Transcript

Taylor: Hello listeners, and happy first new MCU content of 2024. You’re listening to Sisters Assembled, and today we are going to be breaking down the first three episodes of Echo. Quick disclaimer, Katie and I had immaculate self-control and we stopped ourselves after that Episode Three cliffhanger in order to be able to react to just those first three episodes and bring you this episode. So we might be doing a little predicting for how the show ends, because we have not yet seen it, though I can tell you right now, as soon as we’re done recording this evening, that’s one of the first things I’ll be doing is finishing the show. So if this is your first time, welcome and welcome back, if you are a long-time listener. We have a great show for you today, I know Katie is excited to talk about all things Echo, so I’m going to let her take it away.

Katie: I am going to first start by saying to everybody that while Echo was not high on my list from the jump of things that I was looking forward to in 2024, pieces of content I was looking forward to in 2024, or just in general, I mean, it has shut me up so fast. And listen, I was never against it. It’s not like I was like, ugh God, I’m going to have to suffer through this, how I feel about Madame Web, but I do think that this show if you are deciding not to watch it because you might have had the thought process of kind of like I did, why? What’s the purpose? Why do we need this specific show? Why are we focusing it on Maya? Oh my God, is it amazing. And I’ve only watched three out of five episodes and I love it. I am like on the edge of my chair watching this show. I mean, Episode Three, full disclosure I was walking on the treadmill watching Episode Three at the gym, and if anybody was watching me I could not even hold my facial expressions. I was gagged watching that episode, and I’m sure people were probably thinking, this girl’s a little psycho, I don’t know what’s happening. I genuinely really like this show. I’m nervous to say that because Marvel hasn’t really hit a home run ending shows for me personally, almost all of 2023. So I’m very nervous to say how much I love it now because I’m really scared I’m going to watch the last two episodes and I’m going to fall off the wagon. But for now, I do very much enjoy it.

Taylor: Okay, so this was my number one most anticipated show of 2024 and it has not disappointed me. I was probably 20 or 25 minutes into Episode One and I watched Tuesday night. Katie didn’t watch until Wednesday during the day. I watched not right at 9 p.m., but like right around 10:30 so I was pretty early and I texted her, I was like, girl, this show is everything to me. The moment that it got me like I was enjoying it, I was enjoying, I was a little confused by the opening scene and we’ll get to those and what those could possibly mean, I’m sure. But the moment it got me was when she was on her first mission, working for Kingpin, and they were in that back room and the other two guys were having a shootout with whatever gang they were against, and they’re doing this thing throughout the show where they have silence and you’re almost hearing it, it’s muffled and you’re almost hearing it from Maya’s perspective, which is brilliant, by the way.

Katie: Yeah, for sure.

Taylor: Love that aspect so much. But in that particular scene you’re hearing, not the full fight, you’re hearing it through Maya’s lens. And then the beat drops on the song and you get to full volume, and Maya goes in and just absolutely rips everyone apart. And not only does she do that, but then Daredevil rolls on up and we get that fight scene and that was the moment I literally screamed and I was like, I have not felt joy like this in so long. 

