Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for Black Widow.
Now that the Marvel Cinematic Universe's latest is in theaters, here are the biggest Black Widow movie spoilers. The first film of Phase 4 acts as a launchpad for what's to come while finally giving Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff her own solo vehicle. It's set between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, following Nat as she's forced to reunite with people from her past in order to move forward.
Those people include Nat's Russian "family," consisting of her adoptive younger sister Yelena (Florence Pugh), mother Melina (Rachel Weisz) and father Alexei aka Red Guardian (David Harbour). Together, they'll team up to take on General Dreykov (Ray Winstone), the leader of the Red Room, which trains up young girls to be Black Widows. Since Black Widow died in Avengers: Endgame, the solo movie also operates as the character's swan song, giving her a final outing to wrap up any remaining unanswered questions.
Now that Black Widow is hitting theaters and Disney+ Premier Access around the world, we're breaking down the 12 biggest spoilers, plot twists and surprises in the latest MCU movie. So one last time: There are SPOILERS ahead for Black Widow.
Black Widow opens on a sequence set in Ohio in 1995, where young Natasha and Yelena are posing as the daughters of Melina and Alexei, who are pretending to be a normal American family while on a secret spy mission for the Russians. They've been posing as a family for three years by the time the movie kicks off, which is the same night that they have to flee. Alexei is able to get whatever information he was tasked with retrieving (more on that later), so he, Melina and the girls leave their Ohio identities behind.
After a police chase that ends with Melina shot and badly injured, the "family" escapes on a small airplane and fly to Cuba, where they rendezvous with Dreykov. Their family is broken up, with Melina taken to be treated and Alexei more focused on Dreykov, which Natasha and Yelena don't take very well. Alexei helps to subdue the girls. Then, in the opening credits sequence, both Nat and Yelena are trafficked to Russia, where Dreykov separates them and puts Natasha into the Black Widow training program.
In 2012's The Avengers, Natasha comments to her friend Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) that the battle agains the Chitauri is "just like Budapest all over again," and he responds, "You and I remember Budapest very differently." Now, Black Widow finally reveals what happened in Budapest - sort of. The story is told through a series of comments made by Natasha to Yelena. When Natasha finds Yelena at the safe house, Yelena asks her sister what makes certain holes in the wall, to which Natasha answers "arrows," indicating Hawkeye had at some point been fighting there. Later, Nat and Yelena hide from Taskmaster in an air duct in the subway system and Nat reveals she and Clint hid there for a few days following their mission to destroy the Red Room. During that mission, Natasha gave the order to blow up the Red Room's operation, using the fact that Dreykov's daughter was there as proof he was as well, meaning the young girl was a casualty.
It's likely the firefight at the safe house is what Natasha was referring to in The Avengers, since there were signs of her and Clint fighting their way out together. Given Nat says the Red Room mission was her final act in defecting to SHIELD, it's likely that her time with Clint in Budapest is where their friendship began, explaining why she remembers it fondly. Further, the explanation of the Budapest mission makes it clear that Dreykov's daughter, whose death has weighed heavily on Nat, is the red in her ledger that Loki referenced in the movie. So the Budapest mission explains a few lines from The Avengers.
The main plot of Black Widow revolves around Natasha learning that the Red Room has continued operating despite her belief she'd taken it down and killed Dreykov when she defected to SHIELD. However, when she reunites with Yelena, she learns that not only is the Red Room still operational and Dreykov is alive, but they've shifted from conditioning obedience in the Black Widows to full-blown mind control. Using the information that Alexei recovered in 1995 from the Hydra-controlled SHIELD North Institute, Melina and Dreykov engineered a way to chemically induce control.
Yelena is under this mind control at the start of the film, but a former Black Widow in Melina's generation had engineered an antidote and cures Yelena of the control. She then sends the rest of the antidotes to Natasha thinking the Avengers could help her deal with the Red Room, only for Nat to find her and reveal the Avengers have had a falling out and she's on the run. Together, they track down the new location of the Red Room, which is on a flying base. Since it's been hovering above the Earth, that's how Dreykov has been able to avoid Nat's detection for so long.
One of the big mysteries of Black Widow is the identity of Taskmaster, the movie's masked villain who can mimic any fighting style and proves to be a formidable antagonist to Natasha. When Natasha confronts Dreykov in the Red Room, he reveals that Taskmaster is none other than his daughter, Antonia Dreykov, who Nat believed she'd killed during the Budapest mission. Antonia was badly injured in the explosion, but survived. However, Dreykov used his mind-control serum to maintain control over his daughter and turn her into the mindless killing machine seen in the film.
In perhaps a surprising move for Marvel, Taskmaster isn't killed in Black Widow. Instead, Natasha cures Antonia of the Red Room mind control and she joins the rest of the freed Widows. Antonia epitomizes the movie's theme of girls and women being abused by men in power and being used as weapons against their own will. So her ending fits into the liberation of all the Widows at the end of the film.
When Natasha shows up in Avengers: Infinity War, a few years after Captain America: Civil War, she's dyed her red hair a white-blonde and she's sporting a dark green vest. Black Widow reveals the green vest is a gift from Yelena, one that's incredibly important to the younger woman. As Yelena explains to Natasha, the vest is the first piece of clothing she bought for herself after being freed from the Red Room's control. Since Yelena was raised in the Red Room and stayed trapped as a Black Widow because of Dreykov's mind control, the vest represents her freedom and independence.
