“Violence has always been our language,” Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) tells Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) in the fourth episode of Echo. It’s a significant line, one teed up by a flashback to Maya’s childhood, in which she’s rebuffed by a New York City ice cream vendor. Her “uncle,” wearing his signature white suit, watches this unfold; then he takes the vendor down an alley and beats him to near death. It’s a brutal, wince-inducing display of brute violence from Kingpin. The sound of each blow and the blood stains on his suit add to the stomach-turning visuals before we see that Maya witnessed the whole ordeal. She doesn’t see Fisk as a monster, but rather her tailored white knight. So she kicks the man too.
These trips to the past grow more extensive in the final two episodes of the first Marvel Spotlight miniseries, encompassing not only Maya’s life in New York but visions of her ancestors, her late mother, and exposition dumps about their mystical Choctaw origins. While they help establish the history of white Americans manipulating, exploiting, and marginalizing the country’s indigenous population – Fisk is the most obvious example, and a simple line about the “white hospital” from Maya’s grandmother, Chula (Tantoo Cardinal), speaks to a litany of abuses by the medical establishment – they barely leave room for Echo to tie up loose threads in the present. The series turns out to be a game of two halves, its early, deliberate pacing giving way to a rush toward anticlimax.
The sign language barrier between Maya and Fisk becomes a prominent motif as to why Wilson was never the caretaker she needed. The writing team, led by Marion Dayre and Amy Rardin, dedicate episode four to excavating Maya’s dysfunctional familial and adoptive relationships; they also offer the emotional development the series has been missing up to this point, especially when it comes to Chula, who abandoned Maya after her mother’s death.
The contrast between Maya’s most important maternal and paternal figures is sharply captured in how they speak to her. Fisk’s use of a disposable interpreter, and later technological tools, to get out of the effort of learning ASL keeps him at a distance – though a clumsy line about this felt superfluous. Chula’s emotive signing and whispered dialogue reinforce the bond between grandmother and granddaughter as she apologizes for her selfish rejection of a grieving child and gives Maya space to unload. These confrontations allow Cox to pierce Maya’s tough exterior and release the vulnerability, anger, and pain that has been fueling her murderous campaign. But for a series that makes a considerable effort to place viewers in the POV of its deaf protagonist, the musical score too often overwhelms the weighty non-verbal dialogue.
Entering the big finale, Maya barely interacts with her grandfather Skully (Graham Greene) or her cousins Biscuits (Cody Lightning) and Bonnie (Devery Jacobs). Instead, the episode speeds through a haphazard fight sequence at a powwow to a familial reconciliation. There’s nothing a Marvel film or series loves more than a big climactic battle, yet the cinematography here lacks the skillful flourishes achieved in Echo’s first- and third-episode showdowns. The basic choreography and choppy editing of the fight is jarring to follow, as is the leveling up of Maya’s powers, which go from enhancing her natural abilities to being able to enter Fisk’s memories. Season 2 of What If..? did a far more coherent job of establishing the supernatural backstory and powers of the new Native American character Kahhori, achieving in 33 minutes what Echo fails to do across 3 1/2 hours.
Which raises the question: What was left on the cutting room floor to turn what should’ve been a six-episode series into five? Much-needed conversations with Maya’s wider family members maybe, as well as scenes showing her truly process the traumatic upbringing that made her a cold-blooded killer. Echo races too quickly between Fisk’s offer of her becoming his “Queenpin” to softening her edges as a non-killing Choctaw protector. Ultimately, Echo leaves you with a sense that something is missing, and her journey feels unresolved because of characters that future projects might require. Maya Lopez is an intriguing, complex antihero and the creative team has proved she’s a worthwhile addition to the MCU – it’s a shame by the end Echo pulled its punches.