With Echo, Disney made the unusual move of releasing all five episodes at once. This, and the very late review embargo, suggests the House of Mouse doesn’t have as much faith in the once-great Marvel stable as it once did. If you’re skipping this — Marvel’s first “Spotlight” production — but want to do your homework on how much of it will matter to the next project, our recap of Season 1 in its entirety should help.
Echo Season 1 Recap
Episode 1, “Chafa”
“Chafa” is in no hurry to get anywhere. The first part of the episode is largely reiterative, showing us how Maya came to New York as a child following the car crash that killed her mother. It shows how she and William were banished to New York, how William was killed by Ronin, and how Maya, older and angry, was taken in by Wilson Fisk.
With Maya in Fisk’s employ as an enforcer, we get our first cool action sequence and only Daredevil appearance. She’s also promoted further up the organization and grows closer to her “uncle”. We see Ronin telling her that it was Fisk who ordered William’s death and Fisk’s apparent demise at Maya’s hands in the Hawkeye finale.
Five months later, Maya returns to Oklahoma and starts seeing visions of her ancestors. In the flesh, she runs into her cousin Biscuits and his dog, Billy Jack, but asks him to keep her presence quiet. She goes to see Henry to get patched up, but his employee, Vickie, recognizes Maya as the “King Killer” and tries to cash in on the bounty. Maya wants Henry’s help to take over Fisk’s operations but he’s reluctant.
The episode ends with Fisk being revealed as alive, albeit with a wounded eye.
Episode 2, “Lowak”
In 1200 AD, Alabama, Lowak channels the power of the first Choctaw people to win a fun-looking but high-stakes game that determines whether her people will be banished from the lands.
News of Maya being in town begins to spread while she hitches a ride on a train car to plant a bomb on the munitions shipment heading to Fisk’s local facility. Biscuits, following along off-road in his grandma’s truck, is the getaway driver. During her escape, Maya gets her prosthetic leg caught in a coupling and channels the power of the Choctaw like Lowak did in the cold open to get free. Maya gets away and the facility is blown to smithereens.
Skully gives Maya a temporary prosthesis while he builds her a new one, Biscuits accidentally lets slip to Bonnie that Maya is in town, and Henry is furious about Maya bringing New York problems to Oklahoma with her attack on Fisk.
Episode 3, “Tuklo”
The cold open of “Tuklo” introduces the titular character in the style of a monochrome silent film. Tuklo is the daughter of a Lighthorseman, the Tribal Police. After being told women are life-givers and men are life-takers, Tuklo channels Chafa and Lowak and saves her father from an ambush.
Vickie, Grace, and Brigitte from the skating rink take Henry and Maya hostage there while waiting for the arrival of someone. Bonnie also arrives, looking for Maya, so she’s taken captive too and thrown in the storeroom with Maya. They get a brief reunion, and Maya is able to free them both, but Fisk’s man Zane arrives before they can escape. Maya fashions an automatic weapon out of odds and ends from the storeroom and uses it and various arcade cabinets to take out Zane’s goons to the tune of Rob Zombie’s “Dragula”, but she’s forced to surrender when Zane holds Bonnie at gunpoint. Zane receives a sudden call and leaves, leaving his hostages behind.
Skully delivers Maya’s new leg and nudges her to reconnect with her family a little more, including her grandmother. When she gets home, Fisk is waiting for her.
Episode 4, “Taloa”
“Taloa” starts in a way that previous episodes haven’t – with flashbacks not to Maya’s ancestry, but her relationship with Wilson Fisk. In 2008, he beat up an ice cream seller who was rude to her, and she gave the guy a couple of kicks. In 2021, he told her that her training was complete and that the two of them could only trust each other.
In the present day, Fisk fits Maya with a contact lens that automatically translates his words into sign language, and her signing into words in his ear, so they can communicate directly. He wants to have a Sunday family dinner like they used to, despite it being Thursday.
Fisk tells Maya she can have the empire she wants, but only if she comes home with him. He’ll be waiting for her at the Choctaw Casino before leaving for New York.
Maya continues to have ancestral visions so Henry takes her to see Chula. Chula had the same visions on the night she gave birth to Maya’s mother, in a forest surrounded by her family instead of the “white hospital”. There were complications in the pregnancy and it was a life or death ordeal; the ancestors appear when they’re most needed. Maya still blames Chula for not being there for her.
Maya goes to see Fisk in his suite at the casino, holding him at gunpoint. He explains to her how his father died and shows her the memento of the occasion – the hammer he used to kill him, which is significant since it’s a callback to Netflix’s Daredevil, where all this was depicted.
Maya can’t bring herself to kill Fisk but she leaves without him. The episode ends with her leaving Tamaha on her bike, Fisk raging on his plane.
Episode 5, “Maya”
In a flashback, we see how Maya’s mother was a healer who could channel the power of the Choctaw into living things. She could bring a wounded bird back from the brink, but there was nothing she could do for herself after the crash.
It’s the Choctaw Nation Powwow, and Tamaha is busier than usual for the festivities. Zane is present, as is Fisk, who remained there after the previous episode and introduces himself to Chula. Biscuits texts Maya to tell her that neither Chula nor Bonnie has shown up, and she knows immediately that something is wrong.
Maya rushes back and has a vision of her mother, who heals her as she did the bird in the cold open and explains to her that all their ancestors echo through her, all the way back to Chafa. Chula has created Maya a traditional outfit that her mother implores her to wear to fight for them, with all her gifts.
The bird leads Maya through the powwow to a stable where Fisk and his men have Chula and Bonnie as hostages. Maya transfers the powers of the ancestors to Chula and Bonnie, who help her fight Fisk’s goons, while outside, Henry kills Zane and Biscuits drives a monster truck over his men.
Maya uses her mother’s healing powers to transport Fisk inside his mind, to flashbacks of his childhood, asking him to let go of his pain and his anger. He wakes confused, and his last remaining employee takes him away before the police arrive.
The episode and season ends with Maya joining her family for dinner.
In the post-credits scene, Wilson Fisk gets the idea of running for mayor.
That was our recap of Echo Season 1. What did you think of Episodes 1-5? We want to hear your thoughts, so let us know in the comments.
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