Marvel Studios Echo Season 1 review

The Marvel Showcase series Echo does a disservice to its titular character.

In this case the culprit is easy to identify — far too much of the compelling background and character development of Alaqua Cox’s assassin played out in Hawkeye instead of her own series.

Arguably Echo/Maya had way too much screen time with her own dedicated subplots for a character Marvel Studios had designs to headline a standalone series. Echo’s subplots were so intertwined with Hawkeye that she might as well have been the co-lead.

With Hawkeye, we learned that a young Maya (played by Darnell Besaw) was raised by her father, William (Zahn McClarnon), who was a henchman for Kingpin (Vicent D’Onofrio). During his path of rage as Ronin, Hawkeye killed William after some manipulation from Kingpin. Finally piecing together her “uncle’s” betrayal, Maya shoots Kingpin in the face presumably killing him.

That feels like a pretty substantial character arc. And one that pretty neatly wraps up the Echo/Kingpin subplot. Instead, Echo Season 1 finds Maya going after Kingpin’s operations. The obvious question that Maya never gets around to answering is who’s keeping the operations running if Kingpin is dead?

Coincidentally, Maya’s next hitlist stop is her old childhood stomping grounds. Her old gang including BFF Bonnie (Devery Jacobs, What If…?), cousin Biscuits (Cody Lightning), her uncle Henry (Chaske Spencer), family friend Skully (Graham Greene, The Last of Us) and her estranged grandmother, Chula (Tantoo Cardinal, Killers of the Flower Moon).

Randomly throwing in an entire supporting cast community for a loner like Maya felt like a stretch, but it does provide her with some roots and connections outside of Kingpin.

Echo is an odd character study. She’s deaf and communicates through ASL with some cross and harsh expressions along the way. Cox plays Maya cold and distant extremely well, but that doesn’t make her particularly likable.

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It’s a tougher role than most Marvel Cinematic Universe characters who get to quip and just be charming. Cox has to convey everything through physical gestures and expressions. She pulls it off and seems like a character worth including into the New Avengers whenever they debut in the MCU.

Besides the understandable tension with Chula, Maya is somewhat dismissive and unsympathetic to her family and friends after years away from them. Her cavalier attitude towards luring Kingpin’s men to their hometown seems needlessly cruel as well given the likely destruction they’ll do to the town.

Maya’s arc comes off unsatisfying. Her plan seems to be to rile up Kingpin’s men to attack her in her hometown, create a ruckus and leave to the next stop. Naturally it gets more complicated the more time she spends around her friends, but it comes off supervillain reckless for the people around her. Like most heroes/villains, Maya has a tragic past beyond her father’s murder involving her mother.

There are some disorienting flashbacks, typically told in the pre-credit sequence showing some of Maya’s ancestors at various points in history. One has a supernatural element to it while a more playful setup, features a woman (Dannie McCallum) in a silent movie style. These payoff in the season finale, but it doesn’t amount to much given the lackluster finale.

Stylistically, Echo is far more on the Daredevil and Punisher Netflix side of the aisle with copious amounts of blood and death. That fits the tone of the character though the action hits a point of diminishing returns with each subsequent battle.

Echo does get to boast about one sequence. Unfortunately, it’s in the first episode as Maya tangles with Daredevil (Charlie Cox). This fight is one of the smoothest and exquisite action sequences in the MCU since Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Both characters come off like bada$$es making me wish for more Daredevil and more delay crescent kicks and splits from Echo.

It’s too high a bar to cross and only one other battle, matches that level of intensity due to sheer number of bad guy fodder. Of course, Kingpin isn’t dead. He’s nursing his wounds and is back with a new master plan. The MCU version of Kingpin has flashes of the walking terror that was the Netflix Kingpin, but too often he comes off neutered and hardly a threat.

This is the consequence of the series’ lead gunning down the Big Bad in the season finale of another show instead of this one. At least one scene solidifies the Kingpin backstory from Netflix Daredevil as canon though the disconnect with his threat is noticeable.

It’s kind of a no-win situation for the writers. Echo can’t do anything more to Kingpin after shooting him point blank in the face and he can’t kill her leaving them at a weird crossroads.

The final episode is more noteworthy for the amazing costumes of the Chocktaw Nation on display at the powwow. They’re incredibly ornate and colorful. Echo does do a decent job of showcasing the Chocktaw culture that hopefully resonates in the same manner Black Panther and Shang-Chi resonated with its underrepresented demographic group.

With a stronger final two episodes, Echo could have felt like the start of a much-needed kickoff for a stronger year for Marvel Studios after a lackluster 2023. Instead, Echo is decent enough to kill five hours as an appetizer for more Daredevil and Kingpin. Make sure to stick around for the season finale post credit for a tease on what’s next to come on that front.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Photo Credit: Disney