Echo

I know it took me longer than it normally does to finish this series but I do get distracted easily. Though Echo has kind of left the collective mind of the internet I think it is a very memorable and important show so I am kind of glad that I spread these episode reviews out so that I can keep talking about it. Echo was a giant step forward for Marvel in a lot of ways and I think anyone who says otherwise doesn’t have an opinion worth listening to. In the last episode Maya comes face to face with Fisk, who now has one eye due to their last interaction. These are the last 2 episodes of the very short series and it still feels like there is a lot to wrap up so here we go.

I am glad that we are spending some more time seeing Maya being raised by Kingpin. So many of her formative experiences were violent and that is clear in the way that she handles conflict. She even says “violence is our language”. When she is confronted with the man that raised her (whom she tried to kill) she is confronted with a lot of emotions. I also love that Kingpin has a single soft spot and it's her.

Maya finally is taken to see her grandma who helps explain the visions she’s been having. Maya is rightfully angry and storms out. And then for some reason we start playing a Christian ass bible song over the indigenous people having their emotions…weird and white decision Disney. Seriously, that's super gross you were doing so well. Couldn’t find any native music from literally any tribe? Cause that would have been better.

Maya confronts Kingpin, clearly turning down his offer to inherit everything. I LOVE that she calls him out on his claims to care about her but instead of learning sign language so that he can communicate with her he invents something that interprets for him.

Maya has this special outfit for the PowWow and the entire town comes out, which I love. What I don’t love is the allowing of people outside the tribe into the party. Cultural events are not spectacles, and a lot of tribes don’t even allow outsiders, they definitely don’t allow outsiders in regular everyday clothing.

The image of Maya standing up with all of her ancestors behind her and then her powers kicking in for her cousin and her grandmother made me cry. It was beautiful, powerful and deeply emotional. I love that they built to it all season and then didn’t pay it off until the very end. That was just so well written. And because she just kind of gets her powers at the end of the show there is just so much more room for growth and so many places for her to go.

Maya fully reuniting with her family after everything that goes down at the Pow Wow makes me really happy. She clearly still needs some kind of resolution with Fisk but she is no longer the angry and hurt little girl that she was at the beginning of the series. Wonderful character growth.

I could really watch another 5 seasons of Echo. Maya is an incredibly rich character that definitely deserves more screen time. I think we could see her on screen with Matt Murdock with little cameos from him, and maybe some other street level heroes but she is such a great stand alone character. I am really sad that this show got glossed over so quickly because it is some of Disney’s best work and I just wish that we had more of it.