Is There a Scene Missing at the End of Black Widow?
(This article contains spoilers for the literal ending of Black Widow. So if you dont want to know about the end of the movie, then you should not read this article)  At long last, Natasha Romanoff has gotten her own movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in theaters and on Disney+, after more than a decade of playing the sidekick. Scarlett Johansson has played a significant role (not cameos) in eight MCU movies, including Black Widow, which is a mark that only Robert Downey Jr. can match  and he had the advantage of having three Iron Man movies to headline. Since Natasha died in Avengers: Endgame, Black Widow of course takes place before that film. It picks up immediately after the events of Captain America: Civil War, with Natasha on the run after the Avengers wrecked that airport in Germany. She reunites with her old The Americans-style former spy family, goes on a big adventure to take down the Red Room, and then escapes General Ross and his army cronies once more and heads out to help Steve Rogers break all the other members of #TeamCap out of prison. But its not a clean escape. Black Widow ends with Natasha standing amid the wreckage of the Red Room, her family and the other Widows safely away as black government SUVs approach. Then the movie cuts to black, before giving us a brief two weeks later epilogue scene in which Natashas smuggler pal gifts her a quinjet. There is not, as far as we know, an answer to this question. Heres what Black Widow director Cate Shortland said when we asked her about that. That was intentional, because we wanted to leave the question of how she would get away, rather than allow the audience to get exhausted by another fight, director Cate Shortland told TheWrap. Because she did. And it was probably, I would say, she bargained her way out of that situation. But I dont know.  What we would normally take away from this is that well find out what happened there in a later movie. Perhaps when we catch up with Yelena (Florence Pugh) in the Hawkeye show on Disney+. But since the events of Black Widow will be very old news in the present narrative  it takes place about seven years before Avengers: Endgame, (when the f-year time skip happened)  it doesnt seem like a topic that will have much reason to come up. But it is something that Clint would probably end up knowing about, so if theres any place where this whole deal might get cleared up, its on Hawkeye.  Otherwise, our best guess is that Natasha offered that mind control antidote as a trade, though its not clear how much use General Ross and co. would have for it, since this is the first time in the MCU weve seen this specific form of control. Yelena takes great pains to point out that Natasha had undergone mental conditioning rather than chemical mind control  Bucky likewise was controlled by Hydra using mental conditioning, so we wouldnt think he would benefit from it. But its no doubt something that the remnants of SHIELD would want either way. But we dont know. Hopefully we wont have to wait long to find out. But for the time being, itll be much more fun to break down the post-credits scene, which features an appearance by a new-ish character who looks to be pretty important to the big picture of the MCU.