After the previous episode of Echo weirdly felt like an entry from an entirely different series completely, it seemed like the show was going to end up being yet another MCU entry that struggled to maintain the quality of the Infinity Saga. However, before we write off the exploits of Maya Lopez, there’s one more card for the show to play and by god it’s a good ‘un.
To describe Wilson Fisk’s Kingpin as Echo’s living, breathing Uno Reverse card may sound a little disrespectful to a villain who has been giving street level superheroes a hard time since 1967, but the return of Vincent D’Onofrio’s hulking big bad proves to almost single handedly yank the show out of the nosedive episode 3 set it in as we get yet more insight into a man who frequently veers from being curiously sensitive to decapitating a man with a car door in a fit of rage. Welcome back Fisk – we’ve missed you almost as much as Maya’s bullet missed your brain.
It seems that the jig is finally up. After her controled bursts of defiance against the Kingpin’s criminal empire, the man himself finally shows up in Oklahoma to take matters into his own, brutal hands. However, while Maya is understandably stunned to see that the bullet she fired directly into his face didn’t take, she’s even more thrown to find out why Fisk has shown up in person.
Sporting a techno eye patch and bestowing Lopez with the gift of a contact lens that allows her to see Fisk’s speech translated into sigh language via computer generated arms, it seems that Wilson forgives his protege for both her murder attempt and her subsequent attempts to gather power for herself in order to bring her back into the fold. In fact, he still thinks himself as Maya’s “Uncle” while Maya herself probably would look at it as bring groomed into being a killer and as Fisk proposes that they work together once more, Lopez doesn’t seem entirely against it.
However, a face to face with Fisk isn’t the only revelatory meeting she has on her books as, after Maya has yet another vision of her ancestors, a worried Henry takes her to her grandmother for a very belated sit down. While this chat doesn’t crackle with nearly as much subdued menace, it does prove to be equally emotional as Chula finally helps her estranged granddaughter understand her freaky super abilities. But just because Maya discovers just how close and important her lineage truly is, that doesn’t mean it’s magically going to erase years of pent up resentment for the banishment of her and her father in the wake of her mother’s death.
In the aftermath of her two, heart wrenching, discussions, Maya has to work out what she actually wants as she feels both the pull between owning her own criminal empire and the responsibility of generations of women in her bloodline.
Taloa is precisely what this Echo needs after a mid-point episode that featured all the tonal inbalance of an plea for charitable aid made by Ren & Stimpy. Foregoing the jarring, jokey action sequences that saw our normally serious anti-hero cracking the chords of arcade controllers like whips like a half time show at a rodeo, this installment dives right back into the meat of the show and easily delivers its finest and most accomplished episode yet. The chief reason for this is the return of two factors that were noticably absent from the last installment and one of those is director Sydney Freeland who had been steadily building up the world that orbits round our lead before Catriona McKenzie’s third episode felt like another show entirely. With Freeland’s return, the tone gets back to its normal, gritty feel with the only real humour stemming mainly from world weary side-comments about the brutal situations the characters often find themselves in (you know, like the Netflix Marvel stuff) and as a result, the appropriate gravitas is restored.
It’s a good thing too, because the episode also is the first real return of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin, a man who’s mere presence radiates more gravity than a collapsing star. However, the kicker here isn’t that Wilson Fisk hasn’t tracked down Maya in order to get revenge for her attempt on his life at the end of Hawkeye, or is hoping to stop her assault against his crime operations but instead makes an impassioned plea to try and lure her back into his clutches.
It’s a move by the script that’s very in keeping with Fisk’s behavior back in the Netflix area as his desperate attempts to fashion a family recall his heartfelt courting of Vanessa all those years ago. In his own twisted way, Kingpin truly loves Maya like she’s his own child and we see that the two are disturbingly similar during an absolutely cracking 2008 flashback that sees Wilson beat an ice cream vendor into senselessness when he treats a young Maya with disrespect. Elsewhere, the episode has Fusk flit between benevolent and monstrous at regular the way that only the mountainous crime boss can.
One minute we see him bestow the gift of her translation contact lens (arguably the most overtly MCU thing in the entire show), but that doesn’t stop him from doing it in a way that strongly implies she could have easily been executed, the next we get another flashback that’s sees him have his sign language translator shot while a oblivious Maya sat unhearing mere feet away. However, while it’s great to once again have D’Onofrio strut his stuff as a character who truly could be a street level Thanos – and it’s even greater to see lore from the Netflix show finally seep into the MCU (all together now… “When I was a boy…”) – the real draw here is to watch Alaqua Cox hold her own with D’Onofrio while not having the luxury of verbal speech to do so. It’s gripping stuff as she counteracts Fisk’s attempts at nostalgic kindness with hard truths (Fisk tellingly never learned how to sign) and it juxtaposes wonderfully with the scenes where she has a similarly emotionally trying meeting with a her grandmother who is just as full of regret as she is information. While both Fisk and Chula act like both angels and devils having a tug of war for Maya’s soul, Maya goes and does the most Maya thing possible and seemingly chooses…. neither of them and simply leaves town rather than leave herself at the mercy of having to only two options to pick from.
Whether this proves to be a mature example of thinking outside the box or a childish example of someone fleeing her problems will no doubt be revealed in the final episode, but as it stands, Echo’s impressive 180° turnaround is something to be lauded.
Let’s just hope it can stay the course for just one more installment.
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