"Echo (Disney+ Limited Series)" Talkback (Spoilers)

[Yojimbo]

No bad deed goes unpunished.

​

Disney+ and Hulu Streaming Date: January 9, 2024 at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT (all episodes)

Directors: Sydney Freeland and Catriona McKenzie
Head Writer: Marion Dayre and Amy Rardin
Cast: Alaqua Cox, Chaske Spencer, Tantoo Cardinal, Devery Jacobs, Cody Lightning, Graham Greene and Zahn McClarnon
Rating: TV-MA

The origin story of Echo revisits Maya Lopez, whose ruthless behavior in New York City catches up with her in her hometown. She must face her past, reconnect with her Native American roots and embrace the meaning of family and community if she ever hopes to move forward.

Episode 1 "Chafa" - January 9, 2024

Young Maya Lopez leaves her hometown of Tamaha, Oklahoma following her mother's death and moves to New York City, where Wilson Fisk raises her to be a ruthless assassin. Upon learning Fisk had her father killed, Maya shoots him and flees.

Episode 2 "Lowak" - January 9, 2024

Maya enlists her disapproving family to help take down Fisk's army while experiencing strange visions.

Episode 3 "Tuklo" - January 9, 2024

Maya learns the meaning of collateral damage as Fisk's ruthless army arrives in Tamaha, Oklahoma.

Episode 4 "Taloa" - January 9, 2024

Maya finds herself at a crossroads, facing the shadows of her past and contemplating her future.

Episode 5 "Maya" - January 9, 2024

The lives of Maya's family hang in the balance as Fisk's army invades the Choctaw Nation powwow.

Official Links:
-Official website
-Disney+ page
-Hulu page

Related Links:
-Daredevil Season 1 Talkback (Spoilers)
-Daredevil Season 2 Talkback (Spoilers)
-Daredevil Season 3 Talkback (Spoilers)
-Avengers: Endgame Talkback (Spoilers)
-Hawkeye Talkback (Spoilers)
-Disney+ News & Discussion Part 8

 

[Fone Bone]

Echo "Chafa"

First off, it's a little better than the Netflix stuff. That was my major concern. I HATE the Netflix stuff and this has a different feel to it. It's dark, but the tone isn't as MEAN as the Netflix stuff could be. Maybe that's not the right word. But it's a little easier for me to take.

That being said, it's a little boring. Am I wrong?

Daredevil is in this! Neat!

Withholding final judgment on the series as a whole until I've seen everything. The first episode was not bad. ***.

Echo "Lowak"

Still a little dull, but Skully and Biscuits are kind of funny. I like Henry too.

I also like that there's a main title.

Pretty good. ***.

Echo "Tuklo"

Good episode, great cliffhanger.

I'm loving Zane so far. Vicky's fatal mistake is believing he can play with the big boys.

Love that Henry is now all in.

Really good episode. ****.

Echo "Taloa"

Ugh. The hammer. Daredevil on Netflix is canon. Damn.

I do believe Fisk cares for her, but Maya is right that if he truly did he'd learn to sign. The fact that he couldn't be bothered is telling.

Is Maya a monster? Maybe. But she sure as hell didn't sign off on the interpreter being killed.

Speaking of which, seeing the thing with the ice cream man at the beginning made me realize I totally forgot this version of Fisk was bug-fudge crazy.

Is was good. But not great. Also I want to pretend Netflix didn't exist, and this episode isn't letting me. ***1/2.

Echo "Maya"

For a series Marvel and Disney+ washed their hands of, and practically burned off, I'm a little surprised at how effective it was, especially compared to other Marvel Studios TV stuff. It's not technically the best Marvel Studios show, but it's better than every Netflix show because it FEELS like Marvel Studios. I recognize the tone. The ending is hopeful, not bleak. In hindsight I believe the TV-MA rating was just a gimmick. There were a couple of violent scenes that wouldn't pass muster on broadcast TV, but everything could have easily be done on a TV-14 rating. Hannibal, for example, has done far worse.

