Marvel Studios’ Echo: A bloody and brutal return to the glory days

Marvel Studios’ “Echo,” at its core, is a journey and commentary built around the ideals of false parentage, the values we entrust, and the balance of growing and adapting as we progress through life, with the consequences of choices bearing meaning.

The latest Marvel series is a genuine side chapter that is rewarding and highly human within the overarching narrative. “Echo” does distance itself from the mainstream connective tissue, tethered to the shared universe, but makes it clear through the inclusion of small snippets, and easter eggs that we are still in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), just not a territory many remember.

Gone are the forced subplots to set up x,y, and z, or the insert-in-place run-of-the-mill world-ending catastrophes that have started to go stale, with elements and films coming off feeling cheap and undefiant, all due to the reliance on and lack of creative notions within recent screenplays. 

The series is a touch darker from recent content, as it’s a brutal and bloody crime-family thriller drama, more in the vein at its core, the foundation of a more straightforward, street-level narrative that the Marvel Netflix shows (officially now canon) once thrived on, as they possessed the ability to utilize implications of cathartic maturity, grounded by ethos littered with human consequential flaws.

Before I break down my initial thoughts, I want to confess from the first three episodes that it was great to see Marvel take the time to honor and rightfully show the Native American culture in its glory with correctly shown representation. The characters speak in authentic Choctaw dialect and language in portions of episodes. In addition, there is an option to watch the series in Choctaw. It’s a beautiful reminder that everyone deserves to see themselves in all aspects and facets of reality; seeing the cast speak and talk in American Sign Language (ASL) was also great. 

Now, after viewing three episodes, I can tell it’s clear that this story and series is about the journey and dissection of Maya Lopez, and it’s a choice that needs to happen. The performance by actress Alaqua Cox is sensational and warrants Kevin Feige’s choice to develop a series fleshing out this character’s pain and guilt. Make no mistake, Maya is no hero. She’s a character who is morally grey — an anti-hero worth investing in.

It’s a slow burn to reconcile and gravitate towards due to the last time we saw this character during the events of the Hawkeye series from Disney+ and Marvel Studios, which painted our perspective of her as a villain, but that felt fake, especially after the first episode, instead of the screenplay picking up the pieces after the last series, with Maya on the run walking the road she has created, crumbling from the burning embers that now rage after igniting the powder keg when she shot Kingpin, which was symbolic of her coming to terms and accepting the past.

Her story jumps back to the point of comfort before the storm of tragedy, which allows the audience to witness Maya as a child, innocent, pure and untouched by the sins of her father; her family is outside, enjoying a fire, rewriting our established perception of her bloodlust, previously shown acting as rose tinted glasses in our memory. 

In reality, Maya never had control over her scars. They rotted throughout the years like cancer over time due to the folly and sins of her father, as one simple juvenile choice affected her life and her family, setting forth a variety of events into motion that left devastation in its wake. The series relays this to the audience, showing the gore and shock that quickly occurs in the first episode. In addition, the series utilizes colors to show, not tell, the story of Maya’s two lives. 

For example, we go from the rural and warm colors of Oklahoma to the muted neutral gray of New York City, which brings the narrative full circle by incorporating new and recycled stock footage to weave a timeline of events of how the lies of her “Uncle” led to the schism that continues to manifest throughout the series acting as the foundation and tapestry for how the narrative progress, tying back to the overarching themes previously discussed.

Now, I need to confess the beauty of performance is when the actor transcends the script and becomes the character, something that Marvel Studios continues to excel at due to the brilliance of Sarah Haley Finn and her casting agency. I’m happy to report Vincent D’Onofrio is once again back as Wilson Fisk(Kingpin), and it feels like he never left the performance behind due to his mannerisms, subtle arrogance, and boiling rage. His performance is the best when he strips away the burgeoning humanity present in Maya that attempts to bubble to the surface.

The screenplay and the chemistry between the two are what make the eventual betrayal more satisfying to the viewer. As previously mentioned before, Maya looks up to Kingpin as she feels safe among him. She refers to and dubs the crime lord “Uncle.” Kingpin does watch out for her, but it’s clear from his body language and hesitant nature that he keeps her at a distance, blinding her from the truth, as he doesn’t possess the heart to confess to the little girl he raised. Instead, he continues to put on a charade, lulling his surrogate daughter along as he pleads and begs for her unwavering support to trust him, despite Lopez constantly searching for answers, resulting in her rebelling, leading to Fisk realizing his influence is quickly fading, and a sense of darkness is starting to manifest inside of her, something he can exploit. Realizing this, Fisk molds Lopez into a weapon and tool of destruction to further his Machiavellian intentions towards the conquest of reclaiming his empire after it collapsed from within during the events of Daredevil S3.