Katie: Okay, so I have a couple of things to say on that one. The first is their use of silence and then music in general has been impeccable. I’m thinking, you called out the fight scene in the first episode. I’m thinking of the fight scene in the third episode that, as I said, absolutely had me floored. And part of it was the use of no sound versus very loud music and a music that has a strong beat. And you guys all know I’m a sucker for when punches land on the beat like fighting to the beat is like, I can’t even explain what that does to me. So yes, I completely agree with that, there’s just something so amazing about how they’re producing that that I can’t I don’t have words for that. The other thing is, because you brought up the Daredevil fight, I just got to clear something up really quick. For those who, I saw on the internet because that fight scene was put out prior to the show, which smart, smart marketing put the Daredevil fight scene. If any of you follow me on TikTok, you know that my very first prediction after that first episode is, that we’re not going to see that man again, and that’s the only time we’re going to see him in the show. So far because again, I’ve only watched through three, I’m still right, we have not yet seen him again, so we’ll see, we’ll see. But I have to just say that is what genuine fighting looks like when you have two highly trained fighters. A lot of people were picking apart that fight and saying, you know, oh, it doesn’t look real. It doesn’t look whatever. It looks like a dance because that is what two trained fighters are supposed to look like when they’re fighting, it’s essentially a dance with one another. That’s what fighting is and so I refuse to listen to y’all because that was a beautiful fight sequence. I mean, how often do we really, truly have two, and again, I keep saying trained, but there’s not really another word for it, fighters going at it. Think about it. I love me some Cap, but is he really a trained fighter? No, not at all. We’ve seen him fight in Brooklyn, not at all. He just got strong and was like, suddenly I can kick somebody and it hurts like that is what that is. These are two just immensely well-trained individuals and it was such a beautiful fight scene. I would like to see him again fight her specifically because it’s impeccable. I also just have to add, I’m loving that he has some great monologue, but girl never even heard him. Like I was cracking up at that because I was like my guy she has no idea that you’re even talking to her right now. She’s just like, this guy’s punching me, so I’m punching him back. That’s it.

Taylor; Yeah, that scene was absolutely incredible. I mean, watching the two of them go at it, my eyes were just falling out of my face. They were so happy. They were like, I don’t even know where to look, they’re both so good at this. It was incredible and I think across the show, or I should say across the first three episodes, between the sound design and the sound production and the fighting that we’ve seen, I mean, it is top tier. It’s some of the best, both from a sound and fighting perspective that we’ve ever seen. I know we hold up a lot to the Black Panther franchise when it comes to the use of music. Obviously, Guardians of the Galaxy is in that conversation. This belongs in the conversation with the best franchises that use music and sound in the most effective ways. I mean, this was just mind-blowing and I was just so happy. It just made me so, so happy in a way that a Secret Invasion was just not doing for me. This blows that out of the water. It blows a lot of projects out of the water, and it’s freaking awesome. If you’re not watching the show, I don’t know why you’re listening to this, but if you haven’t decided to watch the show yet, you’re sleeping on something really, really awesome.

Katie: Yeah, and like I said, I was a critic of why the show was even being made. I didn’t feel like it needed to be and at this point, I’m not really sure I care. I don’t know what 4 or 5 is going to bring, and maybe it doesn’t do crap for almost anything other than the Daredevil storyline, or maybe a future Spider-Man storyline. Fine, I don’t care, I’m entertained. And is that not what the whole point of all of this is at the end of the day is to be entertained? It’s TV, it’s movies, and that is what this is doing. I think, too, it has the mature rating. So far, and we all know I’m not really into the whole gore scene, I don’t do very well with all of that, so far it has not been bad in the sense of like, I feel there’s been like one scene that was when she got grazed by the bullet and she’s like, literally sewing yourself shut with dental floss. And I was like, listen, that’s an IT girl right there, but can’t watch that. Personally, gotta look away.

Taylor: I was like, Maya. Maya, no. Simply no. I was like, not the dental floss. Where’s the sewing kit? Where’s the sewing kit?

Katie: When I tell you I was seconds away from texting my one friend’s mom, who’s like, in the field of medicine and being like, can this work? Because I’m thinking, well, can she get infections from that? Like, it’s dental floss? I’m trying to understand.

Taylor: In a pinch, could I sew myself up with dental floss?

Katie: Yeah, I’m like, would this really work? Am I learning something new today? So I was so close because I was like, I’m insanely curious about this. But yeah, I would actually say that’s probably to me the only scene so far and that’s not even like why it has the mature rating. But I would say that’s probably the only scene that I was like, oh, I cannot watch that. The rest of, the fight scenes, all that, yeah, you definitely could tell. 

Taylor: Oh yeah.

Katie: You could tell because like, let me tell you, are you walking around in Captain America the Winter Soldier, seeing blood everywhere? No, ma’am, you are not but here you were. You were watching some of it a little bit more gruesome. And I was like, I’m behind this, I like it, I love it.

