The following article contains a major twist from the film. Only continue reading at your own risk. This is your final spoiler warning.
Black Widow has finally arrived. The wait has been a long one, but somehow the real identity of Taskmaster has remained tightly under wraps. In an interview with Total Film, director Cate Shortland finally was able to open up about that reveal after a whole year of silence. There have been countless theories that it was Rachel Weisz‘s Melina or O.T. Fagbenle‘s mysterious character.
It turned out, we were all wrong. In reality, it turned out to be the man antagonist’s daughter, Antonia Dreykov. She was a sacrificial lamb when Natasha joined shield and had been referenced since the first Avengers film while Loki was taunting her from his cell. While sadly it wasn’t Tony Masters, we did get a very personal twist and Shortland offered some insight on the inspiration:
What’s great in the film is, you see that [Natasha] physically has to face what she’s done. It’s not a fragment [of that]. It’s real. And so she’s really facing her worst nightmare. I almost see Taskmaster as being her psyche, ‘This is what I’ve done, and it’s coming back to get me.’ The androgyny of the character is really interesting.
She also goes on to talk about Natasha sticking out from the other heroes due to her ambiguity. She’s done some terrible things but the film also gave us insight into how she was able to make the sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame. Yelena was an important part in her finally accepting her past and Antonia’s return let her apologize for the things she’s done. The Taskmaster Protocol might still make a return in the future and Marvel Studios has returned to some projects in the past to further explore them. So, we might see the legacy that Natasha left behind in the MCU’s future.
Source: Total Film
