The Hawkeye finale dropped a bunch of major bombshells that the MCU will likely be unpacking for a while to come. One of those that rocked the franchise the most was the revelation about the true origins of Clint Barton’s wife, Laura. Linda Cardellini’s character turned out to have a very surprising past, but Marvel fans have now realized that none other than Tony Stark spoiled this twist years ago… in Laura’s first-ever appearance.
The finale’s final scenes unveiled that Laura was once a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent herself. Specifically, she was Agent 19, making her a secret adaptation of Bobbi Morse, aka Mockingbird, Clint’s sometimes wife from the comics. As pointed out by Redditor u/nigel_13 on the r/MarvelStudios subreddit, Iron Man himself called it way back when he initially met Laura in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.
In response to Clint introducing his teammates to his wife for the first time, a stunned Tony says, “She is an agent of some kind.” Well, he’s not a genius for nothing.
Seeing as Ultron writer/director Joss Whedon is no longer involved with Marvel, this line likely wasn’t a deliberate plant to be paid off at a later date. However, it is possible that the Hawkeye writing team picked up on this joke from Tony and decided to make his deduction official. Laura being a secret agent herself, certainly clears up how she and Clint met in the first place. Unfortunately, it opens up a different can of worms in the process.
There’s been a lot of negative reaction to this Agent 19 twist online as, if Laura is really Mockingbird, that must mean that Adrianne Palicki’s Bobbi Morse from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer canon, and by extension, the entire series itself. But, hey, we got yet another development that makes Age of Ultron retroactively much more important in exchange.
All six episodes of Hawkeye are now streaming on Disney Plus.