Warning: SPOILERS for Hawkeye episode 5.

A Kingpin twist in Hawkeye creates a plot hole in the middle of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phase 4, and it all comes back to Black Widow. For weeks, Hawkeye teased a mysterious "big guy" at the top of the Tracksuit Mafia. This figure is above even Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) in the organization's hierarchy, and she knows him as "Uncle." In the waning moments of Hawkeye episode 5, the series finally reveals the mysterious villain. During the scene, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) sends Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) a text showing her mother, Eleanor Bishop (Vera Farmiga), was the person who hired Yelena to kill Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). The text also reveals that Eleanor works with Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk/Kingpin. And with that, the character from Netflix's canceled Daredevil series makes his MCU debut.

A Black Widow post-credits scene teased Yelena Belova's future in the MCU. In the scene, Yelena visits Natasha Romanoff's (Scarlett Johansson) grave, and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) soon joins her. It's clear Yelena has been working for Val, and Louis-Dreyfus' character gives her a new "target." Unfortunately, this target turns out to be Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton. "Maybe you'd like a shot at the man responsible for your sister's death," Val says.

Related: Hawkeye Is Already Undermining Its Most Important Villain

Unfortunately, Marvel creates a plot hole with its Kingpin reveal. According to the series, Eleanor Bishop (and possibly Kingpin) hired Yelena to take out Hawkeye, and Val delivered her the news. However, Hawkeye doesn't quite work with Black Widow's post-credit scene timeline. Hawkeye takes place in New York during December, and the Black Widow post-credits scene takes place during a sunny day in the midwest. Since Eleanor seemingly hires Yelena to kill Clint Barton during Hawkeye, the Black Widow scene should have been during winter. For the Black Widow post-credits scene to work, Eleanor would've had to hire Yelena long before the events of Hawkeye.

The plot hole shows cracks in Marvel's master plan. For Marvel to carry out an immersive collaboration across various projects, the studio needs to have transparency with its creators, and that transparency isn't quite there yet. For instance, Marvel kept the Hawkeye writing staff in the dark about Black Widow's post-credit scene, and the Black Widow screenwriter didn't know about the purpose of the post-credits scene. If Marvel had more trust with its creators and more transparency, the scene could've been set during the winter to make things make sense. Instead, it appears Eleanor hired an assassin to take out Clint Barton long before she ever knew he was giving her and Kingpin problems.

Sadly, the moment likely isn't enough to make the MCU change its ways. Marvel constantly retcons projects to fix prior issues and brushes away past controversies with a line or two. For instance, the studio laughed off the controversy over making Ben Kingsley a fake Mandarin in Iron Man 3 by punishing the character later in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Likewise, the studio can retcon Hawkeye or the Black Widow post-credits scene to make the events line up better. For instance, the MCU could reveal that Eleanor and Kingpin secretly knew Hawkeye was Ronin the whole time, and they wanted to kill Clint Barton because of that. Hawkeye's Kingpin and Eleanor plot hole is proof that the MCU needs to update its secretive ways, but it probably won't change anything.

More: Hawkeye Mocks The Post-Endgame MCU Timeline Problems

Hawkeye releases new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.

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