Black Widow’s Alternate Ending Gave Her a Better Send-Off Than the Real One

Black Widow brought a close to Scarlett Johansson’s MCU journey in a largely successful outing, focusing on Natasha Romanoff in a way that no other movie had.

However, despite being set earlier in the MCU timeline, the movie still suffered from a familiar problem with Marvel movies in that they have to fill in gaps and set up future movies. The latter was dealt with in the post-credits scene, but the former ended up adding an unnecessary coda to the movie.

Two weeks after the events in the Red Room, we see Natasha reunite with Mason (O-T Fagbenle) who had provided her with a quinjet. She’s sporting the blonde hair transformation from Avengers: Infinity War, so we know that she’s heading off to help Captain America free the Avengers held captive in the Raft.

The scene didn’t really add anything to what we knew before as when Cap showed up in Infinity War, it’s clear he’s already been working with Natasha for a while. Instead of focusing on Natasha, Black Widow decided to end on the wider MCU even though we knew how that journey ended for her.

It was frustrating at the time, but now it’s even more frustrating as a deleted scene has revealed that there was an alternate ending scene that could have given Natasha a better MCU send-off.

Black Widow has been available to watch on Disney+ for an additional fee since its cinema release on July 9, but it’s now received a wider digital release.

Earlier than expected, the movie is available on the likes of Amazon Prime Video, iTunes and more, and this version comes with some added extras. Alongside the typical special features, there are nine deleted scenes and for the most part, they seem like added flourishes like an extra bit from the Gulag fight and Taskmaster being woken up.

However, one called “Ohio” takes place at the end of the movie and proves to be a poignant moment. Since the digital release, this scene has made its way around social media and the scene sees Natasha returning to her childhood Ohio neighborhood where she grew up with Yelena.

She’s got the blonde hair and Yelena’s jacket, so we know it’s after the Red Room, and she sees a group of children pretending to be the Avengers.

As Natasha looks at her old house, a girl playing Black Widow spots the actual Black Widow and pretends to shoot her with her bracelet weapon. Natasha returns the favor and smiles at the girl as the scene ends.

It’s a sweet scene that puts a cap on Natasha’s emotional journey to not only come to terms with her past, but to right the wrongs and clear the red from her ledger. By returning home, she appears to have accepted where she came from and that the Avengers weren’t her own family.

What’s more, by seeing the girl pretending to be Black Widow, she knows that despite what she’s overcome, Natasha now has a legacy and is somebody that little girls can look up to and aspire to be. (We do feel a bit sorry for the kid who has to be Hawkeye, that’s not fair on anyone.)

We don’t actually know if this scene would have actually been the final scene before it was cut. There’s every chance we could have had this scene and then seen Natasha go to meet up with Mason, meaning the end point would have been the same.

Even if that were the case though, it would still have been a stronger ending that would have added an emotional beat to Natasha’s MCU send-off, rather than the ‘Is that it?’ we got from the actual ending.

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