The undisputed highlight of this week’s Hawkeye was the return of Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova. She was the breakout star of Black Widow, with that film’s post-credits scene showing her being falsely informed by Julia Louis Dreyfus’ Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine that Clint was responsible for Natasha’s death.
That tease got some payoff this week, with Clint and Kate’s burglary of Echo’s apartment rudely interrupted by a mysterious figure in Splinter Cell cosplay. After demonstrating her martial arts finesse, gymnastic abilities, and red electroshock tech, the fighter finally demasked to reveal an extremely pissed-off-looking Yelena.
Here’s how it went down on social media:
The stage is now set for Yelena to play a bigger role in the remaining two episodes as I doubt she’s going to give up on her roaring rampage of revenge anytime soon.
However, I can’t deny that it’s frustrating that if Yelena and Clint simply spoke to one another they’d instantly clear up this misunderstanding. It appears that literally everyone in the MCU knows that Hawkeye and Black Widow were the bestest of buds, so Clint explaining that Natasha sacrificed her life on Vormir to save the galaxy should suffice.
But hey, at least them being at loggerheads means we get some kickass fight scenes. I’m sure that Yelena won’t stay an antagonist for long, especially as she’s clearly being set up as the successor to Scarlett Johansson. She’ll also likely build a relationship with Kate that will probably come to mirror Clint and Nat’s friendship – particularly as they mirrored ‘the shot he didn’t take’ with Kate deciding not to fire an arrow at Yelena.
Yelena will undoubtedly be back in next week’s Hawkeye, so see you for more next Wednesday.