Echo Won't Fix Marvel TV, But It's a Good Place to Start the Healing

Let's get it out of the way: Echo has its problems. It's somehow both underdeveloped and overly fussed with, seemingly directionless yet in a rush to get somewhere, and its finale, in keeping with the recent slate of Disney+ offerings, is a mess. Story beats have been scrambled by edits, confusing the stakes.

These structural problems can generally be overlooked — people watch these shows to have fun, not to write essays about them — yet even the more passive TV watchers out there will grok that something is up with Echo before the end. In five episodes, it both elaborates and fumbles the story of Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), the former silent and deadly leader of the Tracksuit Mafia from Hawkeye. Still, it's impossible not to want more of it.

Because underneath its apparent production chaos, Echo, created by Marion Dayre, represents the street-level superhero stuff Marvel TV once excelled at and has forgotten how to do well. The directive of Marvel Studios following Avengers: Endgame has been expansion, which allowed its hero roster to swell exponentially with more diverse and offbeat characters. It has succeeded in deepening the bench, but its projects have grown shallow even with their digitally rendered cosmic depth. Sure, whiz-bang action and candy colors are fun to look at, but what are we supposed to feel when the big things go boom? Where are the heroes who can ground us in a place that feels, if not real, then personal? Echo knows.

Before the days of Disney+, home of overlong Marvel movies in all but name (see: Loki, Moon Knight, and WandaVision, among others), Netflix offered the studio a venue to produce small-screen sagas that felt more intimate and emotionally resonant (not to mention more violent and sexually adventurous). They featured B-listers like Daredevil, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage, and, for the most part, remain among the best examples of Marvel TV; they're complex in a way Marvel movies can't (or aren't allowed to) be, and emblematic of the knottier stories that Echo now attempts to explore.

Echo is certainly an example of current Marvel Studios production chaos (why is it presented as a standalone Marvel Spotlight when it's clearly a canonical MCU entry?). But when it visits New York City, the epicenter of the Marvel Universe in many ways yet hasn't felt as such in a long time — it's like coming home.

Of course, Maya Lopez's home isn't in New York but in Oklahoma. Echo begins as she lams it from the Big Apple to her hometown, intent on putting her history with Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) behind her while building her own crime empire in his absence. (Maya believes the Kingpin is dead because — spoilers for Hawkeye — she shot him in the face. He is not.) Once Maya runs across members of her community, who are either thrilled or disconcerted by her return, Echo flexes its true strengths and begins to resemble the engrossing ensembles of the Netflix era, particularly those of Daredevil and Luke Cage. In many ways, it becomes a return to form for Marvel TV.

A hero, after all, is only as strong as the company they keep, and Echo is impeccably cast. There's Chaske Spencer as "Black Crow" Lopez, Maya's uncle who once worked under Fisk and now runs the local roller rink. Graham Greene plays the wily Skully, full of low-key bawdiness and handy in a pinch, as when Maya has her prosthetic foot crunched during a mission. The most consequential player is Tantoo Cardinal's Chula, Maya's estranged grandmother, who holds the key to our understanding of Echo as a series and Maya as a character. Even the resident goofball sidekick, Cody Lightning, displays a tenderness in his performance as Biscuits, Maya's hapless cousin.

Echo’s hometown might be a different story, with less definition than Daredevil's Hell's Kitchen or Luke Cage's Harlem, but it's a place that is unquestionably her own, a new pocket of the MCU filled with great characters that are worth exploring again. (Sadly, its "Spotlight" status suggests future seasons aren't in the offing.)

Even though it goes just as hard as Daredevil in the action department, Echo presents a compromise to Ol' Hornhead's grittiness. (It's closer in design to Ms. Marvel, another Disney+ series that reinvents the hero mold in surprising ways.) In between its far-too-infrequent fight sequences (where Cox performs without a stunt double), a mythical aspect is introduced that speaks to Maya's Native American ancestry and lends dramatic weight to the title of her series. Her reappearance in Choctaw Nation territory stirs up emotions and, with them, a familial power that goes back to the ancient days of Chafa (Julia Jones), a tribe legend.

Chafa's strength — which from a distance looks like Iron Fist's glowing punch — has been passed down to Maya through her mother, grandmother, great-grandmothers, and so on. These powers have a broad spectrum: They can heal, lend superstrength, and come with psychic properties. They're not as interesting as the stories they inspire (there are awesome flashbacks in Echo that feel like a fusion of Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman and Noah Hawley's Fargo), which might have something to do with how stripped-down this show feels a lot of the time; they're almost an afterthought. And they paint Echo with the same glowing crystal looks that appear in so many of these Marvel projects, seemingly to remind the viewer that they are, in fact, watching Marvel.

Her new power set aside, Maya's story is interesting to parse because of how layered it is. Hers is a history lesson, a crime saga, a fall from grace, and a hard-fought ascension, truncated though it may be. Echo still works because of its cast, sense of history, action, and, of course, its lead. Over the course of five episodes, Cox slowly allows a sense of vulnerability to shimmer over her stoic assassin's mask, revealing herself to be as morally complex a hero as the street-level defenders who kept TVs burning bright before she had a chance to make the scene. To risk sounding glib, Echo has grit. Heart. Its battles are minuscule compared to The Avengers' alien invasions and The Marvels' galactic whack-a-mole, and that's what makes it work. Echo makes you believe that small can still matter even as the MCU gets bigger. It won't fix the problems of Marvel TV, but it's a good place to start the healing.

Echo is streaming on Disney+. Join the discussion about the show in our forums. 

Jarrod Jones is a freelance writer currently settled in Chicago. He reads lots (and lots) of comics and, as a result, is kind of a dunderhead.