Starring Alaqua Cox (Maya Lopez / Echo), Vincent D’Onofrio (Wilson Fisk / Kingpin), Chaske Spencer (Henry “Black Crow” Lopez), Devery Jacobs (Bonnie), Cody Lightning (Biscuits), Graham Greene (Skully), and Tantoo Cardinal (Chula), with Charlie cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil and an appearance by Jeremy Renner as Cint Barton / Hawkeye via Archived Footage
ECHO
Directed by Sydney Freeland with Catriona McKenzie
Produced by Kevin Feige, Stephan Broussard, Louis D’Esposito, Brad Winderbaum, Victoria Alonso, Richie Palmer, Marion Dayre, Jason Gavin, and Sydney Freeland
Music By Dave Porter
Opening Theme: Burning by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Debuted on Disney+ under the Marvel Spotlight Banner
Number of Episodes: 5
Initial Streaming: January 9, 2024
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Fun Echo Facts
Echo was the first Marvel Studios production under the “Marvel Spotlight” banner. This was a new branding by Marvel Studios to single out live action projects that are stand alone in nature and that can be enjoyed and understood without the need for prior viewing of other films or shows. The Marvel Spotlight banner was officially announced by Marvel Studios on November 6, 2023.
Though a concerted effort was made by Marvel Studios to produce Echo as a standalone story, Echo is deeply grounded in Marvel Cinematic Universe lore. The titular character portrayed by Alaqua Cox was introduced in the 2021 Marvel Studios Disney+ series Hawkeye. That same series served as Marvel Studios’ first utilization of the Kingpin character portrayed by Vincent D’Onofrio that was prominently featured and critically acclaimed in Marvel Television’s Daredevil. The titular character of that Original Netflix series (Matt Murdock / Daredevil portrayed by Charlie Cox) makes a brief appearance in Echo as well. Cox first portrayed Matt Murdock for Marvel Studios in 2021’s Sony / Marvel Studios film Spider-Man: No Way Home and suited up as Daredevil for the first time for Marvel Studios in the 2022 Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
Echo was the first Marvel Studios production to formally ground itself in the mythology of Marvel Television’s Defenders Saga after years of debates over whether or not those Original Netflix shows (Daredevil: Season One, Jessica Jones: Season One, Daredevil: Season Two, Luke Cage: Season One, Iron Fist: Season One, The Defenders, The Punisher: Season One, Jessica Jones: Season Two, Luke Cage: Season Two, Iron Fist: Season Two, Daredevil: Season Three, The Punisher: Season Two, and Jessica Jones: Season Three) were MCU canon. Due to the rift between Marvel Studios and Marvel Television that dated back to the formation of Marvel Television on June 28, 2010, and culminated on August 31, 2015, when Marvel Studios was removed from underneath the Marvel Entertainment umbrella, most fans believed that the Original Netflix shows weren’t canon. What was canon it seemed were the projects that were exclusively produced by Kevin Feige and his Marvel Studios team, and this appeared to become more evident on December 10, 2019, when Kevin Feige was promoted to the position of Marvel Chief Creative Officer by The Walt Disney Company. Marvel Television as it had existed under Jeph Loeb was folded into Marvel Studios with Loeb leaving Marvel Entertainment and the Studio focusing its television content on the production of shows for the upstart Disney+ streaming service that would be firmly and undisputedly set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
From there, Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe launched what Kevin Feige has since labeled The Multiverse Saga and on March 22, 2022, each of the 13 shows that Marvel Television produced for Netflix moved over from Netflix to Disney+. Then, at the 2022 San Diego Comic Con, Kevin Feige announced that Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio would reprise their respective Marvel Television roles in a Marvel Studios Disney+ series titled Daredevil: Born Again. In the meantime, Cox and D’Onofrio would film their respective scenes for Echo, while Jon Bernthal (who debuted as Frank Castle / The Punisher in the Second Season of Marvel Television’s Daredevil) was confirmed to be appearing in Daredevil: Born Again in a reprisal of his Netflix role as well.
Finally, during an interview with Screen Rant that aired on January 3, 2024 (six days from the premier of Echo on Disney+), Marvel Studios Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation: Brad Winderbaum confirmed that the Netflix shows were in fact canon to the MCU and that the events seen in those shows took place within the MCU 616-Universe and upon the Sacred Timeline and that these were the same versions of Daredevil and Kingpin whose journeys viewers of those now former Netflix shows had followed, beginning with the release of Daredevil: Season One in 2015. This was even further confirmed the following day when a new trailer promoting the Echo series featured footage from the now former Netflix shows.
