User Reviews

The Canadian TV series Hawkeye, based on James Fenimore Cooper characters, and created in part to exploit the popularity of the movie The Last of the Mohicans, turned out to be of little success and it was canceled after just one season. In this last episode, The Return, the writers work on giving a ending to the plot (something many newer series, canceled after leaving the plot in suspense should also do), but unfortunately the result wasn't good and it turned out to be the worst episode of the series which, speaking on general terms, is amusing without pretending anything else.

Without a strict continuity from episode to episode, the story developed the relation between Hawkeye (Lee Horlsey) and Elizabeth Shields (Lynda Carter); this starts when Elizabeth's husband takes her to the wild frontier, a place were the few inhabitants live in a fort protected by English soldiers and in constant conflict with the french army and the native Americans. In the first episodes Elizabeth's husband is abducted by the Indians who plot with his brother, the captain of the fort, a situation that forces Elizabeth to stay on the fort on her own. During this time her relationship with Hawkeye, her protector, grows into a romance, and soon it is clear they are meant to be together. Ultimately the date of the husband is of little interest to the viewer, but, to close the story, in this episode we learn what happened to him.

The return of the episode title obviously is referred to the husband, who, after a year as a prisoner of the natives, has gone crazy and has resolved to get revenge on his brother and to kill Elizabeth. It is a little credible outcome and its only goal is to take the husband out of the way in order to give liberty to the two main characters to consummate their love.

The plot is also hurt by a little developed script which is filled by flashbacks of all the previous episodes. Probably the goal was to give nice memories of the best moments of the show, but instead the story feels incomplete, and it appears the writers were lazy to make something better for the last chapter. Ultimately the things we all knew were bound to happen happen and the whole chapter adds nothing to the series.

In general Hawkeye was entertaining and quite watchable if you are looking for an unpretentious adventure, I think it is a shame the show was unsuccessful since it could be extended for a second season, but the truly regrettably thing is that it has finished with such a mediocre episode. Consider this is not a show of the quality of the rest of the series.