In this episode, the Black Widow goes looking for an old … acquaintance? Ally? Friend? There’s also a dog, and everything about this gives me feelings.

Let’s discuss Bad Blood.

NOTE: This review will contain spoilers!

So, a quick recap first:

After learning that her mysterious attackers may not have poisoned her or even injected her with anything after all, but rather stolen a sample of her blood, Natasha tries to follow a few likely trails of logic and ends up at the conclusion that anyone who might be interested in experiments of any sort with blood like hers is going to need more than one sample to work with – and their likeliest other target is none other than the Winter Soldier. So if she wants to put a stop to them, finding Bucky Barnes is her best chance at finding them. If she’s right. And if he’s not already been caught – or worse. In short, the race is on.

This episode offered up some deeply interesting tidbits of Black Widow backstory, given that – as I stated before – I’ve never read the heaps of comics/graphic novels that came before. If any of this lore is established, which I am assuming at least some is, then it’s more or less new to me. And I’m feasting upon it already. I was starting to wonder if Hydra and the Red Room were part of the same entity: apparently not, but they’re not above working together? Good to know. Also, kind of terrifying, given what I now know both organisations are capable of.

But this means that the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier have worked together before – heck, Barnes even oversaw some of Natasha’s training while she was at the Red Room, the Soldier being on loan to them from Hydra for that purpose.

It’s a pretty chilling thought, but it means that these two know each other well in a lot of ways. And we also learn that they’ve come to a post-Avengers agreement about staying in contact, despite that a) Natasha had to pester Bucky into this agreement (I love that), and b) she’s been keeping this arrangement, and any knowledge of where he is, a secret from Steve Rogers (break my heart why don’t you).

Cue the Black Widow setting herself on the Winter Soldier’s trail now, and indeed by the end of the episode she’s close to tracking him down – with some help from a hero-worshipping Albanian boy … and an adorable dog.

Heart-eyes moment aside, don’t think I didn’t pick up on the fact that Natasha can (correctly?) surmise that someone has to have been feeding this unusually healthy-looking stray dog, despite also having named her Nemoya – which we learn is Russian for “not mine”, and thus one of her clues that Barnes is indeed still nearby.

I love that, but I also have to say that I find it awfully interesting – and amusing – that Natasha is piecing together information on the whereabouts of the Winter Soldier from evidence of his lingering humanity and need for companionship, despite equally clear (to her) signs that he’d rather not have anything to do with such things. Natasha, who has to keep shrugging off thoughts of the friends she recently made on her last undercover mission and remind herself to stay on target.

Takes one to know one, indeed.

I say this amuses me, but I know myself as well. This is probably going to continue to give me Feelings. Heck, I’m already having them.

Deep breaths.

Here we go.