‘Echo’ Review: A Hero’s Homecoming Hampered by the Marvel Machine
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
These days, legacy can be a burden for television. Whether it’s the legacy of a beloved property poised to be bastardized via reboot, the legacy of a network or star, the legacy of a brilliant debut now hinging upon equal or better subsequent installment, there are legacies intertwined in too many new shows, hanging in the balance as studios and streamers churn out new stories.
But legacy doesn’t matter so much to Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) the lead of Marion Dayre’s “Echo,” now streaming in full on Disney+. Whether it’s her family, her employer, or the stories passed down to her as a child, Maya is more interested in forging her own path than appeasing various players around her. Like “Echo” itself, she stands alone and stands tall — distinct and imposing compared to any imitation.
More from IndieWire
On her path to becoming the eponymous Echo, Maya is a young woman of Choctaw origin who ends up under the wing of criminal overlord Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) in New York City. After punishing Fisk for her father’s death, Maya heads back to Oklahoma for the first time in 20 years, laser-focused on destroying his empire while dodging and reconnecting with the ghosts of her past.
Like the best stories starring minority heroes, “Echo” immerses the viewer in culture and history, imparting the necessary knowledge without lecturing. Indeed, the clunkiest exposition in the whole series comes right at the top, with a solid half-hour devoted to getting viewers up-to-speed on Maya, and lagging mostly when it comes to her father’s hushed business deals and predictable beats of personal tragedy and harsh revenge.
“Echo” doesn’t just center a character with disabilities, but builds itself around her. Maya’s identity and life experience — and Cox’s by extension — permeate the entire show. For every network, studio executive, or other powerful creative who recoils from highlighting underrepresented communities, “Echo” is here to humble them, to make the task look not only easy but exhilarating. When shows like “Master of None” and “Only Murders in the Building” made the admirable decisions to share deaf characters’ viewpoints, they inevitably had to retreat from this perspective (“OMITB” then brought back James Caverly’s Theo only for Selena Gomez’s Mable to repeatedly tell him she doesn’t know ASL while comfortably monologuing ad nauseam for the audience).
Here, it’s a commitment, not an experiment. It might seem unwieldy to center a TV show on someone who speaks without vocalizing, whose conversation partners whisper or talk slowly while signing, but the execution invites engaged, engrossed viewership. Sometimes Maya talks to family members fluent in ASL; other times, there might be an interpreter in the room. Even a late-season bit of gadgetry serves not to help Maya hear, but to give her companion the ability to sign.
Even the comic book material, rote though it is when it comes to dead parents and long grudges (to be fair, Cox has a Hard Stare that would make Paddington Bear quake in his boots), gets remixed a little thanks to the show’s protagonist and TV-MA rating. When not set to thumping song choices (“Dragula” in the laser tag arena is a highlight), various fight scenes are muted to a low hum, mirroring Maya’s perception of the situation and inviting the viewer to heighten their other senses and plug into the action like she does. Cox fights on par with any Avenger (Maya gave one quite the run for his money in “Hawkeye”), and though her character projects a mostly steely exterior, she does tremendous work in a handful of emotional scenes and with manifesting Maya’s inner turmoil.
Part of Maya’s tangled history is that she’s descended from the first Choctaw ever (Julia Jones), and flashes of ancestors break through to her present — including in the form of superhuman powers. The flashbacks are intriguing, echoes of the past (get it?) connecting Maya to women throughout Choctaw history, including her grandmother (Tantoo Cardinal).
As such, “Echo” is two shows: The pre-ordained action adventure, and the far more compelling Maya Lopez backstory. The latter shines through in every character interaction and grounding performance, including Devery Jacobs as Maya’s cousin Bonnie who felt abandoned after she left and pulled away, Graham Greene as Maya’s grandfather, and uncle Henry (Chaske Spencer — admittedly also tied into the superhero-crime stuff, but my god is that man watchable). D’Onofrio’s Fisk is used sparely at first and then unleashed in his full “Daredevil” glory for scenes that are captivating if a little slow — a reminder of better days for Marvel TV.
But it’s a testament to the originality and innovation of “Echo” that one can get this far into a review of it without mentioning the M word (the headline doesn’t count, c’mon) — that, and the new Marvel Spotlight banner, which indicates when titles don’t require encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Like the masked devil Maya encounters surprisingly early on who had loose ties to the MCU, “Echo” is not only miles away from those stories, but mercifully free of them thanks to the Spotlight banner. It builds a lore and community that feel instantly richer and more inviting than the Big Picture (like “Ms. Marvel”) — and even saves itself from a by-the-book finale fight sequence (like “She-Hulk”). Where Maya ultimately benefits from the moving parts and people around her, “Echo” thrives when setting itself apart from the Marvel machine and creating a whole new legacy.
Grade: B-
All five episodes of “Echo” are now streaming on Disney+.
Best of IndieWire
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
