Hogan Reviews

Echo is an odd series when you think about it. It’s simultaneously a spin-off from the Hawkeye series, a sequel/spin-off from the now finally definitely MCU canon Netflix shows like Daredevil, the first Disney + era “mature” MCU show and the first “Spotlight” series, or in other words single season mini-series. It’s all of this and a show with a deaf Indigenous lady with a metal leg as its lead protagonist… who by the end of the show has some sort of supernatural power to go along with it? Bizarre, but what did I think overall? I really enjoyed it! … Up until the finale…

The story picks up a few months after Hawkeye, which saw our titular (not that she’s ever actually called “Echo” in the show) anti-hero Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) shoot her adoptive father-figure Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (once again played perfectly by Vincent D’Onofrio) in the face. She is now trying to take over his empire and has tracked a train full of Fisk’s guns and equipment to her home town in Alabama. Before all that though episode 1 is mostly flashbacks, including scenes from Hawkeye (like her father’s death), scenes of her as a child (including the car crash that took her leg and a scene where she’s picked up by Kingpin), and her first assignment as a Kingpin lackey that includes a fight scene with Daredevil (Charlie Cox, naturally!) We also see that her childhood best friend’s Mum was killed in the same car accident she had as a child and it was due to her father’s dodgy connections, and this led to a divide in the family, one that has meant Maya hasn’t see her old friend Bonnie (Devery Jacobs), her uncle Henry (Chaske Spencer), her cousin… *sigh*… “Biscuits” (Cody Lightning) or her grandmother Chula (Tantoo Cardinal) since she was a child.

Echo is aiming a gun, but at WHO?!

Given there’s only five episodes, and the last two are barely above 30 minutes, it did seem odd to focus so much a lot of what’s been established previously. We also get flashes to ancestors of Maya throughout the first three episodes, namely Chafa (Julia Jones), who is some sort of magical person who led her people out of their magic caves and had them assimilate into humanity (apparently based on old legends of the Choctaw tribe featured heavily in the show); Lowak (Morningstar Angeline… great name!) who was a Choctaw tribeswoman in the 1200s; and Tuklo (Dannie McCallum), who was a “lighthorseman”, or basically something akin to a Marshall in westerns… maybe? (sorry, my knowledge of Southern US history is lacking…) The latter two face imminent danger only to see a glowing swirly pattern on their palms that Chafa had that gives them the supernatural power to win the day. They’re really well shot, the hockey-like sports game in the Lowak scene was particularly interesting, it’s not a time period often visited (though after the What If…? series last month I’ve experienced a heck of a lot of it recently!)

A dramatic and bloody battle at a roller skate ring! First time for everything I guess.

What about the actual plot I hear you ask? It’s… fine. Maya returns to her home, tries to avoid old faces but is inevitably brought back into their lives when she successfully messes with Kingpin’s train of supplies and his remaining thugs turn up to get revenge, capturing Bonnie and Henry at the latter’s roller skate ring. She manages to take a good number of goons down but is captured, but before they execute anyone the main goon gets a phone call and leaves, leading to the reveal that Fisk is alive, surviving a shot to the head because… he’s large and muscular? Ah, who cares, D’Onofrio’s Kingpin is too good to kill off! Fisk forces Maya to have a meal with him in which is claims to be happy for his sort-of daughter to have his empire, but Maya has since found out that Kingpin had her father killed so working alongside him was not something she was interested in. He gives her 24 hours to accept and during this time Maya reconnects with Chula and finds out about her mystical heritage…

The fight scenes in the first few episodes are very exciting, often brutal and generally well shot, and the characters assembled around Maya are perfectly fine and do their jobs well. It was all looking good until the frankly crap finale that I’ll get to in the spoilers…

Overall Thoughts:

Maya leaps from the train so she can get saved by… Biscuits. *Sigh* That name just ruins every sentence…

“Echo” starts out really strong with a good set of characters (though the plot using them is wafer thin and not all that engaging), well choreographed fight scenes are aplenty and a more street level and “mature” theme is welcome and better ties it into the Netflix stuff. The finale though is an extreme let down, especially the final confrontation and that really knocks it down in my estimation, so a nearly but not quite in terms of finally giving a 2023/24 MCU show a higher-than-average rating…

While Kingpin’s goons plan to attack the people attending a local “powwow” Maya finds a special outfit created for her that further connects her to her ancestors, who are described as “echoing” back onto her (I get it!) Kingpin once again kidnaps Bonnie and throws Chula in for good measure but as Maya arrives she uses her newfound mystical powers to compel Bonnie and Chula to take out their own captures using skills they don’t have and then instead of taking out Kingpin Maya instead grabs his head and forces him to confront his worst fears (his Dad, the cracked wall in his old flat, all that great stuff from Daredevil Season 1) and this causes Fisk to flee… and that’s it. Well, Henry stops a man with a rocket launcher as well, and Biscuits runs over some goons in a vans with a monster truck, which is a really weird sentence in isolation.

The eyepatch is off by the end of the series by the way… The man’s got super healing powers but instead of the X Gene it’s just him being too stubborn to die, or something!

Generally though the big final confrontation was just… nothing. Maya and Kingpin don’t even actually fight! Oh well, everyone then has a barbeque and it’s all happy. In a post credits scene Kingpin is watching the news and hears someone say that New York needs a “man of action” to be their new mayor, giving Fisk an idea and confirming rumours of what Daredevil story will be adapted for the “Born Again” series whenever that comes out…