Marvel’s Echo was released on Disney+ on January 10, 2024, and while many feared that the comic book company would stray from the darker Netflix Marvel shows, they couldn’t be more wrong. Echo isn’t only dark, the show stands out from most of the Marvel shows on both Netflix and Disney+.
Episode 1: Chafa
During a family gathering, young Maya calls her cousin, Bonnie, her sister, and after the party, the 2 of them are in a car on their way home. And then they get in an accident. Maya and Bonnie are separated, Maya goes to live in New York City under the wings of Kingpin while Bonnie stays behind in Oklahoma.
Maya is trained to be an assassin for the Kingpin, Wilson Fisk. And there are flashbacks to the point where her father is killed by Ronin, Clint Burton, also known as Hawkeye. He tells her that it was Kingpin who was behind the assassination of her father. He wanted her father dead and thus hired henchmen like Zane’s crew to kill him and his friends.
And we are back to the present where Maya is supposed to infiltrate a club and she manages to get in. When she tries to complete her assignment, Daredevil shows up but Maya holds her own and manages to fight Daredevil to a standstill. After that, Daredevil flees the scene and so does Maya.
Fisk praises her because she has done what no one else has managed in New York so far: Fight Daredevil to a standstill.
After Hawkeye’s events, Maya looks for Fisk and shoots him in the face multiple times. Presuming that Fisk is dead, she goes back to Oklahoma to her family.
Episode 2: Lowak
The episode opens with a lacrosse-like game back in the medieval ages. There is a lot at stake. The loser will be banned from the grounds forever and thus the team gets a woman named Lowak with a red-painted jaw who wins the game secures the homeland forever and has her tribe live there peacefully.
What was odd about the scene was that the woman called upon her ancestors and her hands gleamed with a yellow/gold kind of sign appearing on her palms.
In Lowak, Maya tries to reconnect with her family. In particular Henry. Henry runs Fisk’s criminal syndicate in Oklahoma by laundering money. When Maya comes in she meets Vickie, who works behind the counter of a rollerskate ring while Henry does the kids’ disco.
Henry is asked to help out with a heist but is quick to refuse saying that she shouldn’t bring her New York war to Oklahoma. So she visits Biscuit who helps her out by getting materials from Skully while Biscuits borrows the truck from Maya’s grandmother.
The 2 rush to a train and she melts down the armory for Fisk’s army. And she doesn’t care because she assumes that Fisk is dead since she shot him in the face.
Back in town, Maya avoids Bonnie because she doesn’t want to upset her life by telling her she is back in town. Besides, she is only supposed to be in town for a few days and will leave as soon as she gets what she wants.
Instead, she sticks around asking Skullie if he can fix her leg that went bust during the destruction of the train wagon that carried the armory.
Little does she realize that Vickie is asking around to see if there is still a bounty on Maya’s head. If so then he has a hot tip for the ones for said bounty.
Episode 3: Tuklo
The 3rd episode of Echo gains more momentum and expect more action than the 2nd episode.
The episode starts with a woman named Tuklo, she is training to be part of a special elite group called The Lighthorse Police. She is very talented and stands out. When the time is there and she asks for a spot in the special unit, she is told that she can’t join because she is a woman.
Men are life takers, women are life givers is the answer. She ends up using the same powers as Lowak and Chafa. But what more is the connection?
Maya however doesn’t know anything about this. As she takes a break from the train heist, her life is upended when Vickie’s henchmen zip-tie both Henry and Maya. As they wait for their contact to walk in for that big payday.
When Bonnie walks in, Henry urges her to leave quickly but Bonnie ends up captured and is zip-tied next to Maya. Maya goes all McGyver and improves a gun made of parts lying around, one of them is a rollerskate. If the show fails, they can always have Maya reboot McGyver.
As Maya breaks out and ends up close to winning against her kidnappers, the criminal and his men walk in. And it is Zane and his henchmen. Zane plays a pivotal role in Hawkeye and is under the employ of Fisk.
Vickie keeps asking about the money and the question ends his life. It is too bad but come on, he is the snitch and Zane has low tolerance for whiners.
As they start the fight, Maya has the upper hand using loud music and darkness to take them down 1 by 1. That is up until they use the hostages and Maya surrenders. Right before the execution, Zane gets a text message and he leaves the building.
Maya goes home and when she takes a moment to catch her breath, Wilson Fisk shows up, he survived and woke up from his coma. And he wants to talk about Maya becoming the Queenpin to his Kingpin.
Episode 4: Taloa
Episode 4 shows the kind of uncle Fisk was to Maya. We watch a very young Maya in 2008 with her prosthetic leg leave school and stop for an ice cream. But the man doesn’t want to communicate with Maya and he moves on. Fisk witnesses all this. And after Maya gets into the car, he walks out.
