‘Hawkeye’ Showrunner Teases Black Widow Character in Disney+ Series

One of the things we know is going to happen in the final three episodes of Hawkeye is an appearance by the new Black Widow, Yelena Belova as played by Florence Pugh. This was set up in the end-credit scene in Black Widow where Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) gives Yelena her new mission when she shows her a picture of Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) in the Ronin costume without the mask and told that he’s responsible for Natasha’s death.

But this scene wasn’t originally planned and only happened after the Hawkeye folks, lead by showrunner Jonathan Igla, kept after the higher ups to let them use the character. Igla told Variety:

“It came in response to [us] begging for and making a good case for why Yelena had a place in our story. I think what I can safely say about it right now is that there is an obvious connection between Clint’s guilt over the loss of his best friend and the other person in the world who cared the most about her.” 

There is a new mid-season trailer for Hawkeye that shows a masked woman in an outfit that looks similar to Yelena’s comic book costume when she was working with the Thunderbolts, and it looks like she’s stalking Clint and Kate (Hailee Steinfeld).