SPOILERS for all five episodes of Echo follow.
Nearly nine years ago, Marvel Television‘s first TV-MA series, Daredevil, dropped its entire first season on Netflix. This week, Marvel Studios revisited that tradition with its first TV-MA show, Echo, which also dropped all of its episodes on a single day. Beyond a Daredevil cameo in Echo‘s first episode, the two shows are linked by Vincent D’Onofrio’s ongoing presence as the Kingpin, Wilson Fisk. But the focus is on Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez, who made her first appearance in Hawkeye where she left Fisk for dead after discovering that he arranged the death of her father.
Echo reveals more of the shared history between Maya and Fisk, before catching up to her five months after Hawkeye as she begins her own story. We watched all five episodes on Disney+, and now we’ve got eight unanswered questions after the Echo finale.
With Echo‘s debut, all of the Marvel shows first produced for Netflix by the defunct Marvel Television division were moved to the MCU Timeline Order section of Disney+, which should finally settle the much-debated question of whether they were considered canon alongside all the Marvel Studios-produced films and series. They’re official!
But getting into specifics, Charlie Cox had a brief appearance as Matt Murdock/Daredevil in the first episode of Echo, which raised some fresh questions about its exact placement in the MCU’s timeline. When Matt confronts Maya, he’s wearing a version of the red costume that he primarily used after he put Wilson Fisk away in the first season finale of Daredevil. Matt used this costume — or a slight update to it — throughout the second season and in The Defenders, but he was back in a variation of his earlier black costume for Daredevil Season 3 while Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) was smearing his name by murdering people in the red costume.
If we were to take the Echo scene by itself, it wouldn’t fit with the events as depicted in Daredevil. Maya would have been too young during the time period of Daredevil’s second and third seasons. Additionally, one of Maya’s “Sunday dinners” with Fisk was dated in 2021, which places it during the five-year gap in Avengers: Endgame after Thanos “snapped” half of the universe’s population into oblivion. This suggests that the fight scene between Maya and Daredevil probably also took place during that time period, and that Matt must have gone back to his red costume for at least some period of time after Daredevil Season 3, before needing the new replacement golden suit he received in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. The presumption of when Daredevil fought Echo would also confirm for us that Matt Murdock, like Maya and Kingpin, survived Thanos’ snap,
Even before Maya channeled powers into her cousin, Bonnie (Devery Jacobs), and their grandmother, Chula (Tantoo Cardinal), in the finale, Chula clearly experienced visions of her own even when separated from Maya. Additionally, Maya’s mother, Taloa (Katarina Ziervogel), definitely had healing powers that neither her grandmother nor her daughter had. But did Chula have her own specific abilities beyond those visions? Speaking of which…
It’s possible that the women in Maya’s family are mystically empowered but we can never fully discount the mutant gene in the Marvel Universe. Taloa’s healing touch was a true super power, and even Maya’s nascent abilities don’t seem to quite be able to match the strength of her mother’s. Whether Taloa was a mutant is a question that may never be answered. But if Charles Xavier and the X-Men ever show up to recruit Maya, then that would be fairly definitive.
The show doesn’t dwell on the identity of the person who cut the breaks on the Lopez family car, which in turn led to the death of Maya’s mother. Maya’s father, William Lopez (Zahn McClarnon), simply implies that he killed them in retribution. But we don’t know who was responsible. And why did they strike at William through his family instead of going after him directly?
In the final episode, Maya was fully empowered by the echo of her ancestors, and she even shared her powers with Chula and Bonnie. Suddenly, both women were able to take on fighting abilities and strength that they simply didn’t have before. Prior to that, there were other hints of Maya’s powers, including her glowing hands in episode two, and the vision she had of her mother in the finale.
At first glance, Maya’s powers appear to exceed the reach of her mother’s abilities. And Maya may even possess some of her mom’s healing talents. For now, the full extent of Maya’s powers is unclear.
As a demonstration of her newfound abilities, Maya attempted to heal her estranged adoptive uncle, Wilson Fisk, of the rage and torment that fueled him. During that moment, Fisk experienced a vivid flashback to his childhood, with Maya alongside him, as she encouraged him to let go of his pain and move beyond his past. It’s also possible that Fisk didn’t fully understand what Maya was offering him and only could focus on the terror of re-experiencing his childhood abuse, since she spoke in ASL and his understanding of that language was limited without his tech.
In the end, Fisk appeared to reject the idea that he could be the man that Maya wanted him to be. But whether she was able to heal at least some of his internal pain and perhaps, even slightly, change him for the better in the long run remains to be seen. Maya clearly did not heal the physical scars on Fisk’s face, but when he screamed out “What did you do?,” it implied that he was still affected by what she’d caused in some lasting way.
The closing moments of the finale are a bit ambiguous about Maya’s plans for the future. She reunited and reconciled with her family, and she has powers now. Simply staying in her hometown may not be enough for Maya, especially if she has a role to play in the MCU going forward. But if Maya has unfinished business with her uncle, then perhaps a return to New York City is in the cards.
The mid-credits scene catches up with a still shaken Fisk as he flies home to regroup. But while watching television on his plane, Fisk is clearly inspired to run for mayor of New York City after hearing the TV anchors claim that the race is wide open, and that the people of the city are looking for a fighter.
In Marvel’s comic book universe, Fisk did in fact become the mayor and he used that position to hound Daredevil, Spider-Man, and nearly every Marvel hero who calls NYC home. Getting Fisk in the mayor’s office would position him as an elevated threat in the future, even beyond his confirmed return in Daredevil: Born Again, which will presumably premiere next year.
Related New
