Echo Season 1 Review – A poorly written, badly choreographed mess

Season 1

 

 

Episode Guide

Episode 1 – | Review Score – 2/5
Episode 2 – | Review Score – 2/5
Episode 3 – | Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 4 – | Review Score – 2.5/5
Episode 5 – | Review Score – 1.5/5

 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on a steep downward trajectory ever since Endgame. With each project setting a new low-bar, Disney Marvel topped off 2023 with the disastrous effort of The Marvels, making a loss of just over $500 million at the global box office. Projects have been delayed, backstage issues have caused the entirety of Daredevil: Born Again to be rewritten from the ground up, and spin-off shows have either been quietly shelves or pushed back to 2025 and beyond. That, however, is not the case with Echo.

Dropped in one hit on Disney+, Echo is a spin-off to Hawkeye; an awkward patchwork of big action sequences, familial drama and tributes to Native American ancestry, rolled up into a package with a main character that struggles to inject any sort of charisma into her role.

That’s right, Alaqua Cox is back playing Echo and if she struggled in her supporting role in Hawkeye, she buckles under the weight of expectation in her own feature series. Cox struggles to emote most of the way through the show, with an angry scowl plastered to her face for most of the run-time. The trouble is, there’s just not much to this character. Sure, she’s after revenge but beyond that, she’s a blank slate. And changing her origins from the comic books – where she can mimic others -to vague Native American unspecific magic feels clumsy and poorly fleshed out.

So what of the story itself? Well, Echo doesn’t really have one. At least not in the present day anyway. The five episodes instead stitch together a whole bunch of flashbacks, some more interesting than others. Episode 4 is arguably the best episode of the bunch, fleshing out the history of her and Wilson Fisk (Kingpin) in a way that does feel quite organic and natural. But then, this isn’t the same Kingpin we’ve come to fear in Daredevil. This is a watered down, neutered version. A kingpin who carries a picnic basket to eat dinner and struggles to control his emotions and an empire that seems to function absolutely fine without him.

But for Echo, the story basically revolves around her returning to her hometown and starting a fight with Fisk from there, desperate to get her revenge on Kingpin until she bites off more than she can chew. The real meat of the show though comes from her family and Maya Lopez’s ties with them. There’s a tease of an encounter between her and her sister Bonnie, but it never arrives. Likewise, we get one conversation with her grandmother Chula (which is actually pretty good) but then none of these people are fleshed out in a way to make you really care about them and understand what their drive and motivations are in life – and for Maya.

A lot has been said about the fight sequences in Echo, with the words “badass”, “gritty” and “grounded” thrown around a lot. Sure, there are a couple of one-shot choreographed fights and a few nice moves that give the illusion of being well-written, but every fight is awkwardly composed, feeling more like interpretative dance than a genuine fight.

If you compare what’s here to something like the gym fight in Punisher or the hallway scene in Daredevil, it’s chalk and cheese. The fight in episode 1 between Echo and Daredevil, for example, is one of the worst choreographed fights in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by a long shot. Moves don’t connect, there are awkward pauses between hits, and the whole thing is just really poorly composed.

Beyond the nod to Native American roots and a couple of stand-out segments, Echo is an epitome of where we are with the Marvel Universe right now. Many are likely to applaud this for being gritty and grounded, when in reality that low bar, which is through the floor right now, has been raised a notch with a few scenes that are likely to wow fans absolutely desperate for anything better than what we’ve had before. And the irony is – Echo is still boring!

For long stretches of the show, Echo’s pacing is atrocious. Even with 30 minute chapters, the show really struggles to fill its run-time up with anything other than bland filler. And unfortunately, that’s all Echo is. This will undoubtedly impress those after anything better than Secret Invasion, but structurally, Echo is a complete mess. The story is bad, the choreography is poor, the characters are one-note and there’s barely any noteworthy themes beyond a tribute to Native American tribes. Echo is easily one of the worst shows of the year and it sets a low bar that few are likely to hit any time soon.


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  • Verdict - 2.5/10
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2.5/10

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