Today ushered in the finale for Hawkeye and, with it, closure (of sorts) for some of its characters—mainly with Yelena Belova and Clint Barton. The two were connected by Natasha Romanoff even if they had never met before, but throughout Yelena’s journey in Hawkeye, we got to see her struggle with her sister’s death and who she could blame for it.
In the finale, we had a lot of people all struggling with their pasts and trying to find answers in people who didn’t have them, but there is one moment between Yelena and Clint that really hits just how much these two are connected, whether or not they want to be. Let’s talk a bit about Yelena and Clint in Hawkeye.
**Spoilers for the entire series of Hawkeye lie within.**
I was anxiously awaiting the Yelena and Clint showdown in Hawkeye. And luckily, I wasn’t disappointed. While Yelena was dead set on killing Clint Barton, she also has the same heart as Natasha and her dedication to making sure she first hears what happened is, ultimately, her downfall. But Yelena isn’t the kind of person to just kill Clint outright without getting answers.
The moment that really made this scene hit for me, though was Clint using the whistle that Nat used to use as a kid with Yelena to get her to listen to him. For most of the scene, it didn’t matter if Clint was telling the truth. Yelena still called him a liar and hated him regardless of what he was saying to her. So, when it came to the moment she was about to kill him even if he barely gave her any answers, he whistled in the same way that Nat did.
And watching Yelena stop and instantly start crying about her sister and seeing Clint’s entire journey throughout this show and his guilt over losing Nat? It shows us all that neither of them are going to get over Natasha any time soon and that both Yelena and Clint are more alike than they’d like to admit.
Natasha told Clint about Yelena and she told Yelena about Clint. They were both, in their own ways, her family and the two of them are both feeling guilty that they’re still alive when Natasha is not. But that moment at the end of their battle when Yelena reached out to help Clint up? Giving him her hand and for that moment giving him grace in this battle? That is the Yelena I love most of all.
She isn’t perfect. She was driven by revenge like many of the characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but she also stopped and realized that killing Clint wasn’t going to bring her sister back and he was hurting just as bad as she was. I hope that isn’t the end of Clint and Yelena’s relationship because I loved that heart-wrenching fight, but I am grateful for that whistle moment between them.
(image: Marvel Entertainment)
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