Taylor: Even that long shot of Vicky when he is dead laying there.

Katie: And he’s just like hanging off the side of the table.

Taylor: And the blood is coming out of his mouth and running into his eyes. I was like, yep, I have definitely arrived at a mature adult show. That would have never, never in a normal, regularly rated Marvel show and I was like, I don’t want to be excited that this is happening right now, but also just the fact that I’m getting this on my screen at this level and it’s not egregious. It’s not gratuitous. You’re seeing it from almost the perspective of Bonnie then and it serves to show her the difference between the life that her cousin has been forced to lead, versus the life that she leads. So it serves a purpose, but it also just reinforces, like, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Katie: No, we’re in Oklahoma. 

Taylor: Yeah, it’s beautiful there it looks like, that’s cool. 

Katie: Well, yeah, I definitely think it adds this extra layer and again I just keep thinking of the Episode Rhree fight scene. And I mean well first off I don’t even I couldn’t even count how many people she took out and somehow there still seem to be so many men in that room. And I was like, how many dudes does this guy bring with him to Oklahoma to get one girl because, woah. But just the amount of like and again, it’s not there to be grotesque. It’s not there to turn people away from watching anything. It’s there to add an extra layer and that’s exactly what it does. Watching her take those guys down would have been one thing, and that’s great. It would have been awesome to watch, but actively watching her like bludgeon half of them, or like she had that whip thing that she was using.

Taylor: That was so cool.

Katie: Yeah and I mean, like, I know she pulled it off like a game or whatever, but she was essentially using as a weapon you could like you saw it slash across their faces. It wasn’t, you weren’t being pulled away from it because it was trying to pull you away from the nitty-gritty of it. It wasn’t. It was like, if this happened in real life, yeah, that guy would have just slashed his face open and I’m like, yeah, thanks. That’s real to me. That is a real fight that I’m watching with somebody who clearly can fight and handle her own and she did. It’s amazing. It makes me very excited because again, I, I’ve been saying I hope this is the direction that something like the Thunderbolts goes into.

Katie: For sure and I think one of the things that actually got me super excited even before the, it might have been after the first scene because I think they flip it sometimes they do like an open, and then they flip to the Marvel Spotlight logo and then they flip back, and sometimes it’s just Marvel Spotlight and then they go into the show. But the fact that they showed that and we got to see I’ve actually never seen it in motion like they’d shown, I think the logo before for the spotlight banner, but the idea of it being like this own little opening thing.

Katie: Oh my God, wait, I am not going to even lie to you. I didn’t put that together, that’s what that was.

Taylor; Okay, well, that’s why I’m here.

Katie: I know, I was like, oh, we’re not getting the normal MCU entrance. I was like interesting and I was like, what’s Marvel Spotlight? I wasn’t even thinking about the spotlight banner at all.

Taylor: See, I didn’t even notice we didn’t get the normal entrance. I just was so focused on the fact that I loved the banner entrance and what that meant, because it felt, now that you’re telling me, oh, we didn’t have the Marvel logo in the normal like fanfare and all this stuff we’re used to now, I understand why it felt like such a big change and so much gravitas to it. I was like, oh my God, this is going to be great. Immediately I was like, we are on a new plane of existence right now.

Katie: I just didn’t put together what it was. I was confused about why we weren’t getting the regular MCU entrance. I didn’t think about duh, of course, the spotlight is the spotlight banner. I just didn’t, I guess because too, I mean, maybe I missed it, but I don’t remember seeing the warning in the first episode. I do remember seeing it in Episodes Two and Three, but I don’t remember seeing the like this may have some mature content for some people I don’t remember seeing in the first episode, although I’m sure it did because that fight scene was a little gory, although I guess it was short. I don’t know what the rules are around it, but yeah, I totally did not even put that together that’s what that was but that makes so much sense. 

Taylor: Yeah. So now I want to dive into the actual story itself because there’s a really interesting narrative taking form here. In Episode One, we definitely saw it was actually really cool, we saw basically how we got to where we are but from Echo’s perspective, which was really cool.

Katie: I loved that, I loved that.

