "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" will actually be a feature-length excuse to delve into how Lang apparently took charge of "Rogers: The Musical" to include these very specific details while giving himself a share of the spotlight, but that's also exactly what I'm saying.
Didn't think "Hawkeye" would prove influential with the rest of the MCU? Think again, folks.