Wednesday, January 10, 2024

A Young Woman on a Quest for . . . ?

Disney released the new Marvel series, Echo, in its entirety last night. I don't binge, I just don't have the time, but I watched the first two episodes. It's not really a bad show. Alaqua Cox's performance is really good, nice and subtle. The fact that she's actually deaf lends a lot of authenticity to her performance.

The show was created by Marion Dayre, who won a Peabody Award for her work on Better Call Saul. Yet every episode of Echo has at least four credited writers, The last two episodes do not include Dayre among the writers. Sounds like Dayre wrote something Feige or Disney wasn't happy with and so they brought in a gang to tamper with it and Dayre left unhappy and signed a non-disparagement agreement. That would be my guess.

The action scenes are pretty good, especially the big fight with Daredevil (Charlie Cox). More than his appearance on She-Hulk, it really felt like we were back in the old Marvel Netflix world. And, of course, Vincent D'Onofrio is great as Wilson Fisk.

Maya's motives still seem a little hazy. There are a lot of little moments where I wonder, "Why did she do that?" like when she tore her pant leg during the train sequence. I'm also not clear on why she had to come to her hometown in order to wage war on Fisk's organisation.

I'm also not clear on the exact nature of the superpower she seems to have inherited. I kind of liked the sequence set in 1200 Alabama, though very little is known about the Native American civilisation at that time so we're seeing a lot of inferences when it comes to costumes and customs. I liked the big burly bad guy, he seemed like he could really tear things up, but altogether I wish the sequence had been weirder.

Echo is available on Disney+.

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