In-Universe, the MCU narratives of Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock / Daredevil and Wilson Fisk’s Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk / Kingpin began in the year 2015 and stretched throughout The Defenders Saga, ending in the MCU year of 2018. That places the entirety of The Defenders Saga after the I Am Groot animated shorts and just before Avengers: Infinity War and Thanos’ Universe-altering “Snap” when he wielded the combined power of the Infinity Stones to erase half of all life throughout the Universe. Following the Snap, Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton / Hawkeye became a murderous vigilante known as Ronin after his wife and children (and even the family dog) were erased from existence by Thanos. Ronin terrorized the criminal underworld, taking out several members of the Tracksuit Mafia crime syndicate led by Maya’s father William Lopez and with ties to Wilson Fisk. Ronin eventually killed William Lopez sometime during the 5-years between the Snap and the Blip in a scheme that was concocted by Fisk to seize full control of the group and eliminate the potential opposition that Fisk saw in William. Maya witnessed her father’s death and vowed to avenge him by taking down Ronin. She had the full backing of Fisk in this vendetta, and along the way, even encountered and fought against Daredevil (as seen in the first episode of Echo), Fisk’s greatest enemy. So, we know that Maya, Kingpin, and Daredevil all survived the Snap and that later, Ronin returned to his Hawkeye roots and realigned with what was left of The Avengers to reverse Thanos’ Snap and bring all of the Vanished back. This was in the MCU year of 2023. When Maya finally catches up to Barton as seen in Hawkeye, it is Christmastime in the MCU year of 2024. Maya is working with the Tracksuits, who now answer directly to Kingpin (who either escaped or was released from prison sometime after 2018) and Matt Murdock (still practicing law) is legally representing Spider-Man after Peter Parker’s identity was publicly revealed by the would-be hero Mysterio. The Hawkeye series sees Maya learn the truth pertaining to the death of her father and how the entire thing was covertly manipulated by Fisk. This turns Maya against Fisk and Maya’s arc in the Hawkeye series ends with her shooting Kingpin in the face. From there, Matt Murdock begins dating Jennifer Walters during the Summer of 2025, as seen in Marvel Studios’ Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
While actor Charlie Cox acts as if he is blind in order to accurately portray the handicapped Marvel Hero known as Daredevil, actress Alaqua Cox, who portrays the handicapped Echo, is deaf in real life. Part of her right leg is also amputated in real life, and she wears a prosthesis that enables her to walk. Alaqua Cox is furthermore a Native American, making her a remarkable casting choice that checked all the proverbial boxes in order to bring Echo to life from off the comic book pages.
In May of 2022, Native American (Navajo) Sydney Freeland was hired to direct Echo. She directed each of the five episodes that comprise the Echo series with the exception of the third. Marvel Studios consulted the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma in an effort to accurately represent the culture of the Choctaw. Marvel Studios also collaborated with the Choctaw on the design of the costume that Maya wears as Echo in the Finale.
Members of the Echo crew took classes in American Sign Language to better understand how to shoot and present that style of communication. Douglas Ridloff served as the ASL consultant and as a consulting producer. This was his third time doing so for Marvel Studios following 2021’s Eternals and Hawkeye. Ridloff is the real-life husband of deaf actress Lauren Ridloff, who portrayed the MCU’s first deaf hero: Makkari in Eternals.
Marvel Entertainment / The Walt Disney Company
Maya Lopez / Echo was created for Marvel Comics by David Mack and Joe Quesada, debuting in Daredevil # 9 in December of 1999. In the comics, Maya was the original Ronin. Clint Barton followed Maya as Ronin, taking up the mantle in New Avengers # 27 in 2007. Others who have been Ronin in the 616 comics Universe include Alexei Shostakov (Red Guardian), Eric Brooks (Blade), and Benjamin Poindexter (Bullseye). Red Guardian made his MCU debut in the 2021 Marvel Studios film Black Widow, portrayed by David Harbour. Blade made his MCU debut with a voice cameo in the 2021 Marvel Studios film Eternals. Bullseye made his MCU debut during Season Three of Marvel Television’s Daredevil in 2018. In the comics, just as seen in Hawkeye, Maya shoots Kingpin in the face, but he survives and takes to wearing an eyepatch (as seen in Echo).
