Mild Echo spoilers below.
It's fair to say that Marvel's latest TV show Echo is breaking new ground.
Echo finds itself in the unique position of being the first of many: the first offering from the franchise's new Spotlight division (delivering standalone series), the first to be led by a disabled individual (though her activities in this show give the lie to the word 'disabled'), the first whole-season drop for a Disney+ Marvel show… and the first not to be critically reviewed ahead of its launch.
What to Read Next
The last two points leave room for concern, both ours and Disney's presumably.
Did the creators not have enough faith in Echo to allow critical feedback? Did they not trust that the audience would return again and again for each weekly instalment? Or were they simply trying out something new?
In any case, what can the average fan (tottering on the precipice of Marvel fatigue) expect from this new show?
By falling under the Spotlight banner, Echo, by default, is all about "resetting the audience's expectations".
"Not everything is tied to a mainline Avengers story or is a necessary path on the road to this 'big thing,'" said Marvel Studios' executive producer and Head of Streaming, Television and Animation, Brad Winderbaum.
"There's no homework required. You can watch it, and we're going to fill in the blanks. Yes, Maya was in Hawkeye, but if you never saw Hawkeye, believe me, we're going to tell you everything you need to know so that you can start from scratch when you watch this show."
So let's treat it as such. A standalone show.
From the start, Echo, with its MA-rating (another first for Disney+) promised to have a darker, more sinister feel. Picking up the baton from the Netflix Marvel show Jessica Jones, it was set to be "a little more grounded, a little more on the gritty side, a little more street level," said Echo director Sydney Freeland.
In all fairness, Marvel has succeeded in its attempts to deliver something darker and Jessica-Jones-esque as it drags us into Maya Lopez's murky world.
At the beginning we find Maya (Alaqua Cox) still struggling to process the death of her father at the hands of the only other real family member she's really known – Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio).
Despite lodging a bullet in his head and presuming him dead, Maya is spiralling from all that has transpired. As a result, she uses grief-filled rage to destroy the foundations of Kingpin's operations, which she hopes to one day build back up according to her vision as she seizes control.
On her journey, she has made many enemies, who lead her back home and to her family in Oklahoma, where she and her father were driven from after the death of her mother when she was a child.
The events that unfold are bloodier and way more graphic than we are used to in the average family-friendly Disney+ Marvel show. Even more so than Secret Invasion, which also promised to be darker than the Marvel shows that preceded it.
Yet, despite having all of the grit of Jessica Jones, Echo is missing one key ingredient to make all that heaviness land, and that is heart.
There is an acute absence of intimacy; both the audience's intimate connection to Maya and also with the relationships in the show.
Echo tries but fails in its attempts to build emotional connections, which is noticeable when it comes to the info dump that frontloads the show. Despite there being some very emotionally charged events, they don't serve to connect us to the character.
Other than her relationship with her cousin Bonnie (K Devery Jacobs), Echo's experiences aren't punctuated by meaningful moments of connection that make you grieve for what she has lost.
In fact, it's not altogether clear that Maya's mother is her mother (and not Bonnie's) until moments before she is killed.
There is a distinct lack of personal connective moments that are necessary to create the care you need to have for the character. Instead what you get is the broad strokes of her past life that happen far too quickly and don't go deep enough for us to relate to her.
Interestingly enough, the rushed, shallow telling of Maya's trauma consequently makes it feel like an interference to the main story, slowing it down.
The same issue can be said for the main relationships in the present-day story. The characters talk heavily about how much her family has missed her in her 20-year-long absence, but don't explore that beyond words.
Sure there is the light playfulness and hero-worship from her cousin Biscuit (Cody Lightning) and Echo attempts to make more of her relationships with Henry (Chaske Spencer), Bonnie and Skully (Graham Greene), yet it feels unearned.
Yes, they care about her, but there has been limited contact for years and there is not enough from the past to make Maya's distant attitude towards them feel painful. Consequently, what we get of them in the present feels unsubstantiated.
We also don't spend enough time getting to know Maya beyond her grief, her emotional distance and her desire for revenge.
Who is she really? Why should we care about her overarching goal or the story for that matter if all we have is the vaguest connection to her?
In this, Echo should have learned from Jessica Jones. We cared about Jessica because we knew her. Despite all the violence and anger, the drinking and the self-sabotage, we cared about Jessica.
Through her apathetic front and chaotic life we were awarded the chance to see her be selfless, to care. We saw her vulnerability and this is what humanised her.
By contrast, Maya feels like a stranger.
It's not all doom and gloom for Echo, though. Stylistically, it is a beaut.
It was so illuminating and exciting to see the Deaf experience depicted outside of Maya just signing. The way Echo was able to use both sound and the absence of sound to shed light on Maya's experience was enjoyable, especially during the fight scenes in which Maya's heartbeat alluded to the tension in her body and her panic in a way that really draws the audience into her experience.
The show also beautifully slips in and out of the hearing and non-hearing world during the fights, allowing us to get a rich, symbiotic experience of both worlds.
It must also be said, in a genre severely lacking in diverse representations, it is encouraging to not only see ethnic diversity coming from the lead star but also from the wider cast as Maya returns to her family.
Echo makes an attempt to include her Native American culture, much like Ms Marvel and The Marvels did with Kamala Khan's Pakistani American roots and her Islamic identity.
Connecting Maya's seedling powers to her heritage is a nice touch, though three episodes in, it does feel quite random.
We're hoping it all ties together in the end. There's certainly room for growth and exploration of that not only in the last two episodes but also in the wider MCU as we hope to see more of Maya, even if this story is billed as an isolated experience.
All episodes of Echo are streaming now on Disney+.
You Might Like...
TV writer, Digital Spy Janet completed her Masters degree in Magazine Journalism in 2013 and has continued to grow professionally within the industry ever since. For six years she honed her analytical reviewing skills at the Good Housekeeping institute eventually becoming Acting Head of Food testing. She also freelanced in the field of film and TV journalism from 2013-2020, when she interviewed A-List stars such as Samuel L Jackson, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. In 2021 she joined Digital Spy as TV writer where she gets to delve into more of what she loves, watching copious amounts of telly all in the name of work. Since taking on the role she has conducted red carpet interviews with the cast of Bridgerton, covered the BAFTAs and been interviewed by BBC Radio and London Live. In her spare time she also moonlights as a published author, the book Gothic Angel.
