Review: Echo, "Chafa" | Season 1, Episode 1
Marvel’s new “standalone” series spends an awful lot of time recapping the past
Welcome to Episodic Medium’s daily coverage of Echo, which debuted tonight on Disney+. As always, the first review is available to all, but subsequent reviews will only be available to paid subscribers. You can check out our full Winter 2024 schedule here, and learn more about the site and its mission on our About page.
When Marvel’s Disney+ TV show experiment first launched, the pitch was simple: Take (relatively) beloved supporting characters from Marvel’s hit movies and give them their own space to shine in a miniseries format. And though the results were mixed (Loki, good; The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, bad) the basic concept made sense. As did Marvel’s later idea to introduce new characters like Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel as the leads of their own series.
Echo, however, is something new. It’s Marvel’s first attempt to spin off a (not particularly beloved) supporting character from a Disney+ series as the lead of their own series—all while continuing to recanonize characters from a “Defenders” universe that debuted on an entirely different streaming platform nine years ago. And if that sounds like too much for a five-episode miniseries to handle, this premiere doesn’t do much to assuage those fears.
What’s especially weird is that Marvel’s new “Spotlight” branding is supposed to indicate that Echo is a standalone story with no previous MCU knowledge required, which couldn’t feel further from the case in this premiere. Structurally, this episode only feels standalone during a grounded 11-minute prologue that introduces us to young Maya Lopez (Darnell Besaw) and her tragic backstory in Tamaha, Oklahoma. After that, it devolves into an absolutely manic 17-minute pseudo-montage that tries to recap and expand the entire emotional arc that adult Maya (Alaqua Cox) experienced during her debut in the 2021 series Hawkeye, without ever really establishing for new viewers that that’s what it’s doing. Then there’s a final 16 minutes that sets up Maya’s arc for this series, all while introducing the show’s supporting players and key locations relatively late in the hour.
I guess from Marvel’s point of view, the fact that this episode includes that lengthy recap is meant to put everyone on an equal playing field when it comes to Maya’s story? But if I felt confused and overwhelmed as someone who watched (and reviewed!) Hawkeye, I can only imagine how new viewers felt watching Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk, Charlie Cox’s Daredevil, and Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye pop up and disappear with little to no context. Surely a couple lines of dialogue could’ve hinted at Maya’s Hawkeye experiences in a far less alienating way.
Which isn’t to say I didn’t shout with joy when Daredevil first billy clubbed his way onscreen again. Even in Marvel’s late-stage decline, there’s still some juice left in the old nostalgia machine, which is undoubtedly why this premiere frontloaded so many cameos in the first place. But should I come away from a female-led antihero series most excited about a male lawyer-vigilante who appeared on screen for less than two minutes? Probably not! (To be fair, that was also my reaction to Charlie Cox’s brief appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home, so that might just be a me thing.)
If a good pilot is supposed to orient viewers to a new world and provide compelling characters to latch onto, Echo’s premiere is almost an anti-pilot in how little it does to sell Maya’s story as one worth watching without her broader MCU connections. And while that doesn’t mean the show won’t find its feet in its next four episodes, it does make this premiere hard to judge as a taste of what’s to come.
Part of that comes down to the central character herself. Though Alaqua Cox has a captivating screen presence in an Old Hollywood kind of way, she doesn’t feel like a hugely versatile actor yet (Hawkeye was her first ever acting role). And since Maya is such a stoic, solemn character anyway, Cox isn’t even able to fall back on the warm charisma that can sometimes carry an actor still finding their feet. Maya works best when she’s operating as a deadpan straightwoman against a more colorful supporting character, which is why her sweet reunion with her cousin Biscuits (Cody Lightning) stands out so much. But the rapid-fire pacing of this premiere leaves little room for the show to create the kind of endearing odd couple dynamics that might hook viewers into the series.
So what we’re left with is a bunch of superhero cliches (dead parents, childhood guilt, thorny crime crew dynamics) mixed with the occasional bit of welcome specificity about Maya’s lived experience. As her dad William (Zahn McClarnon) puts it, Maya must constantly jump between two words. She’s a Choctaw woman operating in a criminal underground run by white men. A deaf person navigating a hearing world. And a small-town Oklahoman transplanted to the transactional world of New York City and back again. The more this episode leans into the details that make Maya unique, the more it finds its feet as a distinctive superhero entry. The more it tries to be a generically gritty Hawkeye spinoff, the more it stumbles.
We’ll have to see how the series eventually balances those two halves of its story across just four more episodes. More than anything, I’m intrigued by the Choctaw creation myth that kicks off this episode and spills over into Maya’s dreams. Is mythic leader Chafa just a thematic parallel for Maya’s attempt to become a criminal “queenpin” or could this street-level series become as mystical as Thor or Eternals? I genuinely have no idea. Thankfully, the show’s binge-release model means we won’t have to wait long to find out.
Stray observations
Welcome to coverage of Echo, which is paving new ground as the first Marvel Disney+ show to drop its entire season at once! In light of that release schedule, we’re going to be publishing our reviews daily here at Episodic Medium. And while I won’t include any future plot details in each recap, I’ll lightly bend that rule once here just to say that if you’re on the fence after this premiere, it’s worth at least checking out the show’s second episode—which I watched after I wrote this review and which is a much more effective “pilot” for what Echo wants to be beyond its MCU connections.
While I used to be a big fan of Marvel Netflix’s “one-take” fight sequences and how they utilized old-school filmmaking tricks to pull off the effect, the ones in the Disney+ era feel so digitally constructed that they’re not nearly as exciting to watch anymore.
This episode reuses a bunch of footage from Maya’s origin story in the opening of Hawkeye’s third episode, but with a lot of the quieter character moments stripped away, which is a shame.
Despite being a cornerstone of Maya’s Hawkeye arc, fellow criminal Kazi (Fra Fee) doesn’t make an appearance in her story here. Sadly, I guess that means I’ll never get clarity on whether he was supposed to be her lover or her pseudo brother.
It honestly tracks that Fisk would barely learn any sign language (even for his purported “family”) and then force his translator to stand in shadowy anonymity every time he talks to Maya. The man has a real flair for the dramatic.
On the other end of the spectrum: It’s deeply sweet that Biscuits keeps signing while telling his dog about Maya’s return. Now that’s how you make everyone feel welcome.
Spot-on, Caroline. I've only watched the first episode so far, but what a mess! I think ideally, this premiere should have been structured as either entirely Maya's pre-Hawkeye experiences or as just a quick Hawkeye recap followed by a fuller story of what she's been up to since then. Jerking us around the timeline, including scenes that are abridged from a previous show sitting alongside the new material without clear demarcations, did no favors for this (re)introduction to her story.
I think I'm most stuck on Clint's random appearance, especially if he's not going to be a major part of this show (as I assume Daredevil might be?). Even as someone who watched and enjoyed the Hawkeye miniseries, I felt like that scene's brief inclusion here as part of Maya's journey made it seem like a white man speaking some platitudes at her was all it took to get her to suddenly doubt and turn on Fisk. I can't imagine how it would play for any theoretical newcomer viewers without the Hawkeye context.
The signing (and to a lesser extent so far, Choctaw) is neat, though! I'm glad the series is including so many other characters who can sign with Maya, rather than it just being something for her alone. That more than anything else is driving home for me the sense that she's a part of a wider community she might now be endangering.
I'm looking forward to Devery Jacob's and everything to do with that side of her family, but yes, the 1st episode made me realize just how easily I forget shows like Hawkeye (even though I enjoyed it).