As viewers of The Defenders Saga know, Wilson Fisk is operating in 2025 with the knowledge that Matt Murdock is Daredevil. He is sworn to secrecy however, in protection of his beloved Vanessa.
Echo commenced filming on April 21, 2022, in Georgia, about a month after The Defenders Saga landed on Disney+. At the time of filming, Vincent D’Onofrio had already suited up for Marvel Studios as Kingpin in Hawkeye and Charlie Cox had already appeared for Marvel Studios as Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Charlie Cox had also already filmed his scenes for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law the previous Spring. Filming on Echo wrapped on August 26, 2022. It should be noted that at the time when Echo was filmed, Marvel Studios had yet to formally decide whether or not The Defenders Saga was canon. Though Cox and D’Onofrio were encouraged to portray the characters in the same spirit as they did in the now former Netflix shows, there was a general understanding that these would be new interpretations of Kingpin and Daredevil. That of course changed just prior to the release of Echo and much of what had already been shot for Daredevil: Born Again was scrapped and then reshot under a new creative team.
In Echo, actor Chaske Spencer portrays Henry Lopez (Maya’s Uncle). Spencer previously played the part of Jace Montero in Marvel Television’s Jessica Jones: Season Three, marking the latest occurrence MCU double-casting; a list that includes Michelle Yeoh (Aleta Ogord and Ying Nan), Kenneth Choi (Private Morita and Principal Morita), Laura Haddock (Captain America fangirl and Meredith Quill), Gemma Chan (Sersi and Minn-Erva), Alfre Woodard (Miriam Sharpe and Mariah Dillard), and Mahershala Ali (Cottonmouth and Blade).
Echo experienced a significant release delay after wrapping in the Summer of 2022. The series was initially filmed to boast eight episodes, but Kevin Feige reportedly labeled the series as “un-releasable” upon viewing it in its entirety. These claims were denied by The Walt Disney Company, but the series was trimmed down to just 5 episodes instead of 8, nonetheless. All 5 episodes of Echo dropped on a single day on Disney+, a new approach for Marvel Studios but a familiar approach for viewers of The Defenders Saga, as this was the way that all 13 of those shows were dropped on Netflix from 2015-2019.
The first trailer for Echo premiered on November 3, 2023, 15-months removed from the end of its shoot. The trailer featured Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin and offered a brief glimpse of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and an unfamiliar level of blood and violence for a traditional Marvel Studios production. A second trailer premiered on December 16, 2023, with more of the same. Echo was the first Marvel Studios production to earn a TV-MA rating and it was released on Hulu at the same time that it was released on Disney+.
Echo was the first Marvel Studios production to be released following the end of the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA actor’s strike that plagued Hollywood from May 2, 2023, through November 9, 2023. Marvel Studios released Guardians of the Galaxy Volume Three, Secret Invasion, and Loki: Season Two during the strikes and premiered The Marvels in Las Vegas as well. The strikes significantly set Marvel Studios back, with several projects that were in development being delayed from their intended release date. On November 8, 2023, Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger (who returned to Disney a year earlier, replacing his replacement Bob Chapek) derided his company’s creative direction under Chapek, dubbing it as an issue of “Quantity over Quality.” In other words, Marvel Studios and others that operate underneath the Disney umbrella began to suffer tremendously as they were pushed to put out as many projects as was humanly possible. This hindered the reception, the performance, and the presentation of select MCU projects, including Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (a MCU worst 46 % Approval Rating on Rotten Tomatoes), Secret Invasion (a 52% Approval Rating with an embarrassingly low score for its Finale) and The Marvels (the all-time lowest grossing MCU film produced by Marvel Studios).
Echo received a 71% Approval Rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In terms of live action shows produced by Marvel Studios for Disney+ this put it behind Ms. Marvel (98%), Hawkeye / Loki: Season One / WandaVision (92%), Moon Knight (86%), The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (85%), Loki: Season Two (82%), and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (77%), and ahead of Secret Invasion (52%). In terms of The Defenders Saga, Echo landed behind Daredevil: Season One (99%), Daredevil: Season Three (97%), Jessica Jones: Season One (94%), Luke Cage: Season One (90%), Luke Cage: Season Two (85%), Jessica Jones: Season Two (82%), Daredevil: Season Two (81%), The Defenders (78%), and Jessica Jones: Season Three (73%), and ahead of The Punisher: Season One (68%), The Punisher: Season Two (62%), Iron Fist: Season Two (55%), Iron Fist: Season One (20%).