Fisk finally admits he killed her father. It's amazing she forgives him and tries to heal him instead.

I'm not going to pretend that was amazing and perfect. But considering this is the show Marvel Studios seemed ambivalent about, and the fact that it went through so much trouble during production, says it should be a lot worse than it is. Okay, so I won't pretend my expectations weren't actually low, and I might be going easy on it because of that. But maybe Disney+'s expectations were too low too. It's actually pretty good. ****1/2.

 

[Marvelman02]

Marvel hasn't been doing it for me as of late on either the big or small screen, but I took a leap of faith and watched the first episode of Echo. There were individual elements that I liked such as Maya's childhood and the setting, but it didn't add up to a good story. I would give "Chaffa" 3 stars for passable but with the potential to become something more.

6 hours later...

Just finished "Lowak" otherwise known as episode 2. The good: I like the setting and the characters. I like the actress playing Maya. It is amazing that she remains interesting even though she is acting like a villain. The show is in no way cringe-worthy. There is no finger-wagging to be found. The bad: the show is thus far a slow-burn but I like the character enough to stick around and see what happens to her. It looks like she is being primed for a redemption arc. I'm going to agree with Fone Bone again and give "Lowak" a 3/5 stars.

2 days later...

I just finished the series. It started slow but there was some big pay-off at the end. I appreciate the mature tone and the absence of forced humour at inappropriate moments. I will give Echo a 3.5/5 stars as a whole. In other words: good but not great.

 

[Yojimbo]

1/11: Description of a deleted scene involving Uncle Henry.

Interview with Alaqua Cox.

Interview with writer Amy Rardin.

1/16: In short, I liked it! I was on the fence about all 5 in one day but I get that Marvel Studios wants to experiment with release methods and look at the metrics and I took my time with watching one episode a night while avoiding reading spoilers.

I wasn't sure about Maya's new ability in the build up to the premiere but as I watched episode to episode, I dug it. The vignettes at the beginning of the episode were done and each had their own style to it. Reminds a little of the One for All super power in My Hero Academia, all the holders of the ability pass on theirs and make OFA even stronger but in this case, made it generational and familial and tied it very well into Native American mythos and nice touch with the harbinger, the Biskinik bird. Loved how they brought in the Nanih Waiya/Mother Mound in Chafa's.

Appreciated how they brought in the Hawkeye scenes and extrapolated and created more context for Maya's past. If that's what Spotlight is going to be, bring on more. While not 100% standalone, still standalone enough. Take the first episode to callback the minimum that needed to be revisited, then cook. Interesting Fisk's reach expanded past New York into Oklahoma but makes sense he would need a railroad for his operations, probably smuggling and what not. And of course, revealing how Maya and her father ended up in New York, how her mother's death fractured the family, how Fisk raised her, what Fisk saw in her - the parallels (and differences). Loved that after having that moment with Taloa and healing, Maya chose to try to heal Fisk's trauma (but ultimately couldn't) rather than try to fight him. Nice touch with Bonnie and Chula also being able to access the Echoes when Maya did.

Zane was pretty entertaining and his swagger, lol. Could have had more appearances but the story didn't have much room for him to others his two.

Biscuit was hilarious. Driving by Chula in the damaged truck with that look. lmao. Thought it was cute that Skully was such a ham and took any chance to flirt with Chula.

And of course, one of the longest MCU traditions - the Roxxon cameo. Daredevil cameo was just enough. Dug the return of the hammer. All in all, nice touchstones to the DD series.

Only things that was needed was reminding us why Fisk took advantage of Ronin's rampage to have one of his own, William, set up to die. Fisk was expanding and consolidating power during the Snap and wanted Maya for himself to raise, so with William out of the way - he took over the Tracksuit Mafia operations and had a 'daughter' of his own. And of course, what was in that 1 episode they cut out of the season.

But great oogly moogly, Fisk is gonna run for Mayor of NYC.

