Hawkeye Finale Cut A Yelena Belova Action Scene
Hawkeye finale director Rhys Thomas has revealed that episode 6 “So This Is Christmas?” almost featured an alternative fight scene featuring Yelena. Florence Pugh’s Black Widow assassin earned her much-anticipated return following her debut in Black Widow earlier in 2021. Pugh starred alongside Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Alaqua Cox, Fra Fee, Vera Farmiga, Tony Dalton, Linda Cardellini, and Vincent D’Onofrio.
After receiving the assignment by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to eliminate Clint Barton (Renner), Yelena made her first appearance in Hawkeye in episode 4 “Partners, Am I Right?”. Hired by Eleanor Bishop (Farmiga), Yelena ambushes Barton and Kate (Steinfeld) when they were investigating Maya Lopez (Cox), spooking Clint into cutting Kate off. After sharing a tense meal with Kate where they discussed Barton’s heroism, Yelena revealed the investment of Wilson Fisk in the Bishop families’ business, before facing Clint in the final episode. Promotional images have given fans a glimpse of cut events featuring Yelena from the finale, and now the episode’s director has revealed Yelena was planning to have more effort scenes in the episode.
Speaking to Metro, Thomas revealed numerous mysteries from the production of the Hawkeye season finale, including an alternative action sequence. Thomas explained that Clint’s fight with Tracksuit Mafia leader Kazi (Fee) in the office building would have been extended, with Clint facing down the entire mafia using stealth. Yelena would have also gotten involved, battling Clint earlier than in the final episode as he faced Kazi. Check out Thomas’s response below.
“The Kazi and Clint fight in the office, there was going to be a much longer sequence where Clint was going to take down all of the TSM [Tracksuit Mafia] in a sort of almost Ronin-like way, that you’d sort of seeing this stealthy side, and it was going to be a much longer sequence, that we ended up just truncating and Yelena was going to come up in the office as well.”
Yelena’s future in the MCU is largely open, as Hawkeye’s finale saw Yelena find closure after fighting Clint, hearing from the Avenger about Natasha’s (Scarlett Johannson) heroic sacrifice on Vomir in Avengers: Endgame. Tom Holland has already expressed interest in seeing a Spider-Man and Yelena team-up in the future. That might be a complex issue, as Yelena is still under Val’s employment alongside former Captain America and current US Agent John Walker (Wyatt Russell), with the MCU’s Phase 4 building up numerous adversaries to face Earth’s mightiest heroes in a post-Endgame universe.
Though Yelena is a fan favourite and audiences are excited to see more of Pugh’s character, it may be for the best that this sequence was cut. In the final episode, fans were both treated to an entertaining showdown between Yelena and Kate as Clint dealt with Kazi, as well as Clint and Kate working together to defeat the entire mafia on the ice rink. The Hawkeye finale already featured plenty of battles that provided fitting endings to the series arcs, so it would be for the best to give greater emphasis to those showdowns.