Upon the MCU (Sacred) Timeline, the primary events of Echo take place in 2025, after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and before She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
My Echo Review
Chafa
(Written by Marion Dayre, Josh Feldman, Stephen Paul Judd, and Ken Kristensen)
Echo as a series is a story that is told through numerous flashbacks. We see flashbacks through the lineage of the proud and strong women in Maya’s family, dating all the way back to Chafa of the Clay People; the first of the Choctaw. We also get flashbacks to Maya’s childhood. We see that she is loved by a nurturing surrounding family while sharing a very close bond with her cousin Bonnie. Maya is deaf, but not yet an amputee in these flashbacks. That happens in the car accident that killed her mother and after her mom’s death, Maya and her father William were cast out by his wife’s family and Maya was separated from Bonnie and everyone else that she loved. William Lopez takes Maya to New York City where he begins working for Wilson Fisk and joins / leads the Tracksuit Mafia. Maya bonds with Fisk and he with her. She grows up to acknowledge him as her “Uncle” and she receives an ample amount of physical training as she ages, emerging as a formidable threat despite her handicaps.
Maya is safe at home within this criminal empire, continuing to grow and mature in a post-Snap world until her father is murdered by the vigilante known as Ronin. Kingpin offers to help Maya channel her rage and she begins working for him with the Tracksuits. During her first job, Maya encounters and fights the vigilante known as Daredevil and impresses Fisk with how she was able to hang with the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. She also makes her first kill on this same mission. From there, Maya’s quest for vengeance against Ronin (as seen in Hawkeye) is revisited and we are quickly reminded that Fisk had orchestrated the murder of William Lopez by provoking Ronin and that after discovering this, Maya turned her rage on Fisk, shooting him in the face. He is now blind in one eye and wears an eyepatch while boasting some lingering physical scars.
Maya flees New York and returns to her hometown (Tamaha) in Oklahoma. She settles in at her old house and reunites with her cousin Biscuits. She soon reunites with her Uncle Henry as well, but he wants no part in the trouble that Maya has brought to their town.
I liked this first episode of Echo a lot! The casting of Maya as a child was impeccable (Darnell Besaw, the real-life cousin of Alaqua Cox) and all of the signing scenes were filmed wonderfully. Alaqua Cox was very likeable throughout the episode and even in her villainous scenes such as her fight against Daredevil, she was presented as so much of a badass, it was difficult to root against her! I would have loved to have gotten much more of Charlie Cox as Daredevil of course, but what we did get was stellar and the way that sequence was filmed primarily without sound was outstanding!
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Lawak
(Written by Marion Dayre, Josh Feldman, Stephen Paul Judd, and Ken Kristensen with Rebecca Roanhorse, Bobby Wilson, and Ellen Morton)
Maya has Biscuits run some errands for her and then has him drive her out to a railroad where she implants a bomb in a railcar that detonates at a Fisk shipping yard. Uncle Henry is irate over Maya’s bold move while poor Biscuits feels bad about destroying the truck that belonged to Chula (Maya’s mom’s mother). Having damaged her prosthetic leg, Maya reaches out to Chula’s former lover Skully, the owner of the local pawn shop. Skully agrees to help Maya. Meanwhile, Biscuits accidentally reveals that Maya is back in town to Bonnie.
This was a step down from the first episode, but still engaging in places. The train bomb sequence was pretty great, with Maya again being an absolute badass and the lovable Biscuits darn near stealing the show in his effort to assist her.
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Tuklo
(Written by Jason Gavin, and Shoshanna Stern, with Marion Dayre, and Ken Kristensen)
A bounty is placed on Maya’s head following the railcar bombing and Uncle Henry’s employee (Vickie) at the skating rink that he runs, conspires with a couple of female friends to capture Maya and call in her location in an effort to collect said bounty. Uncle Henry is tied up and detained in the process, and soon, Bonnie too is detained and locked up with Maya. This makes for an awkward reunion for childhood best friends who haven’t seen each other in some 20-years, and Bonnie quickly discovers just how much Maya has changed as Maya casually frees herself and then begins to make life miserable for one of the female abductors.