Taylor: It was awesome and such a cool narrative way to tie into Hawkeye, and I almost want to see them now from like, comparisons. I want to go back to Hawkeye and say like, oh, this scene like I remember it, I remember the scene with her and him, but we were seeing it from his perspective. Now we’ve seen it from her perspective and how that changed her trajectory and everything, which we got a little bit of a hint at obviously, during Hawkeye but now to see it more deeply is really cool. So we saw her whole progression from her father’s murder through into how she became such a big part of her, or how Fisk became such a big part of her life, how he trained her, how he manipulated her. And then basically what we saw in Hawkeye, which is her turning basically and changing her mind and then shooting Kingpin. So I loved that we kind of got the almost like a, here’s what you missed type thing but from her perspective, which added to that narrative from Hawkeye.

Katie: Yeah, that was actually one of my favorite parts of the first episode, because they spent almost the first half doing it. And I know we’ll get to actually, there’s two different parts that take place prior to this, but they did spend the first half, the majority of the first half, filling in the blanks, giving us more context. I really enjoyed it because I was like, you know, I was out here gallivanting with Kate and Clint, having a good old time being like, I love Kate Bishop, and this all was happening on the other side, and we don’t get to see it. But now it’s really like taking those glasses off and now we’re looking at a different perspective. It’s honestly for anybody who likes to read, it’s like those good old dual POVs.

Taylor: Oh yes.

Katie: Yeah, we love a good dual POV. And it doesn’t have to be two. I mean, I’m thinking like Percy Jackson because also that show is obviously so relevant right now. But the books themselves, when you reach Heroes of Olympus, that’s what I’m thinking up. You’ve gotten three different narrators, sometimes they’re throwing 4 or 5 in the book, depending on what works, to show different parts of the story, to show different perspectives, you get to see cool perspectives of other characters that you like never got to see. Like Percy, I mean, they were all in love with Percy, let’s be real. They were like, this guy is like freaking awesome, he’s like a god. But from Percy’s point of view, he’s just like, hey, he’s such a little loser. 

Taylor: He’s like I’m just surviving. 

Katie: I know from his point of view that everything’s a mess and he never gives himself enough credit but from everybody else’s like Leo, I’m pretty sure would marry Percy if given the chance. He thinks that guy is the best. But that’s what this felt like. Like you sit there and you finally got the other side. The other idea of what’s going on from this side of the story, and I enjoyed it like no other. I actually wish, and I know for reasons otherwise, but I do wish we got more of it where we got to see multiple characters’ points of view of the situation because it does bring a different depth to all of it.

Taylor: Yeah and I think it really creates this interesting interwoven narrative. Obviously, we know the MCU is interwoven, right? But oftentimes when you’re looking at a show that is a sequel essentially to another show, they’ll just rehash scenes from that other show and say, in case you missed it, here’s what you need to know. But instead, they took the time to actually, I don’t know if they filmed it during Hawkeye or what, but they took the time to get the different angles, to get the different perspectives so that they were able to tell it specifically from Maya’s perspective, not Maya’s story from Clint’s perspective. That’s a really interesting choice to make sure that you are telling her story, specifically the way that she understands it because at certain points in Hawkeye, she is the villain. She’s the bad guy. You’re rooting against her, so you can’t tell her story from the perspective of her being the villain. You have to tell it from her being the hero, because everybody’s a hero of their own story, right? And so I love that they took the time to help you reframe as an audience your perspective on Maya and understand and empathize with her because I think that can get lost if you’re, for lack of a better term, a little bit lazy and just recutting together old scenes to get everybody caught up to speed.

