Series / Echo (2024)

aka: Echo

Spoilers for all Marvel Cinematic Universe works preceding this one will be left unmarked.

"Don't be afraid."

"Maya... I see everything that you are. I always have. You have so much pain in you... so much rage... that you can't contain it."

— Wilson Fisk

Echo is a 2024 superhero miniseries and the seventh installment of Phase Five in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is developed by Marion Dayre (Better Call Saul) and sees Alaqua Cox reprising her role as Maya “Echo” Lopez.

Following the events of Hawkeye, the series follows Echo as she attempts to reconnect with her Native American roots while trying to cut ties with the crime lord Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) once and for all. Other returning MCU cast members include Zahn McClarnon as William Lopez, Echo’s father, and Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil. New cast members include Chaske Spencer, Tantoo Cardinal, Graham Greene, Devery Jacobs, and Cody Lightning.

Echo was released on Disney+ with all five episodes on January 9, 2024, with a limited time availability on Hulu until April 9. It is the first MCU project to be released under the "Marvel Spotlight" banner, with a stated focus on grounded, character-driven stories and less emphasis on the overall shared universe setting.

Previews: Trailer,"Rampage" Trailer

---

Echo contains examples of:

• Abled in the Adaptation: Downplayed. Kingpin is missing an eye after being shot by Maya in Hawkeye; in the comics, the same thing happened but he lost both eyes and was fully blinded.
• Accidental Public Confession: Biscuits accidentally slips to Bonnie that Maya has returned to home, by inadvertently saying Maya was "safe" after he wrecked Chula's truck.
• Action Girl: Maya is a very skilled fighter who's moved from Dark Action Girl to this over the series. It's also revealed several of her female ancestors were these too, such as a long-ago star athlete then a more recent police officer in the 1800s. She also briefly empowers her grandmother and her cousin Bonnie with her abilities, with her ancestors also spiritually assisting Maya.
• Actor Allusion: Dallas Goldtooth as the powwow emcee, a role he previously played in sketches for The 1491s.
• Advertised Extra: Daredevil's appearance got played up a lot in the marketing but he ultimately shows up for a single action setpiece in the first episode.
• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: In "Lowak", the Choctaw are playing a Stickball game...with the losing team being subject to permanent exile.^note This was based off a real-life practice among the Choctaw where games were considered a more humane alternative to war.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent:
  • It's made clear through dialogue that Skully—Chula's husband when Maya was a child—was Taloa's stepfather and Maya's step-grandpa. Her biological grandfather, Taloa's dad, is never seen nor mentioned.
  • Maya's cousins, Bonnie and Biscuits, were raised by their grandma Chula and surrogate grandpa Skully, and we never see nor hear any mention of what happened to their parents. In fact, it's not even explicitly stated whether the two of them are siblings or cousins with each other.
• Amicable Exes: Skully and Chula are no longer together in the present day but keep a friendly (and even somewhat flirty) relationship.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: Episode 3 begins in 4:3 to evoke the silent film era of movies, in order to tell Tuklo's journey. When she activates her power, the picture then expands to 16:9.
• Asshole Victim: The ice cream vendor may not have deserved such a brutal beating from the Kingpin himself, but considering he was an ignorant prick who mocks a young Maya's attempt to speak ASL to him, it's hard to feel too sorry for him.
• Badass Family: Not only Maya here (who is as usual a very skilled fighter) but several of her Choctaw relatives along with her turn out to be badasses. This includes two female ancestors of hers we see, an athlete and later a police officer. Living relatives of hers include her uncle, a gangster like her, while her grandmother and cousins briefly turn into them too fighting Fisk's men in the last episode.
• Badass Native: Maya and her relatives shown in the series (past or present) are all skilled (or at least temporarily able) at fighting or athletics. One flashback too shows the Choctaw lighthorsemen (tribal police) hunting down white outlaws on their land in the late 1800s (a female ancestor of Maya's joined her father, a lighthorseman, rescuing him along with his men from an ambush).
• Boom, Headshot!: One man shoots another through the neck and into the head at point-blank range, blood splattering all over a door.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Dialogues often flip between variations of English, Choctaw and ASL (given our lead is deaf).
• Canon Welding: While Hawkeye features Fisk with the same mannerisms and wearing almost the same attire from Daredevil in flashbacks, it was a little ambiguous if his backstory from the latter series was retconned or not, as the only evidence for the latter was his use of his fathers' cufflinks, which sport the same design from Daredevil, but in Hawkeye, he was carrying a cane (something he didn't do in Daredevil, and oddly doesn't do here). Echo however, makes the connection explicit, short of using archive footage from the series, as Fisk mentions killing his abusive father to protect his mother early on to Maya, and then shows Maya the same hammer he used on that day later on in the series, meaning it's the exact same backstory. Notably, as of Echo's premiere on Disney+, the six Marvel Netflix series's (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders and The Punisher) have been added to the official MCU chronological order, and these six, alongside Echo, are listed together under The Defenders playlist.
