🚨Warning: There are MASSIVE — and I mean MASSIVE — spoilers ahead for Black Widow!🚨
Hi, hello. If you're here, I'm assuming you're like me and you can't stop flailing about Black Widow. So, to celebrate this pretty perfect MCU movie, here are all the details I noticed:
If you're new to these posts, welcome, and I apologize for all of my nerdy yelling! If you're returning after WandaVision AND The Falcon and the Winter Soldier AND Loki, thanks so much for coming back!
1. First, in case you don't know, young Natasha is played by Ever Anderson, who is the daughter of actor Milla Jovovich and director Paul W. S. Anderson. Meanwhile, young Yelena is played by Violet McGraw, who you probably recognize as young Nell from The Haunting of Hill House.
2. Young Yelena tells Natasha that they're both upside down while playing in the yard, and Yelena says this again to Natasha after they take down the Red Room.
3. After young Yelena hurts her knee, Melina tells her pain only makes her stronger. This line is repeated two other times in the movie.
4. If you look closely, you can see that an episode of DuckTales is playing on the TV in the living room.
5. A more obvious detail, but just in case your adrenaline was getting in the way, you can spot a '90s S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the cars chasing Alexei, Melina, Natasha, and Yelena.
6. Melina tells Natasha to "never let them take your heart," which she remarks again when they are reunited.
7. Alexei was working undercover at the North Institute in Ohio, and in the comics, Natasha and other Widows who survived the Red Room were eventually hunted by the North Institute in the US.
8. During the (incredible) opening credits, you can see footage of Christmas, Easter, and other holiday moments Natasha later says she remembers filming.
9. The news footage shown in the opening credits is from WHiH World News, which is a news network that has been used throughout the MCU movies and TV shows.
10. You can also spot two Widows going through the same cranial procedure that almost happens to Yelena when she's captured by the Red Room later on.
11. The vials of blue liquid shown in the opening credits are likely a nod to the Red Room trying to recreate the super-soldier serum. We know they succeeded in some way because of the Red Guardian.
12. Natasha brings up Ross's second triple bypass, and in Captain America: Civil War, Ross mentions his first heart attack.
13. When Ross lists the Avengers they have imprisoned on The Raft, the only person he doesn't list is Wanda Maximoff, and he can't remember Scott Lang's name.
14. When the "Taskmaster protocol" is first enacted by Dreykov, you can see that Taskmaster is watching footage of Hawkeye and Black Panther fighting from Captain America: Civil War.
15. While we only briefly see Rick Mason, he does appear throughout the comics. Rick often works with S.H.I.E.L.D., and he's actually the son of Tinkerer, aka a Spider-Man villain.
16. You can see that throughout Black Widow, Natasha is wearing her arrow necklace, which she's worn in other MCU films.
17. While hiding out, Natasha watches (and quotes) the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker. The movie follows James Bond as he investigates the theft of a space shuttle and confronts Hugo Drax.
18. Throughout Black Widow, Taskmaster mimics the fighting styles of several Avengers. In her first encounter with Natasha, Taskmaster uses Captain America's shield moves, Natasha's flip over someone's head — like she used on Bucky in Winter Soldier — and Natasha's fighting pose.
19. Natasha uses the same knife move — where she drops it from one hand to another — that Yelena uses on one of the Widows when we first meet her.
20. Behind Yelena at the Budapest safe house, you can spot a poster for the Die Vögel opera. The opera basically follows a group of people who leave society to go be among the birds.
21. This isn't really a hidden detail, but it's been years in the making, so I have to yell about it. We FINALLY found out what happened with Natasha and Clint in Budapest, which is something that was first mentioned in The Avengers.
22. During the car chase, Taskmaster mimics Hawkeye's bow and arrow moves while trying to catch Natasha and Yelena.
23. You can see that while Natasha and Clint were hiding, they were playing tic-tac-toe and a game of hangman, where they were trying to spell "butterfly."
24. We finally see what happened to Dreykov's daughter when Natasha tells Yelena about it, and Dreykov's daughter was first mentioned in The Avengers by Loki when he's talking to Natasha.
25. Alexei has tattoos dedicated to Melina, Natasha, and Yelena that you can spot while he's arm wrestling in prison.
26. Also, Alexei has "Karl Marx" tattooed on his knuckles.
27. The inmate who questions Alexei's fight with Captain America is named Ursa, whose name is taken directly from the comics. In the comic books, Ursa Major is the superhero alter-ego of Mikhail Uriokovitch Ursus, a member of Russia's version of the Avengers who can turn into a bear.
28. When Natasha swings down from the helicopter while saving Alexei, it's the same move Taskmaster used while fighting Natasha on the bridge.
29. Natasha and Yelena's white suits are a nod to the comic book series Black Widow: Deadly Origin, where Natasha wears a white suit.
30. Alexei mentions how Yelena and Natasha's ledgers must be "gushing red," and this is a callback to Natasha and Loki's conversation in The Avengers.
31. When Melina opens up her secret closet full of weapons, you can spot what looks like Iron Maiden's mask from the comics. In the comic books, Melina goes by Iron Maiden, who often goes up against Black Widow.
32. When Alexei, Melina, Natasha, and Yelena reunite at Melina's house, they are sitting around the table in the exact same places they sat while eating dinner in 1995.
33. Melina tells Natasha about her mother, which makes Natasha learning her father's name right before her death in Endgame even more heartbreaking. Now we know that Natasha knew about both her parents before she died.
34. Yelena makes fun of Alexei and calls him the "Crimson Dynamo." In the comics, one version of the Crimson Dynamo was part of the Winter Guard, aka Russia's version of the Avengers, which also included Red Guardian and Ursa Major.
35. When Natasha (but really Melina) and Yelena are lying unconscious on their way to the Red Room, it's the same way Natasha and Yelena were lying side-by-side when they were taken in Cuba.
36. The disguise Natasha and Melina use — aka a Nano Mask — is the same tech Natasha used in Captain America: The Winter Soldier in order to infiltrate the World Security Council meeting.
37. Dreykov's pheromone trick is pulled directly from the Black Widow comic book series from 2004. In the comics, the Red Room creates the pheromones, and Natasha breaks her own nose in order to stop being controlled by it, just like in the movie.
38. While fighting Alexei in the Red Room, Taskmaster mimics Black Panther's claw move, Bucky's iconic knife flip from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Captain America's move where he kicks up his shield.
39. After Dreykov reveals how to access the Widows' database to Natasha, she thanks him for cooperating. This is a nod to when Natasha used the same tactic on Loki in The Avengers.
40. Of course, now we know that Natasha was wearing Yelena's vest throughout Infinity War and for the beginning of Endgame — and now I need to know where it ended up.
41. The Quinjet that Rick gives Natasha at the end of the film is the same one she uses in Infinity War when Natasha, Steve, and Sam travel to Scotland to save Wanda and Vision, and when they go to Wakanda.
42. Here are Scarlett Johansson's first and last scenes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, just because it's very important to me. Also, Natasha starts her journey in the MCU by walking toward us in Iron Man 2, and her last scene shows her walking away from us.
43. Eventually, Yelena does get the dog she always wanted, and she even names it Fanny, which is one of the aliases Natasha was given by Rick.
44. Natasha's grave is underneath a tree, which is exactly how Dreykov described where her mother was buried after she was murdered.
45. And finally, when Yelena visits Natasha's grave, she puts her forehead to her headstone, which mirrors when Natasha and Yelena reunited after the Red Room exploded.
