Echo

Hero or anti-hero? Fisk's enemy or the new "Queenpin?" Just five episodes and you'll find out.

I don't know why it was poorly received by some, but I thought the Echo series was pretty good. It tried new things, most of which I thought were successful, and it threaded the needle between the spirit world and a more grounded reality.

Alaqua Cox reprised her role as Maya Lopez, a character introduced in the Hawkeye series a while back (in one of the best intro scenes ever… thank you, Depeche Mode!) and does an outstanding job carrying the show. Not too many deaf leads in showbusiness, let alone with a leg missing, but Cox and Lopez seem inseparable as they journey together to become the title character.

The Choctaw mythology was fundamental to the story, and the Echo character, but Marvel did a good job of not making it too sappy or ceremonial. There were specific applications of powers that made sense and become more relevant later, so that additional layer of Native American culture didn't feel “woke” to me at all, which is a nice change of pace regarding Disney's recent output. Nothing felt token, and instead it was more introductory, like being welcomed into someone's home with food, drink, and conversation.

The highlight was, and probably always will be, Vincent D'Onofrio's portrayal of Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin. One of Marvel's most famous villains continues to be perfectly played by one of humanity's greatest actors (that's right, I said it). Every second he's on screen is worth the price of admission (or whichever streaming service you're paying for). I know he's appeared in prior Marvel shows, and is set once again to appear in the next Daredevil series, and that's all well and good, but this man needs to be on the big screen. Get D’Onofrio’s Kingpin in a Marvel movie, stat!

Yes, the show is a little slow at times, and in a couple of instances I thought it was was a tad goofy… like maybe they thought things were getting too dark so they threw in some gags to lighten it up a bit, but they felt out of place. At least the new Spotlight division of Marvel allows for all kinds of violence and language, so there's more creative freedom. I believe Echo is the first series created in this way, and there will be many more to come for them to figure out how to integrate humor into violent affairs… or even if they need to do so at all.

But despite those flaws, I didn't feel shaken out of the world they created for me as the viewer. A common criticism is that Marvel has the bad habit of not producing TV shows as TV shows and instead they take a movie production and just chop it up into episodes… and I largely agree with that critique. I think it wasn't as bad this time, but it does feel like they're working on improving the writing for the genre. I also heard that they completely revamped how they are producing this sort of streaming content in the future with that criticism in mind; it’s why Kevin Feige shut down and restarted the Daredevil series. If that's the case, then Echo is the last of its kind, so to speak, bit I feel one of the better examples.