• Creation Myth: The series opens with a depiction of the Choctaw creation story, showing the first Choctaw who came alive underground then went out into the light. She's shown then and later as a figurine too, with frequent flashbacks to her as Maya is reconnected with her Choctaw heritage.
• Darker and Edgier: Echo is the first Marvel Studios series to be rated TV-MA^note The various other Marvel shows previously given that rating (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Legion, etc.) were produced by the now-defunct Marvel Television and Netflix., and there is a lot more on-screen violence and blood than in other MCU shows. However, Echo actually is closer to TV-14 than TV-MA, and is similar in its depictions of violence to Secret Invasion.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Wilson Fisk's response upon seeing Maya Lopez being bullied and turned away from a ice cream stand guy is to get out of the car he's in and pound the guy to a bloody pulp.
• Echoing Acoustics: To go along with the series' title, the shoutings and words of Kingpin are reverberated in the trailer.
• Evil Colonialist: Not quite literally, but the framing of the show has Wilson Fisk's criminal empire as an encroaching, brutal force corrupting and oppressing the Native community in Tamaha. This gets more noticeable with Zane making back-handed comments about the Choctaw and the climax having Fisk trying to kill most people in a Pow Wow Ceremony out of spite.
• Extreme Doormat: Biscuits, Maya's cousin, is easily pressured into helping her plant a bomb on one of Fisk's trains. He's later pressured into letting several of Fisk's assassins use the wrong parking lot so they have a better point to attack the powwow. However, he eventually grows a spine and runs them over with a monster truck.
• Eye Scream: Still recovering from Maya shooting him in the face, Kingpin wears a specially designed bandage over one eye with a still-healing wound beneath.
• Fat Bastard: One of the trio who kidnaps Maya is a heavyset woman. She's also the meanest and most ableist.
• A Father to His Men: Maya's uncle Henry works for Fisk. When one of Fisk's armories are bombed, Henry promises to protect his staff from any "crap that rolls downhill."
• Gender-Restricted Ability: So far as the series has shown, the abilities of the Choctaw protectors are only possessed by women in Maya's family.
• Hallucinations: Maya has frequently recurring visions of women from the past. She fears it means she's lost her mind and these sights are hallucinations. Her grandmother tells her they're genuine visions of her ancestors.
• Hand Signals: Given Maya is deaf and rarely speaks, ASL is used. Kingpin, however, refused to learn it and used a translator (until he had her killed)then used a holographic interpreter transmitted through a contact lens he had put on Maya's eye.
• Hated Hometown: Maya returns to her childhood hometown for the first time since her mother's death. She originally plans to leave quickly but instead mends her relationship with her family.
• Healing Hands: Women in Maya's family have a predisposition for healing, something that turns out to have a supernatural reason. They simply touch someone to do this, hands glowing as it works.
• Heroic Lineage: It's revealed that Maya's female ancestors have long served as the protectors of their people, the Choctaw Nation. Her grandmother reveals the legacy and Maya assumes their mantle, protecting the Choctaw from a massacre Fisk planned against them.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode is named after one of Maya's ancestors who is featured in a flashback. The fifth episode is named after Maya herself.
• I Have Your Wife: Maya's forced to surrender multiple times by Fisk's men when they take her family members hostage (though not for long).
• Injun Country: Most of the show is set in Tamaha, Oklahoma, a historically Choctaw community.
• Just a Flesh Wound: Maya is shot shortly before the series starts. It is pretty much just a graze but it is subverts this trope by showing how quickly such a wound becomes a problem. Maya almost passes out and crashes her motorcycle. Her attempt to treat the wound on her own just makes it a mess. However, once the wound is properly treated, this trope kicks in and the injury stops being an issue. Maya performs stunts that should have been impossible with an injury and on multiple occasions should have reopened the wound. No mention is made of Maya taking antibiotics to prevent the likely infection.
• Magical Native American:
  • We see Skully play up this stereotype for his white customers by coating everything he sells in some made-up-on-the-spot mysticism.
  • As the story goes along, it also becomes evident Maya's lineage is one of mystical Choctaw warriors.
• Magic Is Feminine: All of the mystical powers on the show are possessed by women from one family line. No men are seen or mentioned to have these.
• Matriarchy: Not quite a matriarchy, but the sacred defender of the Choctaw mantle that Echo adopts seems to be only passed from mother-to-daughter.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The teaser poster evokes the art of Echo co-creator and artist David Mack.
  • Maya's wardrobe has a few subtle nods to her comics counterpart's costume, most notably the circular pattern of triangles that appears as a design on the show version's black shirt and stitching on her leather jacket.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The marketing put a lot of very heavy emphasis on the Wilson Fisk scenes. While he's very much a presence, he spends 2 (out of the five) episodes entirely absent and the core of the show is much more with Maya and her biological family in Oklahoma (which got downplayed) than with Fisk.
  • The trailer also hints that Daredevil could have a role helping Maya against Fisk. In the show, Matt only shows up in a flashback for 5 minutes at best.
  • The teaser for the rest of the season at the end of the first episode makes Fisk's line of "You want an empire? You'll have it," sound like a Bring It-esque threat in response to Maya opposing him. In fact, he says this sincerely to her when making his We Can Rule Together offer.
