I've been struggling to write for a while but I keep hitting a wall and mainly it's because I have no one to vent to about my issues with Avengers: Endgame. This isn't any kind of story, it's just me screaming into the void so I can maybe eventually...
Now we've seen snippets of a fight between Natasha and all of the new Widows which I'm pegging as our final fight.
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Natasha v the Red Room. Notice we only see Natasha directly take on the new Widows. We have zero proof Yelena, Melina or Alexei ever directly interact with them. Sure, Yelena is involved with the chase sequence in Budapest but Natasha is the reason there's even a chase sequence - Taskmaster is after her; best case scenario Yelena just got labeled as colletarel damage when Natasha went to her for help, worst case scenario Yelena is a plant for the Red Room to lure in Natasha.
As for what happens here, we have a shot of Melina and Ray Winstone's Dreykov in this exact room but in much darker lighting (and Melina back in the black suit) so I'd say after the caravan shows up, Melina goes to Dreykov and tells him of everything that's happened with Taskmaster and Natasha and they two of them decided to turn the Widows loose on Natasha when she shows up as a distraction so they can escape and start the program over again. I suspect Natasha's able to break some or all of the girls out of their programming and they all turn on Melina and Dreykov - likely capturing Melina and killing Dreykov - thus allowing Melina to sit in a prison cell (or she escapes entirely) to await a and wait for a future appearance in a show or movie. Ray Winstone doesn't seem like the kind of guy they'd keep around for multiple movies (he's not the main bag guy, he's probably the tertiary antagonist masquerading as the secondary or even quarternary as teriady if we factor in Ross) and I'd be a little surprised if he makes it out of the movie alive, not a lot of crossover potential for his character I don't think.
As for Yelena and Taskmaster. There been a recent plot leaks of a potential end credits scene involving Ross, Yelena and Taskmaster(Mason) that's ckearly a Thunderbolts set up and suggests Yelena was working against Natasha the whole time. This is completely plausible and would pay homage to the characters origins in the comics as Natasha's rival and given the presumbed set up TFATWS is doing for Zemo to be a Thunderbolts member and Taskmaster himself leaning more villain than hero - would make sense for Yelena to wind up on the Thunderbolts as well. The only issue I take with this is; if we're gonna go the early comics route and make Yelena a villain - they've killed off her correpsonding hero. And if Yelena isn't going to be a heroic Black Widow then they've also wasted any potential set up for Melina to become Iron Maiden - they're Black Widow villains and Natasha is dead. Unless Marvel has plans to introduce us to a ressurected Natasha in a future project or they're gonna go the Gamora/Loki route and just pull one out of the Multiverse in DS2 - then what is the point of setting up Black Widow villains with obstensively no path forward. I don't know who's villain they could become? Nobody else knows about them and they have no reason to fight anyone else. If Yelena is a Thunderbolt (as a villain) then presumably they're supposed to eventually collide with an Avengers team but with no Avengers movie announced for a minimum of two to three years (depending on when the production/release schedule gets back on track) - Avengers movies release in the May slots, May 2020 was supposed to be BW, May 2021 is DS2, May 2022 is BP2 so we're looking at May 2023 before there's even a possibility of a new Avengers movie. So that's probably not it. A chunk of Thunderbolts set up seems to be happening on TFATWS so maybe they're a Sam/Bucky problem if that show gets another season. Taskmaster (if he survives) doesn't have a set hero to his villain or a villain to his sometimes hero. He's a payed mercenary so he'll fight pretty much whoever he's paid to.
The generally accepted outcome is Yelena is supposed to be the next Black Widow - a heroic one, if more morally gray than Natasha was. So that means Melina would (annoyingly) likely become Yelena's villain for a follow up movie or show. I'll be kinda pissed did they go this route if only because they wasted too much time when we could have had a Black Widow trilogy by now and Scarlett/Natasha is literally being replaced by a younger, newer actress (no offense to Florence/Yelna, I love the actress and I'm on the fence with the character until we see what way they're going) but that's literally the situation we're in.
Also I'm never not going to be pissed that Natasha's literally the only character to get a movie and not finish the trilogy. Scarlett's contract isn't up and I seriously doubt Marvel has a pay-or-play contract with their actors. For those who don't know "pay-or-play" refers to a contract in which an actor/director/writer/whatever has a contract and gets paid whether or not the project uses them or not. So Scarlett will be back at some point down the line to do that ninth and final film in her original contract (cameos don't count against the actors totals). Scarlett's only credited appearances are;
1) Iron Man 2 2) The Avengers 3) Captain America: The Winter Soldier 4) Avengers: Age of Ultron 5) Captain America: Civil War 6) Avengers: Infinity War 7) Avengers: Endgame 8) Black Widow
She has a nine picture deal - one last appearance she's contractually obligated to make. Hemsworth, Evans and Downey had all be re-upped before so if the go the Yelena is a villain route, I'd hope they'd re-up Scarlett's contract so she can finish her trilogy and maybe Yelena can have a proper redepemptiomn arc so she can take over the mantle properly.
As for release dates; I'm gonna guess BW is going to end up in November and we can all pray it holds up against an incredibly crowded back half of the year. Selfishly I kind of want everything in the MCU to shift a year and start in May 2021 and beyond but I understand that's not entirely realistic.
