"Black Widow" may feel like a step backwards for the timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
but the ending to the story says a lot about what's next for the MCU.
From Natasha's fate to the future of Yelena, this is the ending of "Black Widow," explained.
Examining Natasha Romanoff's ending in "Black Widow" is impossible without taking the nature
of the film as a prequel into account.
After all, we know where she's eventually headed.
The ending of "Black Widow" just helps to set it all up.
By the end of the film, she's got the blonde hair we first see her sporting in "Avengers:
Infinity War," and one movie later, she sacrifices herself to save her friends in "Avengers:
Endgame."
The movie also elaborates on Natasha's involvement in Cap's team of secret Avengers that operated
covertly in the aftermath of "Civil War."
It turns out that she's the one responsible for picking up the Quinjet that allows Team
Cap to continue running secret missions across the globe for the next two years.
When "Black Widow" begins, Natasha declares herself out of the game, but by the end of
it, she's got a new sense of purpose, making her the driving force behind the secret Avengers
team that heads out to help the world in ways the MCU still hasn't fully shown us.
We don't really know exactly how she went about assembling Sam, Steve, and Wanda to
go out and help people once again, but now we know she was an integral part of forming
the group and not just following her friends into battle.
If Natasha's journey in "Black Widow" is about reconnecting to her sense of purpose after
losing some of her hope during "Captain America: Civil War," her sister Yelena's journey is
about discovering that she can actually have a sense of purpose to call her own.
For years, Yelena has served the Red Room and only the Red Room, and when her newfound
freedom comes, it merges with all of that cold resolve she developed as a trained killer,
turning her into a determined force of nature.
This, of course, naturally sets her up to be the next Black Widow in the MCU, but her
path is complicated by the arrival of Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in her life
at some point after the events of the film, as seen in the movie's post-credits scene
with her and Val meeting over Natasha's grave.
"Don't call me that."
"Copy."
Thanks to Valentina's influence, Yelena has found steady work as a hired gun once again,
but whose side is she really on?
Does she even know?
Is Valentina's knack for manipulation and temptation simply another form of control
that Yelena can feel but not see?
However it all shakes out, Yelena came out of "Black Widow" with a new sense of freedom
and determination, and the moment she discovers someone is trying to pull her strings, they'd
better run in the other direction.
Natasha and Yelena's "mother," Melina Vostokoff, is one of the more fascinating members of
the "Black Widow" cast because she seems to jump between two worlds ﻿quite comfortably,
even for a spy.
On the one hand, she's been serving the Red Room in an advanced capacity for a long time,
working directly on the subjugation tactics that helped her boss, Dreykov, retain an iron
grip on the Widows for years.
She seems to have no qualms at all about this, even relishing the technology she's helped
develop, right up until she realizes what a dramatic impact it's had on the people she
cares about.
From there, she's eager to help bring Dreykov down, and by the end of the film, she's apparently
found a new place for herself as a kind of caretaker to a group of orphaned Widows.
We don't know yet what Melina does after she and Alexei Shostakov fly off with the Widows
in tow.
Perhaps she just returns to her farm, helps out when she can, and keeps tending to her
pigs.
Perhaps she digs deeper into the worldwide espionage community and helps Yelena to free
more Widows.
Perhaps she just enjoys a quiet retirement.
But as long as she's alive, Melina represents an important figure in the MCU underworld,
who at any moment could shift the balance of power with what she knows and what she
can do with that knowledge.
Of the four "family" members that served undercover in America during the "Black Widow" prologue,
Alexei Shostakov might be the most diminished when we meet him again in the present day.
While everyone else has had an undoubtedly hard time, at least they weren't left to rot
away in prison.
And when we eventually catch up with him, Alexei's glory days as the Red Guardian are
clearly long gone, but over the course of the film, he comes to find that he might still
have some power left in his worn-down super soldier body.
By the end of the movie, Alexei has limped away into the sunset alongside Melina, and
where he goes from there, we don't really know.
He could choose retirement, but something about his personality and his love of adventure
suggests that a longing for his glory days would eventually lure him back out into the
world.
What that means for the larger superhero community is anybody's guess, but going forward, it's
important to remember that there's another super soldier out there in the MCU.
With a super-powered U.S. Agent out in the world — not to mention a new Captain America
— Red Guardian might want to make his presence known once again.
Shortly before his death, Dreykov reveals to Natasha that while his Red Room headquarters
might be the hub of his operation, it doesn't begin to convey the full scope of his power.
He's got what appears to be hundreds of Widow operatives around the world, all under his
direct control, ready to sway world governments at a moment's notice.
"They're manipulated.
Fully conscious, but no choices."
