Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Echoes of the past help Echo find a tone which works for a thin redemption arc saved by a great cast and an exploration of Choctaw culture

Spoiler Warning

I think it’s safe to say that Echo is one of the Marvel Disney Plus shows which hasn’t been wildly anticipated by the majority of fans, mostly because the introduction of Echo in Hawkeye (2021) was perhaps a little messy.

Personally, I am one of the few Marvel fans it seems who really loved Hawkeye.  Apart from the fact that I adore Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton, the show for me was made of a lot of win (the Yelena and Kate Bishop interaction was a joyous highlight).  I liked Echo’s introduction.  I thought the initial set-up of her with her father was well-done.  Unfortunately, the bizarre depiction of Kingpin within the show was a flaw and even I will admit that perhaps Echo’s whole revenge gig for her father’s death and takedown of Kingpin should have been in a different show.

Well, here we are.

Marvel has seen some changes in fortune since Hawkeye aired with fans critical of the quality of Phase 5.  The impact of behind-the-scenes changes and decisions since Echo was announced in 2021 is felt in what comes to the screen in this mini-series.  That said, Echo delves into character in a way which echoes the best of the Marvel Disney Plus offerings while introducing a completely different tone.

I think it’s fair to say that the tone of Echo feels more in line with the previous Netflix shows.  There is a grounded grittiness in the show with the light-hearted moments coming mostly from Biscuits’ quirkiness and Skully’s flirting with Chula rather than the usual Marvel witty one-liners and sometimes whacky comedy.  This is underscored by the settings which feel ground level. 

There isn’t a fancy Avengers tower, but a small town roller-skating rink; there isn’t space and spaceships but rather countryside and forests.  The New York scenes are in the gloomy backrooms of clubs or with street vendors rather than peeking into the glorification of superheroes in a Broadway show.  In the first episode, even with the footage reused from Hawkeye itself, the show utilises the scenes which kept it street rather than super.

Another tonal reflection is provided in the cameo of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil in the first episode.  It’s a great scene where he and Echo fight each other during Echo’s inauguration into Kingpin’s business.  It feels like the hits hit.  The fight choreography is great throughout.

The other real tonal turnaround though is in the character of Kingpin.  Vincent D’Onofrio gives an outstandingly brilliant performance once again as Wilson Fisk.  Here the canon of the character as portrayed in the Netflix series is reconfirmed and the portrayal is very much more in line with the Kingpin of the Daredevil (2015) series rather than the messy depiction from Hawkeye.

It seems like Marvel did listen to the fan reactions, which ranged from mild bemusement at the Hawaiian shirt to infuriated outrage, and delivered a more recognisable Fisk.  Is this completely the same timeline or universe as the Netflix Kingpin?  Possibly not given Fisk’s miraculous ability to physically self-heal from a gunshot to the face, but it’s closer and that’s a good thing, especially the positioning of him in a great mid-credits scene which gives away the likely angle on the character in the new Disney Plus Daredevil: Born Again show.

And clearly the violence resonate with the Netflix shows is another tonal shift from previous iterations where the violence is muted and PG13.  People die in very bloody and brutal ways from Echo’s initial kill to the execution of the ill-rated naïve Vickie played by Thomas E. Sullivan.  Honestly, I can take or leave this kind of visual violence but tonally it works.

What doesn’t work is the story construction which feels a little patchwork in places.  This is in essence the main flaw of the show although the series does the best with that it has. There is a solid bone structure of a hero’s journey in the story arc for the main character with Echo making the shift from Queenpin Wannabee to redeemed Choctaw Warrior Hero set out through the five episodes.  Yet, to carry on the body part analogy, the flesh of the story is missing; connective tissue is missing; muscle is missing.  It feels like parts have been carved away.  Given the decision-making changes over the past year, perhaps this is what literally happened as the show was retooled to fit in with new decisions on the future direction of Marvel.

Potentially the missing parts (which I accept may or may not exist) might have fleshed out the supporting characters and added in subplots which would have added more meat into the story.  For instance, the relationship of Bonnie and Echo – there are hints that more could have been said, more scenes between the two of them played out after the whole skating rink piece.  Similarly, there might have been more with Biscuits who goes from sidekick in episode two to essentially disappearing until the final act in episode five.  

(On a side-note, I may have to rewatch again to see if there is anything at all which explains what happened to Bonnie and Biscuit’s parents.  Presumably either their mother or father was a sibling to Echo’s mother?  I’m not convinced the show actually provided an explanation.)

