Marvel’s new limited series, “Echo,” is deeply frustrating, a show with good intentions and poor aim. Ostensibly full of depth but never hitting the bullseye— seemingly about the complicated emotional agonies of families, adopted, found, and betrayed and the burdens of trauma—most of it is told without meaningful resonance. Placing its highest premium on violence and longwinded action—showy sequences that go on for six minutes, but so what?— while it considers much, “Echo” and actually has very little to say about any of it.   
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Featuring strong Indigenous representation, and lots of care has gone into that, “Echo” is well-meaning about telling redemption stories and damaged people who have lost their way and need to return to the light. The series also attempts to consider the comforting power of community and unhealed emotional wounds too. Unfortunately, “Echo” is mostly surface in what could be rich emotional texture, rarely knowing how to tell its stories uniquely or well, and ironically, feels more at home when it solves its problems with punches.
Doubly frustrating, “Echo” proudly purports to be something it’s not, so off the mark in this regard, its assertion feels disingenuous and made in bad faith. Cognizant that the complications of interconnectedness may be working against them, Marvel Studios created the new Marvel Spotlights banner for the show, terminology denoting a “stand-alone story,” not all that connected to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. And yet, episode one is basically an MCU recap clip show; you can’t really understand or fully appreciate “Echo” (emotionally especially) if you haven’t seen or experienced the events of “Hawkeye” with Jeremy Renner, which first introduced the title character as a killing-machine villain (and, to a lesser extent, Netflix’s “Daredevil”). Like it or not, the show presumptuously asserts you understand these worlds, a claim made in stark contradiction to the new banner.
Resentment is key, too; the series tries to meditate on the legacy of the past and violence, but it all too often manifests in the familiar trope of brooding anti-heroes angry at the grey and grim worlds they inhabit. Featuring a dark and gritty moodiness, its TV-MA tone might feel fresh to the MCU if it weren’t just essentially just a regurgitation of Marvel’s similar graphic tenor on Netflix—something “Echo” obviously takes its cues from, even borrowing several key cast members from the aforementioned “Daredevil” series (who were also in “Hawkeye,” got that?). The same issues that plagued the Netflix series hurt “Echo” too: just because a show is supposedly mature and violent doesn’t mean it’s actually compelling. You can nail every cool hallway fight in the world, but it doesn’t matter much if the characters lack dimension.
The first “Echo” episode acts as a chronological prequel to “Hawkeye” and fast forwards through (and condenses) the events of that series (yes, Renner appears), re-introducing the main villain, Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), and how he’s connected to Maya Lopez, aka Echo (Alaqua Cox). This summary may not be as awkward as it could be, but the irony of the Spotlight banner title is lost on any conversant viewer (and that’s nothing to say about the MCU hero cameo in episode one that we won’t spoil here).
Once backstory is out of the way—including a fantastical Native ancestral plane-esque intro world that thematically recurs throughout—“Echo” finally gets down to business. And it’s more a crime series than a superhero show, but that doesn’t merit a badge of honor when it can’t manage to do anything distinct with it.
Beginning in the “Hawkeye” aftermath, you’ll recall in those events, she shoots the Kingpin at the finale, having learned he was truly responsible for the death of her beloved father (Zahn McClarnon, seen in flashbacks throughout episode one). On the run from the Fisk organization with a price on her head, she returns to her hometown of Oklahoma to lay low, attempting to avoid friends and family in the process. Part of dodging her community is to keep them safe from the retribution tailing her, but soon, we also realize it’s because most of these familial relationships are strained or broken (cue the perfect moment to delve into character consistency that’s derailed by soap opera-ish writing, and sometimes unpersuasive acting too)
“Echo” spells out the past in flashback exposition: Maya, as a young girl, we witness the various tragedies that left her an amputee and without a mother (the character is born deaf, too; sign language is a big part of the show). With nowhere else left to turn, her despondent father turned to crime in New York, eventually becoming a commander of Fisk’s Tracksuit Mafia outfit (thugs also first introduced in “Hawkeye”). Ep 1 further explains how Fisk exploited her raw, vulnerable state and weaponized it to create an angry pawn of vengeance (he even sends her on a test run mission, knowing fully well she will encounter a Marvel street-level hero in the process, which ends up being her entry audition, but it mostly feels like an excuse to shoehorn in you know who).
“Echo” doesn’t begin in earnest until episode two; Maya in Oklahoma trying to find low-key allies and not draw attention to being home. But word spreads fast, and the shadows of her criminal past catch up—people like “Uncle” Henry (Chaske Spencer) and her cousin Bonnie (Devery Jacobs) are soon drawn into the vicious drama. Like Netflix’s “Daredevil,” that third episode is violent, grim, and full of impressive fight choreography, but it’s desperately missing people or things to truly care about. Most supporting characters appear like one-dimensional caricatures of “strong-willed,” “still embittered,” or “deeply concerned,” but missing contours of life. Maya, too, is mostly just one note of anger, not having reconciled anything and resolving all issues with violence that are never as cathartic as they should be.
Regrettably, American Sign Language (ASL)—a significant component of the show and something you want to treat with deep respect—is actually a bit of a stumbling block for the cast. Echo isn’t dumb; she’s deaf. But you might not know it by how some of the cast communicates its dialogue in slow and stunted bursts as if they’re speaking to a child, giving many conversational scenes featuring ASL a leaden rhythm.
Echo’s powers throughout her MCU appearances have always been indistinct. “Echo” director and executive producer Sydney Freeland recently said her mimicry powers were “kind of lame” and teased true powers to come. Those powers, only briefly shown in the show (strength? Power hands?), are still vague, but they do seem to connect to the spirit realm of her Choctaw tribe origins.
However, even for a show that’s primarily real-world grounded without big superhero VFX, “Echo” lacks an adequate budget, too. The opening scenes of the Indigenous spiritual world recall the ancestral world of “Black Panther” but never look as remotely convincing (and as a thematic device used at the beginning of each episode, the way they differ in style and mode—one taking on the aesthetics of a black and white Western—are kind of head-scratching).
It’s arguably oranges and apples, but lamentably, “Echo” also comes off the heels of “What If…?” an animated series that just introduced the Indigenous super character Kahhori (also voiced by Devery Jacobs), an outstanding episode infinitely more dynamic, interesting, rich, and thematically charged with its engaging ideas of colonizers, conquistadors and fighting for what’s just. And “Echo” deserves something equally absorbing, frankly.
Well-intentioned about the people, communities, and narratives it’s telling, and a tip of the cap can be given to the diverse lead and characters who drive the show. But honestly, these characters are mostly let down by lackluster energy, flat pacing, and early draft writing that’s never particularly involving. Worse, “Echo” is ultimately a series about how the legacy of violence corrodes the soul, but it never knows how to heal or enrich it either, content to just land another bloody blow to the head instead. Action enthusiasts will surely delight in the bone-crunching brutality of some sequences, but busted lips constantly cut deeper when they’re rooted in something poignant, meaningful, and emotionally reverberating. [C-]
“Echo” premieres January 9 at 9:00pm ET on Hulu and Disney+.