Echo is disappointing

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Echo and Daredevil. A disclaimer: I was inspired by some points made by Youtubers, so I can't claim every idea as original when it comes to the criticisms of this show.

Echo was recently released on Disney Plus, and I did watch it, possibly against my better judgment. It's hard because the more I learn about good storytelling and writing relatable characters, the more critical I get of "jerk girl boss" characters. Maya Lopez, a.k.a. Echo, is the latest in a long line.

The show attempted to get Daredevil fans sucked in by rating the show for mature audiences, which mostly meant the fight scenes contained more blood, and promised appearances from Wilson Fisk (a.k.a. Kingpin) and Daredevil. While this and Maya's setup from the Hawkeye show were just enough to pull me in, I walked away feeling irritated by the show's lack of attention to detail and its degradation of Fisk's character. And I continue to wonder what characters like Maya are teaching young women.

The show's positives

While pretty much a flop, Echo did have a few positive notes worth mentioning. First, show producers did strive to depict the Choctaw Nation accurately. They paid close attention to cultural details in this area. This made it more reassuring that things like the powwow at the end were a realistic setup.

Second, producers worked hard when it came to the use of American sign language, with many characters signing and some scenes using only sign language. It was neat to see this become such a critical component of the story.

As critics suggest, the difficulty was that the show was not always consistent on this front, making the pacing a little unpredictable and choppy. For example, one scene would be just signing with subtitles, and the next scene would be characters talking while they were signing. However, this is closer to the situation in real life, so if we're looking for reality, it works. I know I would be saying words out loud while signing to make sure I was communicating what I wanted to. But despite this meticulous work, producers and writers decided that all other elements of storytelling and character development were not worth the same level of scrutiny and labor. I discuss my criticisms of the show in the sections below.

Echo's version of Kingpin doesn't fit with the one we know.

Echo gives us some of Maya's history with Kingpin. Supposedly, they met when she was a child, which took place before the events of Daredevil season one. I'm basing this on the timeline created by Screenrant, which puts Fisk's timeline in chronological order. You can check that out here. I found it quite helpful.

Even from these early interactions, we see that Fisk cares about Maya, which is confirmed by his actions throughout the show. It's not impossible for Fisk to have someone he cares about, but this "Uncle"role feels out of place based on what we know from Daredevil season one. In this season, we get the impression that Fisk is very much alone until he meets Vanessa. Vanessa teaches him to care about more than himself and financial gain. I would go so far as to say that Vanessa is one of the first people that Fisk loved in his adult life.

So either Fisk doesn't care about Maya and has only been seeking to manipulate her, or he was already this caring person before Vanessa came into his life, having family dinners with Maya and her father. From what we see, it appears that Fisk genuinely cares about Maya, which would be the most plausible explanation for why he ends up in many situations where he is vulnerable around her instead of being his carefully guarded self. This retroactively takes away from his character development in Daredevil season one.

In addition to this character inconsistency, the Fisk in Echo is not the unstoppable foe of Daredevil. In Daredevil, Fisk is this twisted villain who leaves nothing to chance. He is constantly calculating, and it felt like Daredevil would never beat him. The victory in the end was something worth celebrating. Echo's triumph, in comparison, feels a bit hollow.

Echo lacks attention to detail.

Despite its attention to certain details, Echo failed to focus on other details that would have improved viewer experience and continuity. For one thing, all you have to do is watch one fight scene in Daredevil and compare it to the first episode of Echo to see that fight choreography has taken a turn for the worse. I won't pretend that the fight scenes in Daredevil were entirely accurate. Still, at least there was more effort and meticulous planning involved to make something that looked cool. In the first episode of Echo, Daredevil looks like he's just doing a friendly sparring match to boost Maya's self-esteem. Maybe Fisk called him in for a favor and told him to go easy on her?

Next were the overlooked details about Fisk's skills and backstory. As we see from Daredevil season one, Fisk isn't above playing the fool. In this season, he pretends that he doesn't know Chinese or Japanese and consistently uses a translator to keep up the facade. However, we learn about mid-season that he's fluent in both of these languages.