Though the vest is a sort of running joke throughout Black Widow, Yelena bequeathing it to Natasha is a symbol of their reconciliation. The "sisters" hadn't seen each other since they were kids at the start of the film, and Yelena had a lot of anger at Natasha while the elder woman felt guilt over their separation. They team up reluctantly, but by the end of the film, they are essentially sisters once again, which is why Yelena would be willing to give up her first real possession as a gift to Natasha.
Although it's Natasha who insists on finding the Red Room so she can finally kill Dreykov, her goal shifts to freeing the younger generation of Widows - including Antonia - and ensuring no more young girls get forced into the program. Because she believed she had killed Antonia when she originally blew up the Red Room, Nat knew the cost of revenge wasn't always worth it. However, Yelena is younger and doesn't have the same experiences of living outside the Red Room as Nat. As such, Yelena is ready to do anything to kill Dreykov, including die herself.
Though Yelena does manage to kill Dreykov during his attempt to escape the flying Red Room base, she sends herself falling to a sure death with no parachute or hope of being saved. Natasha wouldn't let that happen, though, and she dives after Yelena with a parachute, ensuring her younger sister makes it safely to the ground. It reinforces both Natasha's development and Yelena's foolhardiness.
After the Red Room's base crash lands on the ground and Natasha has freed Antonia from the Red Room mind control, Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) shows up with the cavalry. But Natasha doesn't want her family to be caught, so when the freed Widows show up, they take Yelena, Melina, Antonia and Red Guardian with them as they flee. As former Widows themselves, Yelena and Melina hope to help those who have only just been freed from mind control.
It's unclear where exactly the Widows go, but they'll presumably look to free any Widows that had been stationed around the world and/or establish new lives for themselves. This sets the stage for a possible sequel following Yelena that could bring back Melina and Alexei. However, it's unclear whether what exactly happened after they leave Nat will ever be shown or may just be referenced in a future project.
At the start of Black Widow, Natasha believes her mother abandoned her in the street and she was found and put into the custody of the Russian government where she became a spy. However, Melina reveals that Natasha was sold to Dreykov by her father and her mother protested it. In fact, her mother made so much noise in an effort to find her daughter that Dreykov had her killed.
Later, when Natasha is begging for information about her mother from Dreykov, he simply mocks her. He says Nat's mother is buried under a tree somewhere and her grave doesn't have her name on it. It's unclear if he's telling the truth, or he doesn't remember Nat's mother's name. Or it's possible Dreykov purposefully had her buried without a name on her gravestone to ensure Nat would never learn her identity. Ultimately, though, Natasha never learns the identities of her parents, despite Red Skull calling her "daughter of Ivan" in Endgame, in a way that looked like a set-up to her past being revealed. Ultimately, the moment meant nothing.
In a time-jump of two weeks following the Red Room being taken down, Natasha is shown with her white-blonde hair from Infinity War. She reunites with Rick Mason (O-T Fagbenle), who had helped her earlier in the film to acquire certain things to first hide from Ross and then go on her mission to find Dreykov. She had asked for a jet to help her and Yelena break Red Guardian out of Russian prison, but he'd only managed to get her a small plane because, as he explained, he hadn't had enough time.
However, when Nat's given him more time, it's revealed he managed to get her a Quinjet. It's presumably the same Quinjet she used in Infinity War when she was working with Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson.
After she gets the Quinjet, Natasha makes a comment about her other family being a bit of a mess. She says she's going to go help break them out of prison and patch things up. The Avengers theme plays as the scene is clearly meant to bridge the gap between Black Widow and Avengers: Infinity War.
This also means that the entirety of Black Widow takes place before the final scene of Civil War, which sees Steve breaking Sam out of the Raft. Although that particular scene only shows Steve, implying he executed the prison break alone, the ending of Black Widow indicates he may have had help. In terms of exactly when Natasha reunited with Steve, though, that's still unclear. But Black Widow does make it seem like she joined him soon after the main events of Civil War and stayed with him throughout the years before Infinity War.
In Black Widow's post-credits scene, Yelena is shown visiting Natasha's grave, indicating this particular sequence is set after the events of Avengers: Endgame. The grave is placed under a tree, similar to the location Dreykov described to Natasha about her mother's grave. There are quite a few tributes around the grave, indicating it's publicly known - or at least that enough people know about it to visit and pay their respects to the fallen Avenger. It's a similar treatment to the one Iron Man was seen to have received in Spider-Man: Far From Home.
As to where exactly the grave is located, that's not totally clear. But when Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) shows up, she sneezes and makes a comment about the midwest. It's possible the grave is located in Ohio, since that's the closest thing to home both Natasha and Yelena had while growing up. Still, it gives a sense of closure to Natasha Romanoff's story. Even if it doesn't give Natasha a funeral like Endgame did for Tony Stark, it does make it clear she has a grave that her friends and family can visit.
The Black Widow post-credits scene also reveals not only does Yelena work for Valentina at this point in the MCU timeline, but Valentina sends her to kill Clint Barton. It's not quite as explicit as that, but Valentina interrupts Yelena's time off to tell the younger woman who was responsible for Natasha's death, showing her a photo of Hawkeye. This sets up Marvel's Hawkeye show that's expected to premiere on Disney+ later this year, indicating Yelena will come face to face with Natasha's old friend, and likely try to kill him for his part in Nat's death.
Valentina was, of course, first seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier recruiting John Walker to her team. However, she was meant to first appear in Black Widow with this post-credits scene. Now that both Black Widow and Falcon are out, we know at least two people who work with Valentina: Yelena and John Walker. It's unclear who else might have been or will be recruited by Valentina, but Marvel is clearly setting up a team that will be key to the MCU Phase 4 after Black Widow.