Katie: Right and I kind of want to run with this for now, her relationship with Kingpin, because I think that’s a big part and then I want to work backward from the beginning because there’s two more parts that I think make up this whole story as a whole. The Kingpin relationship is probably the biggest at this point and as we’ve said, we’ve seen through Episode Three so that means we did and we are both currently holding on to the cliffhanger of he showed on up in Oklahoma at the place she’s staying, right near her family and everything else, and there’s no interaction. I mean, we all know we’ve seen he doesn’t sign, he does not know ASL. He has somebody who is sitting there interpreting for both of them. Didn’t look like there was anybody else there with him, though I guess in Episode Four, we’ll find out. But they kind of just both look at each other because, well, to be fair, there’s no means of communication between them but also, I think it’s just that moment of, you know, you shot me, tried to fatally shoot me, and she’s like, oh God, I thought I killed you. And then on top of that, there’s the added layer of he just saved her life but she also was trying to actively take him down. On top of, I mean, that she calls him uncle. She was raised with him as essentially a family member. She viewed him as such and he viewed her as a lot of people can say Kingpin is ruthless and I’m not going to disagree but she was never just a weapon to him and you can tell by the way he reacts to her and the fact that he hasn’t put a bullet through her already. I mean, this is such a complicated relationship and I love it. I think it’s so interesting and I’m so excited to see more of it.

Taylor: Yeah and I think what’s really cool now, basically having that confirmation that this is the Kingpin from the Daredevil series that we are now seeing here, having that context then, of things like his love for Vanessa. He is not probably the guy that you would think of as someone who loves deeply, but he does in his own way, he may go about protecting the people he loves or loving them in a very particular way, but that part is true and honest. He does love people very deeply. We saw it with Vanessa and now I think we also see it with Maya. He adores her and you can tell and I think for him, the betrayal is worse than the actual physical injury. Clearly, he’s, made a pretty decent recovery. But the fact that someone he loves so deeply was able to hurt him like that and want to hurt him and then continue to hurt his legacy because she thinks he’s dead. So she thinks all she’s doing is dismantling his kingdom, but to then try to dismantle his legacy on top of it, it’s just like putting salt in a literal open wound and I think that’s really interesting. You’re right, it does make it a very complicated relationship to hate the person or one of the people you love so much and know that they took away your only living parent. I mean, there’s just so many layers to it all.

Katie: Yeah, it’s one of, I would argue, the better relationships we get to see in the sense of a lot of characters have messed up relationships with family or with other characters or whatever, but this one is just such a complex idea. Just looking at it, there’s just so many things that it shouldn’t work. He shouldn’t have a soft spot for her the way he does, and he should be able to, even after all the betrayal that he feels end her and stop her. We clearly know he doesn’t, at least up until this point, because there are still scenes with them together from the trailers. We know that she wants to end him end and everything he stands for because she feels that same betrayal and so it’s like they’re both battling the same emotions. They both hurt each other. And I’m so intrigued because we know at the end of the day, Kingpin is not going to die. They are not going to do that when they are having a Daredevil show come around the corner and on top of that, they pulled that one already and he lived. They pulled the oh, he will, won’t he, we all knew he would. He was going to live at the end of Hawkeye and they’re not going to take Echo away. They’re not going to do away with Maya after, well, to be honest, giving her her own show like this and then never, are you going to just end her character here? That’s a waste of everyone’s time, that’s pointless. So, you know, there has to be something that happens here, someway they meet in the middle. And we did go into this saying, will Maya really be a hero or is she going to walk that line? Will she continue to be in that gray area? And I do wonder if she and Kingpin reach some sort of agreement where she stays in that gray area because think he’s going to be there for Daredevil. He’s going to be there I’m hoping for a Spider-Man movie. What part does she play? She can’t dismantle him. That’s not going to work. So I’m thinking long-term here. Where does their relationship end up? Because they have to have a truce somewhere. Nobody is going to die, at least between the two of them.

Taylor: Yeah, you’re right, it is interesting because it brings up something for me all the way back from the beginning of the episode. I will remark on your most recent point, I promise, but you pointed out that, you know, you don’t think that Daredevil is coming back, because the only scene we saw of him in the trailers has played out already.

Katie: It’s a theory. It’s not a want. Just to clarify.

