Warning: This article will contain Hawkeye spoilers from the outset, so please turn back now if you do not want to know the latest secrets from the series.

Marvel are constantly building and delivering on expectations of their most avid fans, and while the very wild ideas of Loki followers about who would possibly be making an appearance in the Tom Hiddleston-led series didn’t quite equate to the first season’s finale, it seems that the much more grounded series Hawkeye is giving fans exactly what they have been asking for. We are now five episodes into the Disney+ series, and having seen the return of Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, this episode brought another long awaited character into the MCU in the form of Kingpin, played by none other than Vincent D’Onofrio despite the actor’s many protestations to the contrary.

Ever since he posted an image on his Twitter account prior to the Hawkeye series’ premiering, D’Onofrio has been attempting to firefight the growing number of fans theorizing that he was about to bring his character of Wilson Fisk/Kingpin into the MCU after playing him in the now defunct Netflix Daredevil series. However, all of those denials became redundant when Hawkeye released its fifth episode today, as the actor made his debut in Marvel Studios’ Mangum Opus.

The episode sees Yelena telling Kate Bishop that she was hired to kill Clint Barton by Kate’s mother, Eleanor Bishop. At the end of the episode, Kate receives a photograph from Yelena that shows her mother standing next to Fisk, and when she questions Clint about who the man is, he reveals that it is who he has been worried about, leaving us to head into the finale of the show with D’Onofrio’s Kingpin now a fully-fledged member of the MCU family.

D’Onofrio became one of the highlights of the three seasons of Daredevil, but when the series – and soon after the entire Marvel Television collection – was cancelled in 2018 it seemed like it could be the end of the road for the likes of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones. While there was a two year block put on the characters of Marvel Television characters, which came to an end in late 2020, from June this year it was strongly rumored that both D’Onofrio’s villain and Cox’s Matt Murdock would be returning screens as part of the MCU’s future plans.

"I do take it as a compliment. I so badly want to play that character again," D'Onofrio said shortly after the rumors began to swirl. "I love that character. I just have to wait for Marvel to ask me. I think it's very clear that I would, and the fans know that I would jump at the chance to play again. I just need to be asked."

While these rumors were strenuously denied by all parties for a long time, in the last few weeks Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has spoken about Charlie Cox, confirming that when Daredevil does make an appearance in the MCU proper, then it will be the actor making a return to the role. With this in mind, and D’Onofrio now having already made his first appearance, the doors are wide open for some other characters to make an unexpected but welcome return to the Marvel fold should they wish to do so.

The sixth and final episode of Hawkeye premieres Dec. 23 on Disney+.