Instead of story we get a lot of filler shots of Echo riding around the same roads on her motorbike; filler shots of her old home and the surrounding countryside; filler content – the first episode draws enormously from past footage from Hawkeye in a way I didn’t expect at all.  Because of the lack of story and the addition of this filler content, this does feel like instead of five episodes we could have had a one-and-a-half hour TV movie that would have achieved the same story-telling, but perhaps in a tighter way.

That said, the bones of the story have great potential.  I really like the theme of echoes through lineage: beginning through survival, winning through cunning, being a warrior among men, choosing life over death, and finally, to the conclusion in Maya becoming Echo.  I like that each episode is an exploration of the gift provided by lineage into the present and comes full circle.  In the first episode, Chafa’s mystical gift which gives her power ensures her family survives the threat and she becomes human; in the final episode, Echo’s use of the power ensures her family survives, and she too rediscovers her humanity.  There is the obvious miss though of telling separate stories for Chula and Taloa rather than combining them in episode four – perhaps another casualty of missing story flesh.

However, the concept is great and there is just enough flesh on the bones of this story through the vignettes of the lineage, through the flashbacks to Maya’s childhood, through the depiction of the toxic relationship Kingpin constructed with Maya, and with what little interaction Maya has with her family, to get the emotional feels that the story needs for the redemption of Maya to work. 

In the final episode, I did cry as Maya met and interacted with her mother’s spirit and healed.  When Maya, wearing the outfit her grandmother had created, called forth her lineage and the power to give not only herself but her grandmother and cousin an edge, that was fantastic. Good too to see a balance with the male supporting characters also getting hero moments to shine in the final act with Henry taking down Zane before he can destroy the Choctaw and Biscuits using his souped-up grandmother’s truck to take down the Kingpin’s back-up army of hoodlums.

For me there are two reasons why so little story works to still evoke a reaction.  The first is the inclusion of the Choctaw culture.  The final episode with the culture fully on show in the Pow Wow is great but the lineage vignettes provide a peek into the tribe’s history which is appreciated.  I don’t know whether these tales are rooted in actual Choctaw mythology and/or real history (given that there was a collaboration I’d like to think so), but they build a narrative which honours ancestry and brings the setting and environment to life. 

The second reason is the great acting from all the cast.  Everyone turns in a stellar performance even when they’re dealing with pretty thin material or hokey stereotyped characters in the case of Vickie and his two female sidekicks.  I particularly loved Tantoo Cardinal as Chula, Graham Greene as Skully, and Chaske Spencer as Henry Lopez, but all made the most with what they had and delivered, again providing the show with characters which felt real.

Holding it together is Alaqua Cox as Echo.  She gives a heartfelt performance as Maya.  There is a stoicism to the character which she portrays well, but she also displays anger, frustration, grief – glee when she pulls off her revenge with the bomb planting.  When she interacts with Bonnie, there is genuine affection and care.  Young Maya also deserves a shout-out; Darnell Besaw is great. Unlike in many movies/shows, it actually feels realistic in physicality and appearance that young Maya grew up to be adult Maya.

Occasionally Cox’s performance is enhanced by the sound mix which shows the world from a deaf point of view, from Maya’s point of view at times.  It helps build tension especially in the final act.  Cox ultimately does well enough to sell the arc, despite the thin thread to redemption that the story provides in Maya reconnecting with her lineage and remembering through that essentially the genuine love of her family in contrast with the toxic love of Kingpin. 

I also love that exploration of family theme in this.  It’s often the case that stories focus on biological families being problematic leading the heroes to form better loving situations with ‘found family.’  Yet here that trope is turned on its head.  Yes, Maya’s biological family has flaws; Chula’s grief leads her to make a mistake, Henry’s grief leads him to leave Maya alone and vulnerable to Fisk, but she is loved nevertheless by them and in the end finds her redemption through and with them.

This all feels in line with the serious character explorations of the Disney Plus outings such as WandaVision (2021), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021), Loki (2023), and even the aspects of grief that Hawkeye explored. Maybe the tone was different in Echo, but the echo of the best character explorations is there.

In conclusion

The flaws mean that this doesn’t feel like a winning homerun for Marvel.  There are hints of the problems that plague Phase 5 in general.  Yet while this may not be perfect, I feel it is a solid outing, with aspects which I genuinely enjoyed immensely, and which did pull at my heartstrings.  I can’t say that it makes me excited for the other Marvel Disney Plus shows we might get this year, but if this redeemed Echo and a Mayor Kingpin turn up in Daredevil: Born Again, I won’t be unhappy.