'Hawkeye' reveals what happened to Yelena since 'Black Widow' and it's heartbreaking
- WARNING: Spoilers ahead for "Hawkeye."
- Yelena (Florence Pugh) was on her mission to save brainwashed Widow spies when she turned into dust.
"Hawkeye" episode five opens with a heartbreaking scene that explains where Yelena (Florence Pugh) has been since "Black Widow."
Yelena was introduced in "Black Widow," which was set directly after "Captain America: Civil War," as part of Black Widow's (Scarlett Johansson) secret adopted family. In the movie, Black Widow brings her family together again to take down their former leader Dreyfus (Ray Winstone). Dreyfus had brainwashed Yelena and other female spies called the Widows.
At the end of the movie, all of Black Widow's family are still alive, which left audiences wondering why they haven't seen them yet in the MCU. In particular, Yelena ended the movie on a mission to free the other brainwashed Widows.
However, in the post-credit scene for "Black Widow," set after "Avengers: Endgame" Yelena was now working for a mysterious figure called Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (aka Val), played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
"Hawkeye" episode five reveals where Yelena has been all this time. In the scene, set at the same time as "Avengers: Infinity War," Yelena is talking to two Widows she saved and mentions that she wants to make a "good life" for herself and the other Widows joke about Yelena being able to reunite with her sister in New York and live a "'Sex and the City' fantasy."
However, this hopeful conversation is cut short after Yelena goes to the bathroom to wash her face and turns to dust during the Blip, when Thanos wiped out half of all living life.
After returning, Yelena says that she needs to find Natasha (Romanoff), the real name of Black Widow. This was heartbreaking to fans who knew that Black Widow sacrificed her life in Vormir in order to bring Yelena and half of the universe back.
This especially hurts when one remembers how much Yelena talked about having a real family in "Black Widow" and the fact that the two sisters only just reunited for the first time after many years and now Yelena missed the chance to ever see Black Widow again.
This scene also justifies Black Widow's sacrifice in "Avengers Endgame" further, which was a controversial moment. Many defendants of the Vormir scene, including "Hawkeye" director Rhys Thomas, said that Black Widow should have been the one to sacrifice herself over Hawkeye because Hawkeye had a family to go back to that he lost in the Blip.
However, it is likely Black Widow was also doing it to save her own family, Yelena, who she probably looked for during the Blip and assumed was also killed by Thanos.