For Echo, it would have been consistent for him to pretend to not to know sign language only to reveal later that he knows fluent sign language. Instead, Echo has him creating advanced tech so that he can communicate with Maya. You're tell me that this man knew this girl for almost twenty years, apparently cares about her a lot, and never learned sign language? The same man who only learned Chinese and Japanese to better communicate with the people he wanted to exploit? Yeah, I'm not buying it.

Then there's the hammer. There's this scene that's supposed to be emotionally intense in episode four of Echo, where Fisk reveals to Maya that he killed his father with a hammer. He has the hammer with him in a box and shows it to her. He then says he killed his father to be free and that she should be free too, allowing her the same chance he had as a child.

The scene could have packed a lot of emotion if it had been the correct type of hammer. The hammer from Echo and the hammer young Fisk uses to kill his father look distinctly different. I'm not a tools expert, and I can tell the difference. Seriously, did anyone in this show watch Daredevil? If the show could pay so much attention to detail in other areas, it's odd that they couldn't manage to pick up a hammer that costs less than $10 at Lowes. (Yes, I looked that up.)

Echo needs to look in the mirror.

Maya certainly isn't meant to be a role model. She's meant to be a bit an "antihero?" so take all of my criticisms with a bit of skepticism. Antiheroes are an odd category, but May seems perfectly capable of knowing right and wrong, at least when it comes to how other people act.

She confronts her grandmother for not reaching out after Maya's mother died and for how her grandmother essentially disowned her. Maya explains how she needed her grandmother, but her grandmother chose herself. However, Maya is unwilling to see the level of pain her grandmother experienced. Maya also refuses to acknowledge that she could have reached out herself.

When Bonnie tries telling Maya how much it hurt when Maya cut off communication, Maya brushes away her criticisms. Then, she doesn't even offer any sort of apology for killing their friendship.

Maya rightly calls out Fisk for being a monster, but the closest we get to any accountability for Maya is when Fisk says, "You knew what you were part of at every turn. All the people you killed for me, did you plead for their lives? I ask you, who's the monster?"

Her response? "You isolated me. Told me you were the only one I could trust. But it was a lie."

She's ready to condemn everyone but herself. She magnifies the sins of others while refusing to see her own faults. She doesn't know the signs for "I'm sorry" or "I was wrong," and it shows. She blames Fisk for manipulating her without being willing to admit that she chose to continue working for him and that she still holds at least partial responsibility for the people she killed under Fisk's orders.

She's a character that's supposed to be some sort of hero; at least, that's what the show wants us to believe. And yet, she fails to take personal responsibility, care about others, or show any level of grace towards those who have wronged her.

What lessons do characters like Maya teach us?

I can't help but wonder what sort of example Maya and other "strong female characters" like She-hulk set for young women and girls. What are they teaching us, and how will it influence the future? I'm just as glad as the next person that we've moved away from films like Twilight, where the female protagonist is strictly defined by her relationship with men. Films like this encourage toxic relationships and seeing yourself as incomplete unless you're in a romantic relationship.

But perhaps in backlash to this and other factors, the culture has created an entirely new line of stories and characters that say women have to be jerks, that they always have to be right, and that saying "I'm sorry" and showing humility are traits of the weak. Like Maya, we can blame everyone else for our problems instead of taking any personal responsibility for our actions. It works out fine in the movies, doesn't it?

Movies and shows aren't something we should absorb passively, even though that's what we want to do. We want to turn our brains off and veg when we click over to Disney Plus, but that will not help us learn and grow from the media we consume. Echo and Maya Lopex have a lesson to teach us if we're ready for it, though it may be the opposite of what the writers intended.

Characters like Maya lead me to reflect on how I want to be different from them. She reminds me that in real life, there is power in humility and kindness. Her story reminds me that being a hero is far more than having superpowers. Instead, it's about protecting others and helping those who need it. It reminds me that real life has consequences and that we can choose to use our talents and skills in productive ways that put others first, or we can choose to take risks and that put others in danger and focus on our own needs.

Echo might have failed at good storytelling and character development. However, it can still make us think about the people we want to be and what qualities we want to promote as a culture. But Echo won't be something I'll need to watch again any time soon.

Originally published on Medium. Thank you for reading!