Favorite Characters: Yelena Belova (Black Widow)

*Some Yelena-related spoilers.*

It’s interesting, because I loved Natasha throughout her run in the MCU, but when her long-awaited after-the-fact solo film finally came around, Yelena emerged as the movie’s MVP. Black Widow’s annoying kid sister (who’s also a trained assassin) leaps off the screen with life, snark, and unresolved rage.

When Natasha and Yelena were young, they were part of the all-American-family set dressing for a pair of Russian agents under deep cover. Natasha, who’d already been through the Red Room by this point, knew that their “family” was fake. Yelena did not. When Alexei’s cover was blown at the completion of their mission, the quartet escaped capture by the Americans but were split up, with little Yelena taking her turn to be brainwashed and indoctrinated by the Red Room.

The next time we see Yelena, she’s a young woman who’s been under the control of the Red Room for most of her life. She’s only just been freed of her conditioning, and she has no intention of losing that newfound free will. As she quickly points out to Natasha when their paths cross again, Red Room programming in Natasha’s day was psychological, while Yelena’s was chemical, her brain altered by a drug to the point where she couldn’t disobey. Natasha was eventually able to break through her own conditioning, but Yelena needed someone else to break it for her, dosing her with an antidote to counteract the drug.

Given all that she’s been through and the agency that was stolen from her, Yelena is understandably angry. She’s still trying to figure out who she is now, what the Red Room made her into and what she might make of herself, and her grievances are many. And yet, while she very naturally reviles Dreykov, she saves her most personal anger for Alexei, who now makes a mockery of their fake family, and Natasha, who escaped the Red Room but never came back for her.

But Yelena is ultimately a pretty reasonable person, and so when Natasha proposes they team up to take down the Red Room once and for all, she comes around to the idea and puts her anger at Natasha aside enough for them to work together. Both of are highly-trained and lethal, but they’re dropping into a situation where they’re trying to get to a man who’s protected by layers of women with the exact same training, women who are still trapped in his thrall. If they have any hope of succeeding, it has to be together.

And more than that, despite her guardedness and her justified rage, there’s a part of Yelena that still longs for the people she once thought were her family. So, as she and Natasha plan their mission, she takes Natasha to task for the way she was seemingly able to shake the Red Room from her life and reputation in becoming an Avenger, but she also totally falls into the little-sister pattern of giving Natasha crap while simultaneously craving her approval. She has nothing but contempt for Alexei’s easygoing, joking attitude toward the past, but when he sings the song she used to love as a child, she finds something in her that still resonates with her not-father.

And honestly? She’s just entertaining. On top of all the general Widow badassery, Yelena is really funny, brimming with dark snark in a way that few female MCU characters have really gotten the chance to be. For all that I love so many of the MCU’s heroines, they’re frequently framed as no-nonsense and highly-competent, especially in comparison to the men around them (this applies to Natasha and the Avengers, but also Gamora and the Guardians, Hope and Scott, and others.) Often, the most they get to be is coolly wry. Yelena has a biting sarcasm that she deploys readily, along with other humorous qualities baked into her personality, like her annoyance at Natasha’s superhero poses or her over-the-top enthusiasm for her tactical vest. Whenever she’s onscreen, she’s definitely one to watch, and I can’t wait to see more of her in the franchise.

Relationship Spotlight: Natasha Romanoff & Yelena Belova (Black Widow)

Natasha’s dysfunctional relationship with her Russian-agent surrogate family is my favorite part of Black Widow, and within that, my favorite of those familial relationships is the one between Natasha and her estranged fake little sister Yelena. Seeing the growing pains of their reunion is a great way to probe more deeply into Natasha’s character while also introducing a great new one (a few Natasha-Yelena-related spoilers.)

During the three years they spent as the decoy children in an Americans-style family unit in Ohio, Natasha understood the real situation – that their “parents” were actually deeply-embedded Russian spies and that the whole family act was simply cover – but Yelena didn’t. She was too young, and whatever hazy memories she had of the family she was kidnapped from quickly blended into the new memories she was making with her fake parents and big sister. It wasn’t until Melina and Alexei completed their mission and extracted themselves that the truth came slamming down. Natasha and Yelena were delivered up to the Red Room, Natasha returning to continue her training/conditioning and Yelena being subjected to it for the first time. Both were tortured and brainwashed as they were molded into highly-efficient assassins.

Natasha was eventually turned by S.H.I.E.L.D., and as a parting gift, she killed Dreykov, destroying the Red Room in the process. Or she she thought. As she refocused her loyalties and became a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, she didn’t cross paths with Yelena again, but she comforted herself with the idea that Yelena got out and was living a normal life somewhere. However, when Yelena lands herself in hot water and she and Natasha are brought back together after the events of Civil War, it’s time for Natasha to get her own rude awakening: Dreykov escaped her hit all those years ago, the Red Room is still active, and Yelena has only just regained the free will that was stolen from her through chemical conditioning. Yelena is armed with the only way to free Black Widows, and Natasha convinces her younger sister to join her in taking down the Red Room for good.

In my review for Black Widow, I mentioned my appreciation for the way that Natasha’s “family” brings out different sides of her, as well as the way they all tease her. Both of those things are especially true with Yelena. Their unexpected reunion might begin with a physical fight, as neither is sure how much they can trust the other, but it quickly slides into sisterly bickering and truth-telling. Natasha moves into big-sister mode, making Yelena’s safety her responsibility and positioning herself as the chief decision-maker for their mission. Meanwhile, Yelena is serving up peak little sister, relentlessly mocking Natasha’s impractical fight poses while simultaneously fishing for Natasha’s approval about her new vest (it’s the first piece of clothing Yelena has ever been able to buy for herself as a free woman and she’s very proud of it.)

It’s not all squabbles and teasing, though. Both women have experienced serious hurt, and they’re able to delve into that together. Yelena and Natasha compare what memories they have of their original families and ponder what they do with what the Red Room made them into. What’s more, Yelena has plenty of hurt that she specifically associates with Natasha, the pain of knowing her Avenger sister never came back for her/saved her, the fact that she was the only one in the “family” who didn’t know their Ohio life was a lie at the time. Yelena pushes Natasha on these things and doesn’t allow for excuses.

And within all of this, we also get the fact that they work extremely well together. Both have similar training, of course, so both share the same considerable skill set (which makes them a little too evenly matched in their initial fight scene, their parallel moves canceling each other out.) They’re well-versed in hand-to-hand combat, shooting, getaway-driving, infiltration, and improvising as needed when things go to hell, and they prove to be a formidable force when they team up. They’re a pair to be reckoned with, and despite some of the long-nurtured hurts between them, they have each other’s back until the end.