EDIT: Some cut plot points. Seems they wanted to cut out any hint Maya was allied with Daredevil.

1/17: And some cut material about Maya's powers manifesting.

More in depth (multiple slides) of all the cut material.

And storyboards, too. Ok, so trying to put it all together: it sounds like the families Fisk absorbed were The Rousseaus who owned the ports, The Elliots had lot of territory, Zarco and The Black Knives were the muscle, and the weapon supplier south of the border was someone named Angelica in Guatemala. Henry was connected to all these gangs and cartels because he managed Fisk Shipping in Oklahoma, and thus oversaw the weapons shipments from Guatemala up to New Orleans, Kansas City, El Paso, and Oklahoma that went to Fisk's armory in New Jersey which was overseen by someone named Irina. Irina was the obstacle to Maya taking over. The Black Knife Cartel was hired to protect the armory so she dispatches them to track down who attacked the armory, hence them coming to Oklahoma. Maya was aiming to take over Kingpin's operations in NYC namely Hell's Kitchen. That was what that line Maya had with Henry atop that lookout about being a queenpin. Maya convinces the Rousseaus and Elliots to side with her when she reveals she was the one who shot Fisk. All the while she is in contact with Matt Murdock who helped her get a deal with the Feds to inform after she shot Fisk to I guess to escape prosecution. Daredevil and "his friends" gather to help dismantle Fisk's empire/loyalists in NYC off-screen. But then I guess the plan goes south once Fisk reveals to Maya he's still alive.

1/18: Reportedly the cut episode was focused on Bonnie.

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

You know admittedly I did question the point for this particular series when it was first announced. Yeah I know Echo was a Marvel character but honestly a fairly obscure one compared to say Moon Knight or Miss Marvel. Plus this was a spinoff being greenlit and revealed BEFORE Hawkeye had even come out. Like they were really super confident in Maya Lopez and continuing her story when she was the main character even before we knew what her story was which yeah even for the MCU riding high off the success of the end of phase 3 was saying something. This wasn't an Agatha Harkness scenario either where the character first proved popular so I got giving her the spinoff but hey then seeing Hawkeye I did like her character and felt she had an interesting story so was fine seeing what would come of it, even if it did feel weird. Probably less so when those rumors of abysmal test screenings and having to rework the story so much they went from 6 episodes to 5 because yeah cutting an entire episode isn't exactly a sign of quality. I guess it is a sign though of Marvel finally realizing their current over extended movie they call a mini series formula isn't working but I admit it was the marketing and FEEL of this one that made me truly realize why this was done; This was the MCU fully putting it toes into the R rated/more mature water it knew it had to adapt for some of it's upcoming projects.

The thing is though a lot of Marvel characters can work easily enough with a PG-13 rating that generally can include stuff for all audiences, there are some characters and worlds that don't. And when Marvel not only took over all the characters back from Fox but revealed they were working the Netflix characters fully into the MCU properly, there was debate for awhile how that was going to go; would they remove the edge and bite from those characters in works fully about them? yeah I get doing that for the bigger more spectacle or general lighter material which is why I wasn't really bothered with how Matt Murdock was handled in No Way Home or She Hulk and my main issue with Kingpin in Hawkeye was thinking he died which thankfully didn't happen otherwise I liked him in that show. But how would Marvel handle the projects of these characters when they were fully on their own and thus were expected to still have that edge? Well turns out the MCU is going to be fine with characters having that edge in those projects by seperating them slightly but still having them take place in the overall main MCU. Deadpool 3 is still going to be R rated and the Daredevil series will have that edge but i guess Marvel first wanted to prove they were capable of that edge themselves with one of their created characters, thus we got this show which.... I'm going to be honest having fully watched is fairly solid and honestly not only better obviously then Secret Invasion but also Loki season 2 overall but... does have problems mostly resolving around the ending. So I'm just going to do mini reviews on each episode and explain why i feel that way.

