Echo

Uninteresting. Unexciting. Unneeded.

I've long backed Marvel in most of its decisions, but this one really confuses me. After Hawkeye, I gave the character no thought what so ever. She was merely a just there to advance the Kate Bishop story. Just not sure there was a real audience for this one.

My wife and i almost quit watching after episode one. We made it through episode 2. Not sure we will make it through the final three.

I have to say, it's very disappointing. I thought Disney had started to turn things around a bit with Loki season 2 and Percy Jackson. The story telling seemed to be taking an upturn. But then this ... My faith is waning.

So apparently they shot 8 episodes but then it wasn't good enough and it got rewritten/reshot/redited down to just 5. Maybe that's why none of it makes much sense. The family connections don't make sense. The lack of communication with her cousin, uncle etc don't make much sense. How her mother's death was her father's fault wasn't made clear. The relationships in the community make no sense. The end showdown is totally incomprehensible. The only things that almost work are the scenes in the roller rink. Really disappointing when I was so hoping for great things based on how Echo was introduced and how well I thought HawkEye worked as a series with multiple interactions between characters from different parts of the MCU. Heartbreaking, to be honest. It promised to be a great showcase for indigenous culture too, but I learnt nothing. There was so much that needed to be said and done for it to really work. Either that or they could've had more action, at least? It just wasn't gripping dramatically or emotionally engaging enough, and it just felt like it had a plan that somehow went vastly wrong and they gave up and threw it out at us poorly poorly finished. Such a shame as some of the actors really deserved to be better respected for their talent.

I'm sorry to say this show was, as other reviewers comment, really boring and badly written. (Or maybe it was the editing). There were some good scenes but not many. The story was alleged over the place. The actors had really rubbish dialogue. But, for me it was the missed opportunities.

The audience could have been given more immersion in how the world seems to this deaf hero. She cannot hear assailants so how does she cope with the traditional kung-fu multi attacker fight. We only have got a couple of "quiet " scenes demonstrating her deafness.

Maya is deaf and relies on sign language. Sign language users have tons of shortcuts and body mimes when communicating. It is not like subtitles with hand movements. More like moving emojis.

As regards her crime fighting artificial leg. More could be made of this. Para athletes will tell about the difficulty of fitting and wearing specialist limbs. We have a hero who wears one. Yet we never see the limb care and difficulty riding a motorcycle which has foot controls.

These were wasted opportunities to get show triumph against outnumbering foes.

As for the terrible script. Don't get me started.

The trailers made this seem like the first step into more gritty, adult content ala Netflix's Daredevil and Punisher series, but apart from 1 or 2 overally choreographed scenes it felt more like the worst episode of Iron Fist stretched into 5 episodes.

The concept itself isn't bad, but the writing was atrocious, with no real sense of character development or depth whatsoever. The only real standout being Vincent D'Onofrio's excellent portrayal of Kingpin, but even that is tarnished by the writing and a limp wiltering flower of an ending.

Echo also suffered from bad editing with the pacing and storyline feeling like they were all over the place.

The show had so much promise and I did appreciate the efforts made to honour the native American and deaf communities, but it didn't have to be at the expense of a coherent and gripping story.

I now fear what they're going to do with Daredevil, but hopefully with Dario Scardapane in the driver's seat there may be at least a small glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe...

What we have here is Secret Invasion 2.0 as many feared but the end product is less incompetent. Echo herself continues to be rather bland, her shamanic (?) powers feel shoehorned in so that marketing can pretend that they care about Native American culture and all other characters can barely be called as such. Material was cut but not enough if you ask me. The cringy cousin, the bad CGI train, etc. The show´s editing sucks in general.

Iron Fist S1 is better than this 3-hour "film", Arrow has better fight scenes and more on top of that. Daredevil´s one scene is a random half-fight in a flashback that just stops. A delete bit from Hawkeye or a studio mandate to create a trailer shot, unlike his fun use in She-Hulk. The TV-Ma is lastly an unearned marketing gimmick. Watch Reservation Dogs or rewatch Daredevil and Arrow S2. This ain´t it and will be the last time I finish an MCU show for the sake of it. No matter how short! Marvel Spotlight (what does this even mean?) is thus a bust.

PS: The post-Netflix Kingpin continues to suck but D'Onofrio tries his best and has more good scenes here than in Hawkeye. A deleted scene was sadly the only good one there. Why am I praising She-Hulk and Hawkey...?