Warning! This post contains spoilers for Black Widow. 

Melina betrayed Natasha and Yelena in Black Widow before teaming back up with her family later. Black Widow’s solo film kicked off Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a look back at her past before she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers. Melina was a big part of Natasha’s life, acting as a mother figure before they went their separate ways because the mission called for it. The family was all back together after two decades apart in Black Widow, but it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. 

From the outside, Natasha and Yelena’s dinner with Melina and Alexei looked relatively normal, but it was a reunion fraught with tension, awkwardness, and anger. It didn’t last long, however, before Dreykov’s men were surrounding them because Melina alerted him to Natasha, Yelena, and Alexei's whereabouts despite the fact they came to her for help in taking Dreykov down once and for all. While the betrayal itself was unfortunate, Black Widow confirms Melina was conditioned for far longer than either Natasha or Yelena. Not calling Dreykov would have gone against decades of indoctrination and it was likely difficult for Melina to break free of that so quickly and thoroughly at first. 

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Melina cycled through the Red Room, the facility where the women were indoctrinated and trained to be assassins and spies, several times during her lifetime. Black Widow's Red Room, her research, and working with (and being controlled by) Dreykov was the only life she knew. Before she joined up with Natasha, Melina couldn’t shake her sense of duty to Dreykov and her role in the grand scheme of things. So, of course it was challenging to completely go rogue. It was probably scary to abandon her life, no matter how awful it was, because change and cutting herself loose from such powerful and all-encompassing conditioning was never before presented to her. 

Melina Vostokoff turning to her left in Black Widow

Plus, Black Widow revealed how deeply ingrained the brainwashing went — it took a gas to counteract the effects of the external influences on the new widows before they could return to themselves. The fact Melina ultimately went against the training that was drilled into her since she was a child is a testament to her own mental strength. All that said, Melina is just as much a victim of Dreykov and the Red Room as Natasha and Yelena. If anything, Melina’s betrayal shows how disturbing Dreykov’s operation was. He’s been harming women for decades and his depravity has gone unchecked. 

Melina’s betrayal was understandable considering the circumstances and it was brief as she dug deeper into her heart and mind to break free from her conditioning to help Natasha and Yelena in their time of need. When she and the rest of her family were living in Ohio in the 1990s, Melina revealed she didn’t want to leave the life they built for themselves; she was forced to. She may have been conditioned into this life, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t want to do anything different. In Black Widow, she finally had the opportunity to change things and to do it with the people who were the closest thing she had to family. Despite calling Dreykov on them in Black Widow, Melina helping Natasha and Yelena was the right choice in the end. 

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