"Chafa" - Now one of the things I did hear about this show before watching it is that it has a slow start which yeah it does but this is one of those more intentionally paced really setting up the character and their scenario sort of slow starts that due to this being a much lower stakes series then most of the other MCU outings makes a lot of sense. I really feel this does a great sense getting us a feel of Maya and her trauma not only in how she lost her mother and one of her legs but her separation from her family and doing a good job connecting it with the bits we saw of her in episode 3's flashback of Hawkeye since yeah now that this is her series we don't need a reason to really connect everything that happened with Clint and can let those moments breath. And honestly I was really feeling Chula's anger towards William and wanting to distance herself as much as possible and of Maya and Bonnie having to say goodbye. It also works too that this series though having some more slightly goofier characters like Biscuits or even Skully focuses more on the drama and weight of the scenario and only very occasionally will feel out of place with a joke but still isn't uber heavy to the point of it being exhausting. I guess it did feel a bit off having Maya's first big battle in the series being against these thugs and finally getting this taste for murder and actually enjoying it followed by a fight with Daredevil. Like I get that they obviously wanted to set up Matt being around more properly and the fight itself worked showing Maya's skills even if DD still outclassed her enough but... felt like that should have at least been more a part of a montage you know. Having it put together like that does feel a bit weird but honestly that was the only main problem of this episode for me as I felt the rest flowed well. I do like how this connects back to Hawkeye with Maya thinking she did off Kingpin and now picking up later with I guess her wanting payback on his men for shooting her (that should have been made more clear honestly) thus it taking her back to her hometown and setting up the other supporting characters decently well. Admittedly not a fantastic start or anything but outside Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Miss Marvel and maybe She Hulk none of these shows have the best starts it's how the rest proceeds that determines their quality. So with that in mind let me talk about...

"Lowak" - My FAVORITE episode of Echo. To me when the creative team was talking about the potential and edge of this series, I feel this is the one that most delivered on those expectations. Which is weird as this is the only one without Kingpin at all but the rest works so well. First off of these beginnings showcasing various ancestry of Maya first awakening their power this had to be the best. You think "Tuklo" would take that but eh this series really couldn't make the fun yet excitement of an old school shoot out like a silent film really work while this showcasing this game and Lowak having to face banishment if her team lost felt like the most interesting overall story we got that showed a character and a progression. More importantly though this is kind of the story i really wish the rest of the season allowed to play out but they sadly went in another direction cause quite honestly, Maya hatching this plan of sneaking around this train full of weapons and setting up this bomb that blew up a bunch of Kingpin's forces to send a message and cripple his empire so she could make plans of taking over is like really cool and interesting. It does show that even if we aren't showing her as a full out villain or anything we are certainly showing someone with really shifty ambitions but it's also against well Kingpin's underlings so you can still clearly root for her. And honestly how she got her robotic foot stuck and using that power and then actually implementing the bomb as Biscuits was following her in the car and her having to use a flare to get his attention so he could get her as she jumped on the truck was a cool very unique kind of action scene. I also like the scene first showing off Skully being annoyed by those tourists who didn't get the point of the artifacts he had in the shop and Biscuits coming around to make that a sale. Granted the best scenes are with Maya but I will say I wasn't ever like totally checked out bored away when focused on the more supporting characters in this show or that they just went on forever and could have been cut. And at least because this is a smaller more character focus it felt like there was a point to them unlike say a lot of the Miss Minutes/Renslayer stuff from Loki season 2 that once you see the full season feels super pointless. So yeah at this point I was really digging the series and curious where it was going to go from there but again this is the highlight as it started sinking for me after this one.