• Not Quite Dead: After having seemingly been shot dead by Echo in the Hawkeye finale, the show reveals that Fisk is alive and well, albeit missing an eye.
• The Oner: The first episode includes a unbroken-take, five-minute-long action setpiece in a warehouse (like with most of them, if you look carefully you can spot the sneaky editing).
• One-Woman Army: Maya takes down many armed goons Fisk sent twice in the series, first all by herself, then with aid from her relatives.
• Opposed Mentors: A large part of Maya's arc is having to reconcile the kindness her mother and grandmother taught her and the ruthlessness her surrogate father figure Wilson Fisk taught her.
• Papa Wolf: Fisk brutalizes a ice cream vendor for his rude response to Maya’s ASL request for food, right before comforting the girl.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Skully basically serves as a surrogate grandfather for Maya and father to her mother (while she was alive), because their actual grandfather/father appears absent.
  • Fisk was also a father figure/Honorary Uncle for Maya after her father's death.
• Pop-Up Texting: Used frequently for phone conversation across the series.
• Product Placement: Pop Tarts are shown prominently in a box of groceries Biscuits is carrying. Maya is later seen eating one.
• Remember the New Guy?: Fisk's chief lieutenant here is a Welshman named Zane. Maya and the other characters seem to already be acquainted with him, but this is his first appearance for the audience.
• Retraux Flashback: The ancestral flashback in "Tuklo" is done in the style of a black-and-white silent film western, complete with title cards.
• Retcon: Wilson Fisk was implied to have learned some American Sign Language during the events of Hawkeye so he could better communicate with Maya, even doing some signing while pleading with her not to shoot him. This show establishes that Fisk didn't actually learn much of anything outside of a few simple phrases, and needed an ASL translator and later some new technology to actually understand her, something Maya calls out in Episode 4.
• Shout-Out: Biscuits has a dog named Billy Jack, presumably named after Billy Jack (a half-native film hero fighting oppressors out of the reservation).
• Shown Their Work: The series was produced with ample consultation and support from the Choctaw nation of Oklahoma, so its depiction of them is very thorough. This includes the usage of their language and religious myths, a extensive sequence depicting a Stickball game and depiction of the Lighthorses.
• Sound-Only Death: Late in the series, it's revealed that Fisk ordered the death of an ASL translator used for him and Maya. The translator is seen entering a hallway covered in plastic, and as the scene cuts back to Fisk and Maya, the translator is heard pleading for her life. A gunshot is then heard off camera.
• Spirit Advisor: Maya's mother (who died years back) returns as one, a spirit she alone sees, advising her and reassuring Maya as she doubts her place, inspiring her to assume the mantle of the Choctaws' protector that was passed down to her.
• The Stinger: In a mid-credits scene, Fisk flies back to New York and learns of the upcoming mayoral election. The Kingpin is ready to run for office.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Maya resembles her deceased mother strongly, so after her mother's death her grandmother had found it hard seeing her and pushed her away, which Maya is deeply hurt by and resents to this day.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Several:
  • While the bullet Maya was shot with landed in a non-vital area and didn't go too deep, she's still got a hole in her and is losing blood, and between that and general exhaustion and lack of sleep, she almost passes out and dumps her bike on multiple occasions during a multi-day cross-country trip back to Oklahoma. Once she gets back, she removes the bullet and sutures the wound, but without sterilizing her instruments and using dental floss, and it very predictably gets infected and is visibly suppurating by the time she gets it treated by a qualified medical professional.
  • While Maya put up a solid resistance in the roller rink against Fisk's goons, she's just one woman fighting against a legion of physically strong and well-armed assailants. She's skilled, but is nowhere near the top of the street-level hierarchy, and she eventually has to surrender because there are too many and she's too exhausted to keep going.
• Translator Microbes: An interesting variation. Fisk has a contact lens made for Maya (which his goons forcibly insert) that shows a HUD translating spoken words into ASL gestures. Fisk wears a contact lens and earpiece that translates Maya's ASL into spoken words for him.
• Unnervingly Heartwarming: A Papa Wolf beating down a jerk who mocked his child is supposed to be heartwarming...were it not for said Papa Wolf being Kingpin who beats the offender to a pulp. The trailer even ends with a scene of Kingpin taking young Maya's hand as they leave the bloodied mess of that ice cream vendor in the alleyway.
• Vikings In America: Blink it and you miss it, but during the flashback in "Lowak" (set c. 1200 AD in Choctaw country), one of the people watching the stick game seems to be a Viking.
• Villainous BSoD: Maya defeats Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin by using her healing ability on his soul/mind, making him directly confront his own trauma and pain.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • During Maya's first job, one of Fisk's men approaches two guards at the door and says, "Kingpin thanks you for your loyalty." This signals the first guard to pull out a gun and shoot the other through the throat.
  • Kingpin eventually executes the ASL interpreter he has attend his and Maya's dinners.

---

"You and I are the same. So... who's the monster?"