Let’s try something new.
I have reviewed and talked about many, many books before, but I’ve never talked about any other kind of media or art. So, today I’d like to talk about a TV show I just watched, the Marvel Spotlight show: Echo.

A little background: I am an MCU fan. I really do like almost everything they put out. I’m the kind of gal who would rather watch an action flick than a rom-com. I kind of grew up watching the films, and the characters, and have watched the studio evolve over time.

I watch Marvel the same way I read a book, with a discerning eye. I’m naturally a dissector. I want to know the how and why behind everything, including movies and TV shows. I am not swayed by funny dialogue, awesome effects, or captivating performances, though I will applaud all of those things since they are part of an artist at work (but that’s for another blog post).

With that said, how was Echo?

Echo is about Maya Lopez, who what introduced in the MCU show Hawkeye. This series delves into Maya and the people she calls family, specifically her grandmother, mother, cousins Bonnie and Biscuits, Uncle Henry, and her “uncle” Kingpin.

Spoilers Ahead!!!

Maya has been raised to fight, but she has also been raised to care, to love. Her mother and father wanted what was best for her. Her mother taught her to be selfless and give out of yourself to lift up others. However, her mother died when she was still a young girl. Her mother’s death was a direct result of her father’s choices to get involved with Kingpin’s gang. This splits the family, and Maya and her father move to New York.

Her father continues to teach her what her mother did about selflessness and love, but his own experiences put his own spin on it, and being a single father is hard. Her father emphasizes strength and power, desiring for his daughter to be able to protect herself and others. However, being in New York puts her in direct contact with Kingpin, who has compassion on the young girl, and begins treating her like family.

Eventually, Kingpin’s affection becomes a deep love for Maya as a daughter, and Maya has also come to truly love her “Uncle”, as she calls him, especially after the death of her father. (Dun, dun, dun). During the events of Hawkeye, Maya discovers that Kingpin ordered her father to be killed. Her father’s death makes Maya more isolated, and draws her closer to Kingpin, relying on him entirely as the only family that either of them have.

However, this really isn’t true. The truth is, Maya has always had family. She has always had people who love her and care about her, but the rift that occurred between her father and grandmother have made her believe that she is alone, and Kingpin exploited it. The events of Echo bring Maya’s two worlds together, with an added MCU twist (which I won’t spoil, because that scene in the finally was amazing!), and force Maya to see the truth, that she was never alone, that she doesn’t have to be alone, that her family loves her, and that she is stronger, not when she is a lone queen with all the power, but when she is dependent, in community, and sharing the power she has with others, especially those she loves.

Wow that’s a lot!

So what’s the point? Let’s pick up a two key themes I saw in this show.

1. People are complicated
Often in movies, especially super hero movies, we just don’t have the time to see people for all they are. In shows, we are able to slow down and dig deeper into characters and ask why and how. This show does that. Why is Maya so angry? What makes her so good a beating up people? What’s her life like as a deaf, amputee, Native American? Who is her family and why haven’t they being in contact in 20 years?!
It also does this with our villain: Kingpin. He’s a delightfully, and terrifyingly complicated bad guy in the comics and also on screen. Honestly, I originally wanted to watch this show just to see him again.

2. Love is hard
Anyone who has ever loved anyone knows this. This show also hits a note from another MCU show that I loved, Loki in which Loki says: “It’s harder to stay”. Amen. It’s “easier” to run, to hit back, to get angry, it’s harder to stay, to keep talking, to heal. Maya is a complicated character who has done both. She has runaway, she usually hits back. But she has also stopped, stayed, and healed, and by the end of the show, she does both, which is the most superhero thing to do.

Conclusion

I really liked this show. WARNING: it is rated TV-MA, and if you are not ok with violence, this is probably not the show for you (I definitely had to hide my eyes at some parts). If you are able to deal with the rough stuff – the mature content of the TV-MA rating – then there are some real gems you can walk away from in this show.

For me, I walked away from this show asking myself, how am I doing? Am I running from hard people? Am I fighting back when I should be listening? Am I selflessly loving others? It’s one thing for a fictional superhero, it’s another for a Christian, who is supernaturally called by the Creator of universe to “love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

Soli Deo Gloria