He drags the ice cream man into an alley and beats him to a pulp. He then calls to get new clothes because he does not want Maya to see him like that. Instead, Maya already saw what he did and gave the wounded man a few kicks as well. And this marks the start of a beautiful toxic relationship.
Back in the present, Maya has her Sunday dinners with Wilson Fisk. His eye is still missing and there is a big bandage covering the eye Maya shot him. While conversing during dinner, Kingpin gives Maya an ultimatum: Go back to New York and become his Queenpin or live a life of misery. She has until Sunday.
Meanwhile, Maya’s grandmother also has the visions Maya has. The visions involve Taloa, Tuklo, Lowak, and Chafa. She tells Maya that she had the strongest vision when she gave birth to Maya’s mother. She believes that Maya has lost the connection to her ancestors and that the visions are them trying to reach Maya to reconnect.
Maya is still angry with her grandmother and leaves her for the fancy fair in their hometown to tell Fisk the answer to his ultimatum. Fisk instead offers her the hammer, the same one he used back in Daredevil season 1 on Netflix to kill his father. Fisk tells Maya to use it on him but instead, she tells him no and leaves.
Episode 5: Maya
In the final episode, Maya confronts Wilson Fisk but not in a way you think and not before the mystery of her family is solved.
There is another flashback and this time Maya shoots a bird with her slingshot. Her mother heals the bird and the bird flies again. Their family consists of mystical.
While Maya tries to flee town, her grandmother and Bonnie are captured by Wilson Fisk and his man. Biscuit calls Maya to tell her that they didn’t show up at the fancy fair. So Maya goes back to save them but not before she goes home first.
Just when she gets home, Maya sees her mother’s spirit and she tells Maya that she is never alone and that she and her ancestors are with her. Maya finds the suit that her Grandmother has made her. The suit activates Maya’s powers as she reconnects with her ancestors.
Meanwhile, Biscuit spots Fisk’s henchmen and drives over them with his monster truck. The henchmen are now stuck in their vans but are now rendered harmless so they can’t turn the fair into a mass shooting. While Henry shoots Zane, who is about to use a bazooka into a crowd. The crowd never notices how close they came to death and thinks that the explosion of the bazooka is considered part of a fireworks show.
Maya goes into the barn where Fisk holds both Bonnie and her grandmother. Instead of fighting him, Maya uses her newfound healing powers, inherited from her mother, to heal Fisk. He asks what she has done to him but before she answers, he leaves town, fully healed.
Maya reconnects with her family as they are having a barbecue. In the post-credits scene, Wilson Fisk comes up with the plan to run for New York mayor. And that likely ties into the upcoming Daredevil: Reborn series. \
Echo’s shortcomings
The Wilson Fisk story felt a bit forced at times and it was a bit dragged out I wish that the writers would have given Bonnie and the ancestors a bit more screen time.
I also noticed that there is no one to train Echo’s newly found powers. It is a bit strange that such powers would not be harnessed by its users. But this is just the first season and maybe in the future, we will see Echo mastering her powers in for example the new upcoming Avengers featuring Kamala Khan.
I loved the flashback scenes and in particular, the one where they play lacrosse. It showed the Indian civilization in full effect and the scenery, all the green, was so incredibly beautiful.
The story about the ancestors was pretty amazing albeit a bit vague at times. The show doesn’t make the connection between the flashback scenes until the last episode.
The darkness of Netflixverse, at a much faster pace
I loved the show to bits. It reminds me of the Marvel Netflixverse in terms of darkness but there is a key difference: the pace is much faster, and there are only 5 episodes.
You could argue that it gives the showrunners less time to flesh out characters but the Marvel Netflix shows are also known to drag out their story over 13 episodes with character development being slow. With only 5 episodes, the character development was faster and fast enough to not bore the viewer.
Echo’s smart casting choices
Another aspect that I loved is that the character Maya was played by a real deaf actress, Alaqua Cox. And no, she has no relationship with Charlie Cox.
I praise Marvel for their ability to break ceilings on whatever platform they are. Whether it is TV, comic books, or movies. Marvel always seems to manage to break that glass ceiling and upping the standards. I am looking forward to seeing more of that in the future.
Did Echo meet my expectations
To be honest, I didn’t think much of the show until I watched it. The trailer looked great and Echo in the comics is pretty amazing too but a TV show revolving around a character that isn’t that very well known? I had my doubts.
But while I was watching I just couldn’t stop watching. I binge-watched the entire show in 1 single night and didn’t go to bed until 6 am.
The show made a great reference to Madripoor and that all by itself is great. Madripoor is huge in the Marvel Universe. It is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. It is also the place where Wolverine for example goes when he wants time off from the X-men.
I would heartily recommend Echo to any Marvel fan and pundit alike.
