Marvel's Echo: Review

The five part miniseries of Echo is a step forward in terms of representation on TV, but feels like yet another middling misfire from Marvel given how muted the story feels over the first three episodes given to press for review.

Maya Lopez returns after her appearance in Hawkeye as Echo, the former leader of a gang for Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk. Injured by bounty hunters after shooting Fisk in the face, Echo is forced back to her hometown in hiding to recover.

Determined to bring Fisk’s operations down around her, Echo finds herself conflicted when her Choctaw past surfaces.

It’s not that Echo is a bad series in many ways.

Lopez kills it as Echo, adding a level of sullen introversion to her character as she struggles to do right by her past mistakes and also tries to deal with family issues on the fringes. There’s a grittiness to her performance that gives the Marvel Spotlight series an edge that it needs – and certainly the action sequences are well-executed and violent when needed.

But while the action is well done, there’s an annoying creative decision to show many noisy sequences and fights from Echo’s point of view meaning it’s quiet as the character is deaf. It’s an odd choice, one that renders the representation really as something that feels like it is a point that has to be continually made when it doesn’t need to be.

The first time it’s done, it works well; after several other sequences, it feels a little on the tone deaf side of execution rather than probably what was intended from the creative team.

The show is to be commended for its seamless integration of ASL throughout – a necessity for Echo, but much like the Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales game did with one of its characters, it simply exists rather than feels shoehorned in – something which makes the above creative decision stand out.

Also there’s an odd pacing about Echo. In parts, it’s a crime drama; in others, it’s a story about embracing roots, and at times, it’s also an odd couple comedy as Echo corrals her family member Biscuits into helping out.

Tonally, there feels like a mish-mash of styles that doesn’t quite work in the way it should – and while the final two episodes could hold promise, the inevitability of the plot makes that promise feel less than certain.

Marvel’s Echo feels like a step in the right sort of direction ultimately, even if the series isn’t quite sure what it wants to be doing. It seems like a wise move to drop all five episodes at once, and while there will be some who feel it harkens back to Netflix’s Daredevil and similar Marvel adaptations, Echo deserves to stand on its own two feet.

All five episodes of Marvel's Echo premiere on Disney+ on Wednesday January 10.