Fortunately, before the Red Room is destroyed, Natasha manages to copy all of Dreykov's data,
giving her the locations of all of these Widows and, perhaps, the opportunity for Yelena and
her to free all of them in time.
The key question, though, is what each of these women might do if and when they're freed.
How many of them actually like what they're doing and are perhaps predisposed to more
villainous tendencies?
How many of them will simply become adrift and lost when their purpose is taken away?
How many will want to perhaps become future Avengers or maybe SWORD agents?
There are a lot of lingering questions -- and a lot of potential wild cards -- in that data
file.
Perhaps no other figure in "Black Widow" better exemplifies Dreykov's legacy of cruelty better
than his own daughter, who spends most of the film as the masked figure known as Taskmaster.
For years, Natasha has believed that she ordered the killing of Dreykov's daughter, part of
the "red" in her ledger that she was going to spend her life wiping clean.
But Dreykov actually managed to save the girl ... only to then transform her into a killing
machine deployed against his most high-value targets.
By the end of the film, Dreykov's daughter is freed by Natasha and Yelena, but it's still
an open question whether she can ever have anything even resembling a normal life.
Even more than the other Red Room Widows, she exemplifies the depths of her father's
cruelty and ruthlessness.
That leaves deep psychological scars along with all the combat skills, and she might
never fully heal.
But if she does feel like stepping back out into the field, having Taskmaster fighting
alongside the good guys would be a sight to see.
A key point of the "Black Widow" plot is Natasha's realization that Dreykov -- the man she thought
she'd killed as part of her defection mission to SHIELD -- is not only still alive but still
running the Red Room from a secret sky base.
In fact, his grip on power is tighter than it's ever been.
Sure, by the end of the film, Natasha has managed to truly end Dreykov once and for
all, but the character's legacy and its ripple effects could be part of the MCU for years
to come.
Dreykov wasn't just a charismatic, powerful leader with a firm grasp on what it took to
rule from the Red Room.
He was also the keeper of a dangerous chemical compound that allowed him to control even
those closest to him in perpetuity, a technology he stole from an American lab in 1995 and
perfected.
We know from the film that Dreykov wasn't the first to experiment with chemical brainwashing,
and we also know that someone else developed a formula to stop his mind-control tech in
its tracks.
So, what happens now?
It's unlikely that Dreykov simply died with no loose ends left in that technological chain.
His legacy of pain and control doesn't end with him, and we've perhaps only begun to
see the implications of it in the wider MCU.
Who knows where that mind-controlling chemical might show up next and in what form?
The post-credits scene of "Black Widow" reveals that Yelena has taken a job with Valentina
Allegra de Fontaine -- an influential woman who wields a still-mysterious amount of power
in the Marvel espionage world -- and that Val is preparing to send Yelena off to target
Clint Barton.
Val tells Yelena that Clint is responsible for Natasha's death during "Endgame," which
is a stretch, but if there's one thing we learned about Val from "The Falcon and the
Winter Soldier," it's that she's not afraid to play fast and loose with the truth to get
what she wants.
This one scene creates major ties between "Black Widow," "The Falcon and the Winter
Soldier," and the upcoming "Hawkeye" series that will star Clint and his young protege,
Kate Bishop.
We also know that Yelena will be making an appearance, although we're not sure if she'll
get to meet up with characters like John Walker, aka Val's other major asset at the moment,
or the Power Broker Sharon Carter in the near future.
What we do know, though, is that Yelena's willingness to go deeper into Marvel's world
of espionage means that she's primed to be every bit the Black Widow her sister was ... and
perhaps even more.
Much has been made of Natasha Romanoff's declaration in "Avengers: Endgame" that she had nothing
until she found her Avengers "family," particularly in light of "Black Widow" and its status as
a prequel to both "Infinity War" and "Endgame."
The film's trailers seemed to set up that Natasha actually did have a family in some
form all along, so why would she simply discount them in favor of her new superhero pals?
"Family Reunion,"
"You don't know everything about me.
The Avengers weren't my first family."
In the end, "Black Widow" does a very good job explaining why Natasha felt that way and
why she phrased that much-discussed "Endgame" sentence the way she did.
As the movie reveals, Natasha did have what felt like a real family as a young girl, only
to have it taken away from her in devastating fashion.
The trauma of that origin story ultimately drove her to defect, join SHIELD, and become
an Avenger.
She found a sense of family with the Avengers, and if she hadn't earned that through them,
she might never have been able to reconnect with her original family the way she did.
So, by the end of the film, Natasha notes that she actually had two families all along,
but it took finding the second one to open her heart enough for her to rediscover the
first.
It's not a contradiction.
It's just a convoluted journey that still allowed her to reach the same conclusion.
Becoming an Avenger made her a better person, and the ripple effects of doing good brought
her back to something she thought she'd lost long ago.
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