Meanwhile, the villainous Zane shows up with a crew and demands Maya while ignoring Vickie’s redundant pleas for “the money.” Zane quickly has enough and murders Vickie after which he begins threatening Henry and Bonnie. Zane is interrupted however by the badass Maya, who mows through several of his men to the tune of Rob Zombie’s Dragula! This is fast, bloody, and brutal stuff and this sequence was brilliantly filmed! Sadly, Maya ends up too outnumbered and too outgunned to win the fight, but as Zane readies himself to kill her, he receives a phone call (presumably from Kingpin) and is ordered to leave Maya be. He concurs. Realizing that Kingpin really is alive and that he will be coming for Maya, Uncle Henry vows to help Maya fight and Skully gives her a new prosthesis with some nice personal touches.
Later, Maya discovers that Fisk has come to Tamaha and is confronted by The Kingpin.
This episode was incredible! A fun fact about me … I live in Georgia and the skating rink (the Griffin Skate Inn) is a place me and my family have often frequented. Both of my children have in fact had birthday parties there! It was therefore really neat to see this place get featured so prominently in this episode, and I thought the musical choice was perfect!
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Taloa
(Written by Josh Feldman, Ken Kristensen, and Chantelle M. Wells)
Flashback to 2008, at a time within the MCU before Tony Stark has become Iron Man, or that Bruce Banner returned to the United States, or that Thor fought The Destroyer in New Mexico, or that Steve Rogers’ preserved body was pulled out of the Arctic by S.H.I.E.L.D., and we see Wilson Fisk, ever the criminal, bonding with a young Maya Lopez. This may be the single greatest sequence of this series for me as we see an ice cream vendor be an absolute dick to the young and handicapped Maya and then get beaten to death by Fisk as a result. This is bloody and gritty, but the highlight is when Maya happens upon Fisk in and instead of being scared of him, she joins in on the assault, kicking the vendor herself! Just a wonderful sequence!
Back in the present and to Maya’s surprise, Fisk shows no signs of resentment or any desire to harm her. He has instead brought wine, dinner, and desert, and simply wants to dine with the woman he has for so long viewed as the daughter that he never had. The ensuing dinner sequence between the two was great, with Fisk seeming sincere even in the face of Maya’s rebelliousness. Kingpin also gifts Maya with an augmented reality contact lens that removes the need for a translator in order to communicate with her and ends up asking Maya to return to New York with him and to let bygones be bygones.
In the meantime, and after she experiences a powerful vision pertaining to her ancestors, Henry takes Maya to meet with the abrasive Chula, who received the same vision that Maya did. Chula tries to explain what their shared vision could mean, but Maya, still bitter over the years upon years of isolation and heartbreak that Chula caused her, wants no part of what Chula is selling and she lashes out at Chula for separating her from her family when she was a child. Maya bitterly leaves, but with hope that at least some of what she said got through to Maya, Chula makes plans to sew a special garment for Maya.
From there, Maya meets with Kingpin, readying herself to kill him for real this time. Fisk once again greets her with relative kindness however, sharing with her the story of how he beat his father to death with a hammer when he was 12-yerars old (as seen in Daredevil: Season One). Fisk sincerely tells Maya that if she feels the need to kil him, to go ahead and do it, but she relents. Maya does however seize the moment to call Fisk out on some of his bullshit and the twisted way in which he sees himself as some sort of hero or savior. Fisk nonetheless urges Maya once more to leave with him to New York, but Maya instead leaves Tamaha without him.
Though Maya’s leave from Tamaha at the end of the episode was one of the most nonsensical character moments in the history of the MCU, as she knows Fisk is going to retaliate and leaves her family and friends unprotected, this was an overall very enjoyable episode. Every time that Vincent D’Onofrio was on the screen, my eyes were glued. He and Alaqua Cox have a really special chemistry and it’s neat to see Fisk show so much affection to someone other than Wesley and his beloved Vanessa! Really, really great stuff!
Marvel Studios / The Walt Disney Company
Maya
(Written by Amy Rardin, Steven Paul Judd, Ellen Morton, and Chantelle M. Wells)
We open with another beautiful flashback sequence with Maya and her mom which shows her mom boasted healing powers as she uses her hands to heal a woodpecker that Maya had inadvertently wounded with a slingshot. This, like so many of the ancestral flashbacks throughout this series, is leading somewhere, and I will get to that in a bit.