Towards the latter half of the pilot, Maya is given a small glimpse into the world that left her father in ruin. It is a role reversal as her inner child is now locked behind a wall of festering rage. Cox does a brilliant job of expressing this to the audience, as we are shown her first kill, which bloodies her hands, but it’s simple instead of a drawn-out moment and lingering moments of exposition. Maya is assisting in a take-over as she’s attacked, but something changes, and she fights back.

Now, I need to commend director Sydney Freeland for crafting the perfect moment as we are shifted into the perspective of Lopez; it’s ideal because the series does a fantastic job showing how Cox is deaf without feeling forced. The audience is Maya at the moment. We feel the rush, same as she does, then the audio dwindles to silence, with the only element we hear is a heartbeat, and then at the last second, a neck snap, signifying Maya is now a killer, crossing the line, and then the intensity and confidence in Cox picks up, as the execution is fluid and fast. 

Then, her metamorphosis continues to progress as Daredevil appears and takes her on. In the eyes of Maya, she’s only heard whispers of the vigilante, but to the hero, Lopez is an obstacle that must be moved to remove Kingpin from power. At the start of this sequence, Maya tries her best to defeat the foe, as this is what Uncle wants, but their battle leaves a lasting impression on the Hell Kitchen Defender. Fans notice that Daredevil is toying with her, to an extent testing her. On a side note, once again, seeing Charlie Cox in the Netflix costume and establishing the once-forgotten chapter as canon was a special moment and one that will have audiences cheering, with the safety and joy of knowing the future of the Marvel hero will be further explored later down the line. 

Adding onto the overarching action element, I feel Echo toes the line of feeling like a soft-core version of The Punisher with the small-city intrigue mystery of hidden secrets that series such as the Ozarks and the gun-running turmoil of Sons of Anarchy contain and balance as a foundational blueprint for success. Episodes 2 and 3 are well crafted and show Maya’s brutal intelligence while taking advantage of sampling the TV-MA rating under the newly appointed umbrella of Marvel Spotlight. 

Spoiler Warning

One thing I hope that Marvel Studios and the MCU do is show a scene of Matt Murdock and company or any of the other street-level heroes during the blip (Thanos’ snap) since it’s been established and canonical confirmed that this exchange between Maya and Matt takes place during the 5-year gap from Avengers Infinity War and Endgame. Just imagine the possibilities of Murdock and the performance of Cox having to endure and experience the waning heartbeat of every person affected, the rushed oxygen breathing and flowing, only for it to be gone the next. Many will say that portion of the MCU is over, but we have seen other characters from when the snap occurred, such as Monica Rambeau in The Marvels and Yelena Belova in Hawkeye. The possibilities are endless. 

Spoilers over

This scene was integral to Maya’s narrative and character development as it gave context to her portrayal and placement in the Hawkeye series. Nonetheless, without diving into any more spoilers, some of my favorite moments throughout Echo were when the script slowed things down and the sets and environments felt like characters instead of settings. 

The characters all feel the surface of Maya’s character and development and have their arcs. It’s the push and pull of leaving your home, the odd confession of returning home as you’re forever changed, but your home is now a landmark locked and preserved in time. The Tamaha, Oklahoma community feels similar in substance and execution to Smallville from “Superman and Lois” or New Orleans in “Falcon and The Winter Solider.” Our main characters are constantly changing, and their internal and external conflict reflects the mood and direction of new stories and plot threads from old wounds that surface from the choices and the arcs of stories of the supporting characters. 

We are shown the community in its glory through a variety of camera shots guided by the cinematography; there are posters for the upcoming Powwow, newspaper clippings of local sports, and we are shown a local service of the citizens speaking in authentic Choctaw, feels authentic, and genuine. 

Another element that I find fascinating is the supernatural aspect and how each episode opens with a flashback, with a different era and cinematic approach, showing a connection to Maya in a way the audience doesn’t realize until the episode shows us. It’s a great way of reiterating that this is Lopez’s narrative and point of view, as these vignettes show dormant memories surfacing forever, shaping and removing Fisk’s influence and control over her. Also, the episode titles all reference one of Maya’s ancestors, with the final being titled “Maya,” signifying that her transformation is complete, which I feel, as I still need to close out the series to confirm my hypothesis.

Questions will be raised as the series begins to unfold for the viewer, and the presentation will begin to feel similar, resembling and borrowing from other established IPs, most notably in the show’s intro. I felt the opening was a blend of James Bond and True Detective while positioning its identity in tone and direction, billed as one of the past Marvel Netflix shows. It’s put together quite cohesively.

Marvel Studios’ “Echo” is an ambitious new escapade that feels oddly familiar yet fresh and exciting. The series is a reflective attempt to recapture the lighting-in-the-bottle glory of such triumphs as “Daredevil” while crafting and paving its own identity.

All Marvel Studios’ “Echo” episodes are currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.