"Tuklo" - Granted this isn't like a really bad episode at all. The opening again isn't that great but it's fine and honestly the idea of Maya being kidnapped and held by this amateur theives looking to collect on her bounty and having to hold her as Kingpin's men come in is a solid one. Granted considering how Maya literally blew up a train full of people and the last episode made clear she was aware of the reprecussions did make it feel kind of suspect not only how easy she was taken but even how long it took her to get away from these schlubs but I guess it was also the visions that were supposedly messing with her and I guess her not putting 2 and 2 together despite being told by Henry "hey you messing with these guys affects all of us" that it would also involve her friends and people she knew. And I do have to say I did like how the scene HERE at least with Bonnie played out when the two were taken with how Maya was trying to push her away and Bonnie trying to reach out and ask what happened with her and how come she stopped being in contact even pointing out she tried being there when her dad died but has no idea what's happening to Maya while Maya just didn't connect back at all. This sadly doesn't go anywhere which yeah I'll talk about that in another episode but it works well here. I do feel that this is suppose to really be the big showcase of how Maya's current power set work and her fighting and it was cool seeing her take on some of these goons by surprise or even some of the fights in the roller rink in like the rinky dinky game section area but... this does show that while Marvel is willing to be more grounded and bloody with their action they haven't yet captured the visceral nature of combat that the netflix shows captured. And unlike the finale which is supposed to be more fantastical this is still supposed to be more on that level and yeah it really wasn't. That said some good parts and I did like the guy who snitch on her getting offed and Maya and co only getting away because Kingpin personally called to save her. Like with Hawkeye though I know this is trying to be a more "grounded" series but this still takes place in the overall more out there MCU so when Maya doesn't think Kingpin could have survived being shot in the head, shouldn't someone have gone "didn't an alien snap half the population away and then they came back? Whose to say how one comes back?" Also because they put the credits for the episodes at the beginning and not the ending (I know some shows do that but honestly I prefer the shows that wait for the endings to do that especially when they reveal the characters that will be in this) having Kingpin show up at the end isn't surprising at all. Granted we all knew he would be in this show but I feel it would have meant more if they at least had the credits at least for this one pop up AFTER not to give that way. Still solid enough and leads well to...

"Taloa" - Again I haven't seen the Marvel netflix series really but I do know about them and yeah I know enough to be aware even if this show was taking elements from it, this was written at the point where Marvel wasn't sure exactly how much of those shows they wanted in continuity with the overall universe. Finding out more about Daredevil Born Again it appears they are trying to take more elements thankfully from those shows to incorporate more into the actual MCU but guess at the time there were only a few. So yeah I know they did at least keep Kingpin's "I killed my father for beating my mother" the same, but they also keep making this point of Wilson going on about how he and Maya are the only ones who understand one another but... what about Vanessa? i get Maya not being a thing mentioned in the Daredevil series at all as that wasn't an element brought up there but it's an element people know about even if they aren't fans of those shows so feels weird for Fisk not really to even bring up in passing especially as the whole reason he's here is because of his connection to Maya and him being all about those emotional connections. That said I will give credit for how D'Nofrio plays him here and I actually do buy the very weird relationship these two have, to the young Maya kicking that guy in seeing Fisk bloodied and her actually being given a position of power in that last flashback. I also appreciate that though Maya still isn't that happy to see Fisk her actually appreciating and thinking over the offer about getting that position but then when Fisk reveals how he killed his own father and showing the hammer to Maya a lot of the rage she probably had going "yeah I don't really want anything to do with this guy anymore this is just too much" and taking off. That stuff worked well and I am glad that this isn't a show that does feel the need to force in an action scene into an episode that wouldn't really need it. Sadly the other half isn't nearly as interesting. Like sooner or later I knew we'd have to explain all of those visions and bits seeing all those other women but it's one of those things that when explained honestly lessens the story more then helps. Also considering this reveals Maya's mom also had that connection they really should have done a better job connecting that throughout the season but honestly the biggest problems with that are in the finale...

"Maya" - Okay so as Yojimbo pointed out the episode that was cut from this run was focused on Bonnie which... you can tell was supposed to be part of the story because without it we get too huge a jump of character progression that makes the entire journey just feel empty. Why?

