Marvel’s Echo is here, with all five episodes now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. The latest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry is the first to receive a TV-MA rating and the first under Marvel’s Spotlight banner, implying that fans don’t necessarily need to be up to date on all the happenings of the MCU.
After meeting her in Marvel’s Hawkeye, we rejoin Maya Lopez to learn more about her past and see what her future holds after her falling out with the infamous Kingpin. In the fifth and final episode, Maya’s past finally catches up to her and she faces off with Wilson Fisk.
The finale episode starts off with a flashback of a young Maya shooting a bird, the same bird we’ve seen multiple times throughout the series, with a slingshot. Maya brings the bird to her mother and, after first lying, admits that she hurt it. Her mother explains to her that the Choctaw people don’t hurt any living thing and eventually she heals the bird with a glowing touch. It turns out, when Chula said Maya’s mother was a healer, she meant it literally.
After the title sequence, we see Chula stop by Skully’s, Maya’s grandfather, pawn shop. She asks about a sewing machine she brought in years ago and Skully brings it right out for her, say he never put it up for sale because he knew she’d be back for it. Chula then goes to work and drops a handful of letters. None other than Wilson Fisk arrives to help her pick them up and he asks her about her ASL necklace. Once she mentions her granddaughter Maya, Fisk knows he’s found the right person.
Maya arrives at a rest stop, seemingly having escaped her problems. At the Powwow, Biscuits tries to direct traffic but we see Zane arrive in an RV and blatantly ignore his directions as he wonders aloud where Chula is. Maya sits at a diner and ignores a text from Biscuits asking where she is. She then brushes off seeing that same bird from her childhood, until she receives another text saying no one has seen Bonnie or Chula and she knows something is wrong.
Maya rushes back to her house where she is surprised to find her mother waiting for her. She explains to Maya that she needs to let go of her pains and that all of the ancestors she’s been seeing are there with her and their strengths live in her. She even goes as far as to call her an echo of them. She shows her the Choctaw garment Chula had been working on and explains its significance in their ancestry and history. Suddenly, she is gone and Maya looks over the garment with tears in her eyes.
At the Powwow, Fisk’s men surround the event, keeping an eye out for Maya. As the event begins, we see Maya is wearing the garment Chula made and blending in with the festivities. She eventually spots the bird and breaks off from the crowd. Henry arrives and calls Biscuits to warn him, telling him to arm himself with a weapon, but Biscuits says he has something better.
Maya finds Fisk in a barn but he reveals that his men are holding Bonnie and Chula as prisoners. Maya finds herself surrounded by Fisks men as he uses Bonnie to translate a threat. Meanwhile, outside, Fisk’s men begin to launch an attack on the Powwow.
One of Fisk’s men punches Maya but as she rises from the ground she is surrounded by the ancestors we’ve met over the previous four episodes. Maya makes a pose and Bonnie and Chula suddenly have the strength to free themselves from Fisk’s men. Outside, Biscuits arrives in Chula’s newly modified truck, which is now a monster truck of sorts, that he uses to crush the vehicles of Fisk’s men. Zane prepares to fire an explosive into the Powwow but Henry shoots him first and the explosive goes harmlessly up into the sky.
Inside, Fisk finds himself alone against Maya and charges at her. She stops him instantly with the same healing touch we saw her mother use. She then uses her newfound abilities to put Fisk into a vision of his past, specifically the moment before he killed his father. Fisk grows enraged but Maya arrives to tell him to let go of the pain. Fisk refuses and he grabs the hammer, but Maya lets him out of the vision. Fisk screams at Maya asking what she did. A question to which we never really receive an answer. Fisk gets into a truck and they simply drive off before police arrive.
In a closing montage, we see clips of Maya’s past with her family as they assemble in the present day as well. It concludes with Maya joining them, telling us she is now home for good. But, while Maya seems to be removed from New York, the Kingpin is not. We get a post-credits scene that sees Fisk sitting on his jet watching the news. The reporters discuss the mayoral race in the city and how a new candidate who is a fighter is needed and would easily win. Fisk is clearly interested in this conversation as the episode comes to a close. In the comics, Fisk has been the mayor of New Yorks, which has caused some major problems for some our favorite heroes, especially Daredevil.
While it ends on the high note of that post-credits scene, this final showdown between Maya and Fisk was certainly disappointing. For a show that was almost completely grounded in reality up to this point, it really took a wild turn in the closing moments. We get no explanation as to what exactly Maya did to Fisk or why he was simply able to walk away with several of his men, with no consequence. It’s a shame because the series was great up to that point and the end result was satisfying, but it felt as though the final act to get to the conclusion was simply not there. Overall though, Echo was still a pretty strong series.
All five episodes of Marvel’s Echo are now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.