For now, and back in the present, Kingpin of course makes moves to take Chula and Bonnie hostage, which lures Maya back to Talaha. She experiences a vision of her mother and finds the garment that Chula had created for her: an outfit weaved with love and power and that incorporates the heritage of her people. Maya suits up and heads out to the annual powwow to confront Fisk and rescue the people he is threatening.
This sequence boasts some gorgeous cinematography! The costuming and the festive feel of the entire powwow was great and seeing an empowered Maya standup to Fisk was wonderful! So, let’s get to the aforementioned flashbacks …. Echo is packed full of quick cuts and frenzied flashes to scenes from the past that involve Maya’s ancestors. Each episode of the series is leading up to the Finale and are named for a specific ancestor: Chafa, Lowak, Tuklo, and Taloa (Maya’s mom). Maya’s entire heritage is full of ritual and spirituality, and she comes from a long line of not only empowered women, but superpowered women and all of the flashbacks were leading to the moment where Maya finally harnesses that power and learns to wield it. We literally see Maya’s late ancestors join her during her confrontation with Fisk and we even see Chula and Bonnie wield Maya’s power, but in the end this extraordinary supernatural power’s greatest attribute is not its power to harm … it is its power to heal! So, after Fisk lashes out at Maya and vows to punish her for what he sees as stubborn rebellion, if not outright betrayal, Maya wields her power to heal Wilson Fisk! She spiritually penetrates the boundaries of his mind and urges him to surrender the anger that defines him, and when she takes her hands off of him, he is baffled, demanding to know what she had done with him. A bewildered Fisk flees Tamaha and Maya unites with her family (even Chula) in a glorious example of love triumphing over hate, the weak triumphing over the strong, and good triumphing over evil!
A credits sequence shows Wilson Fisk begin to consider running for Mayor of New York, a plot point that will reportedly be revisited in Daredevil: Born Again.
I thought Echo was a beautiful series. Was it perfect? No. Was it top tier MCU stuff? No. It had some glaring flaws. A lot of the ancestral flashbacks were way too choppy and tended to take me out of the present moment that I was watching. I completely understand the logic of it all, it just didn’t really work for me. Also, Maya leaving Talaha at the end of episode four was a really odd creative choice. It made her look completely oblivious, and she was anything but that throughout the rest of the show. Childhood scenes aside, the rift between Maya and Bonnie was just there for me and felt completely unnecessary. This may not have been the case had this show not been as trimmed down as it obviously was, but it just felt a little off in the final product.
My criticism ends there. The cast was great. The fight choreography was great. The costuming was great. The music was great. The production was great. The story was as unique and different as any that the Marvel Studios team have ever tried to tell. The gritty feel that was grounded in the spiritual side of Choctaw culture could have easily been a conflict of interests, but I thought it came together nicely at the end, and the end of the confrontation between Maya and Kingpin was certainly different but it worked for me as a genuinely nice feel-good moment of love and empowerment. We need those from time to time!
Above all else, the three highlights for me were Alaqua Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Darnell Besaw. All of the young Maya sequences were captivating from camping out with Bonnie to the car crash with her mom, to her landing under the wing of Fisk. Vincent D’Onofrio meanwhile was as good as ever as Fisk in this series. As per usual with his performance as Fisk, he exudes this mesmerizing aura in which he is both menacing and timid, if not socially awkward, and it is this which enables him to standout whether he is mercilessly beating someone to death with his bare hands or sharing an ice cream with a little girl.
Last but certainly not least, there’s Alaqua Cox. Did I mention she’s a badass? Because she is! I cannot stress enough how wonderful her acting was throughout this series. She can’t talk and she can’t speak so everything that she does, be it anger, grief, fear, or determination, she has to show through her eyes and her body language. That moment when she makes her first kill is chilling. Her fight with Daredevil was captivating. The skating rink brawl was awesome. She was timid when she needed to be, she was angry when she needed to be, and she commanded sympathy while exuding courage. Maya Lopez felt BRAVE, and I think this was the easiest aspect of the character of all for Alaqua Cox to portray because in real life, Alaqua Cox is BRAVE! I cannot wait to see more of Maya Lopez in the MCU!
Highlights of Echo:
Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez
Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk
Darnell Besaw as young Maya Lopez
Chemistry Between Alaqua Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio
The Ice Cream Scene
Echo vs Daredevil!
The Skating Rink Fight
Cody Lightning as Biscuits Graham Greene as Skully
Echo and Kingpin have Dinner
Reverence for Native American (specifically Choctaw) culture and the way that it was Honored
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