Because quite frankly without it, Maya's progression is just TOLD TO HER THROUGH HER MOM without HER really showcasing any proper growth on her own thus as a result it feels really empty and is a weak end to her story.

Admittedly the whole "oh Maya's mother can heal and talking about how powerful that is and what you should do" does feel a bit wonky for this series. Like I know the Netflix series got chastised for how sometimes dark and mean their endings could be and that a Disney Plus series wouldn't go that far but it does feel off for how this series started to end with "Maya makes peace with her family and goes with them to a barbeque all happy after enlightening Kingpin with her powers" so yeah that's a hard enough sell on it's own. To me though the bigger problem is that you get the scenes of Maya just ready to ride on THEN having that vision with her mother explaining more about the echo connections and that leading her to that outfit (which doesn't even look impressive but quite honestly can someone please tell the Marvel team to STOP ENDING THESE SERIES WITH ONE EPISODE OF THE COSTUME REVEAL? We want to enjoy the characters more AS HEROES so just having them have their attire really only in the last episode feels weak and I am glad it seems with Born Again they got the memo of how bad an idea of waiting for it really is) and then setting up the climax. Cause it feels like it is taking the choice and the actual discovery and realization out of Maya's hands and just having it happen to her. Like I do really like the idea of her mom's spirit reaching out to her but it shouldn't be how Maya really decides to become Echo and now use these powers more for healing. Cause yeah to me what we were missing is Maya actually deciding to really reach out and re-establish these connections outside of you know a fight scene or just showing up at the end. To me if they were going to spend so much time on how important the bond that Maya had with Bonnie that should have been the big catalyst moment of Maya's change. Like after seeing her mom actually having Maya go and meet and talk with Bonnie actually spilling about what happened and realizing she wants to reconnect and Bonnie forgiving her and Maya realizing that power of forgiveness and healing IS something she can use and she doesn't need to be driven by vengeance or hate anymore and is stronger connected to the people she cares for. If you are going to spend so much time on how important the connections are you also have to spend the time repairing and making the character realize that so the journey feels complete because as is... the journey doesn't feel complete and that weakens the series.

Also hurts that this climax does suck. Secret Invasion was stupid but you know there was at least a sort of spectacle even if badly botched seeing two super skrulls fight one another. I do appreciate this one is more hidden as yeah Kingpin isn't trying to destroy this community but rather send a message to Maya after feeling betrayed and obviously that really setting him over the edge but not doing it in this obstrusive way but... yeah how Biscuits and Henry stopped those guys from blowing up the performance was pretty lame as was Maya finally using her whole "oh I'm echoing through other people to have them help fight with me" which should be cool but again not only does it feel weightless when some of these journeys weren't properly concluded but doesn't even look that well staged or shot. You know even Moon Knight at least had some impressive fight bits BEFORE we panned away from the rest of it and the other series at least had something in them or interesting ideas for climaxes but this really didn't. The fighting didn't work and the whole "Maya gets to emotionally help Kingpin let go' feels limp when that was only brought up one time before and feels off for a character like Kingpin to go through. I mean the ending tag pushes he's still supposed to be a major antagonist who is now trying to run for Mayor (done really haphazardly BTW) but having it in this rushed forced through this power of "healing" against doesn't really work and again feels like important stuff was cut out to make that work. Making honestly this the worst climax of all the Marvel shows.

Still overall this isn't a bad show. Honestly the first few episodes were solid and again I do appreciate this smaller street level and darker series but due to cutting stuff the ending didn't flow that well and makes the entire affair weaker then it should be. Let's hope future projects when rewritten manage to still capture their overall heart better then this one did.

 

[Yojimbo]

1/20: D'Onofrio talks about filming the memory scene in the season finale.

1/29: Bts featurette about the Daredevil fight.


1/30: Reportedly the budget was $40 million (past shows were in the 200 range).

More storyboards posted.

2/8: Echo was #10 in the Nielsen ratings a month ago. I guess Nielsen is still a thing but if that's good data for Echo for Marvel Studios to look at so be it.