Taylor: No, no, no, I agree. I get what you’re saying. I think what your statement made me wonder and kind of brought to the forefront is do we go back to New York because so much of what the people who are in her hometown keep saying to her is, oh, you’re Maya from New York. Oh, you’re from New York. Like, that is just so reinforced that she is not from there anymore. She may have been born there, but she is now bringing back her New York problems. She has a New York attitude, and that is just continually reinforced and Kingpin, look, he’s not going to play around in Oklahoma for very long. His empire, his throne, sits in New York. So I’m saying all this to say, that I wonder if we end up going back to the city. That’s where we get more Daredevil because obviously, he’s not going to make it out to Oklahoma. That doesn’t make sense. That’s where we get more Daredevil. We have some kind of showdown. Maybe there’s an agreement that he will stay out of her hometown. He will kind of remove his black market shipping, whatever he’s doing there from her hometown. They’ll clean that up in Oklahoma and she will then leave him alone in New York. He’s allowed to do whatever he wants there as long as he leaves her people alone. I could see that kind of being the truce, because then at least he’s leaving what’s left of her family alone because realistically, it was working for him that got her father killed.

Katie: Right and that, so you brought up a couple good points. The first being is, the only way I see Daredevil returning is if we return to New York. Yes. I still have a horrible hunch in the nicest of ways, he was kind of used as clickbait and also to establish he was working in New York during Hawkeye. Those are really the only reasons I see him being in the show at this point. So I still, I don’t know, I’m still going to hold my hunch to I don’t know if we’re going to see him again, but I also don’t know if we’ll be back in New York. I think we might have scenes of Kingpin in New York, but I’m not entirely sure Maya is returning to New York. On the flip side of that, you kind of are bringing up her family, and I want to get into that because that’s one of those scenes early in the first episode and that’s the next part, right? We always talk about the A, B, and C plot, and I feel like her family, I don’t know, I guess plots aren’t necessarily the best idea, but it’s the best way to categorize them right now. The whole idea of her family and her heritage, everything to that, oh hold on, I’ll say heritage is almost a whole other thing. That’s the very beginning of the episode. So I should just say her family is one of the B or C plots. We start the episode with her mom being killed, and I say being killed because somebody cut the brakes and I don’t know if it was intended for her necessarily, but it happened. That’s how we learned that’s how Maya loses her leg and that’s how she ended up in New York. Okay, established. It was a great backstory, but it also showed us her grandparents. It showed us her relationship with Bonnie. And again, if you’ve been listening to my reactions to each episode, oh, I have a horrible feeling for Bonnie.

Taylor: Every time Bonnie’s on the screen, I want her to go away because I think she’s going to not make it out.

Katie: So do I. That’s exactly my gut feeling. I’m like, oh, Bonnie. And if you’re a Vampire Diaries fan, we all know Bonnie dies and comes back like 70 million times. I just have that feeling. I’m like, oh my God, it’s just like it’s going to happen.

Taylor: But equally as bad would be if Biscuits died because he is.

Katie: I’m in love with Biscuits.

Taylor: Amazing. I love him so much. 

Kaite: I don’t know why his name is Biscuits. I don’t know the lore, but I love him. Like when he was driving up with the totaled car and his grandma saw him and the face he was making, I was like me, me when I’m caught just like red-handed. But I feel it with Bonnie because they’re supposed to have this connection. And they did and they established that when they’re children, they are very close. Even Maya says you’re a sister, you’re my sister, that’s just the truth to her. And obviously, they lose that in everything that Maya goes through that nobody I really think will ever really understand. You don’t understand what that’s like to and I’m not just saying to lose a parent, but to lose the parent, move away from everything you know, your dad’s into some shady crap, and this new guy you’re calling uncle that you adore, which we see she does not just as an adult, but through her young years already is essentially running the shadiest empire ever and you’re just put into all this crap. You grow up in all of this like no one is going to get that. And so it’s interesting because that relationship is supposed to be there and you could tell, I mean, Episode Three was a big one, you could tell Bonnie is upset. You could tell that Maya’s trying to keep her at arm’s length. She knows, she knows what it’s like when people are too close to the things she’s involved in. I just have such a horrible gut feeling for my girl Bonnie, I really do.

Taylor: I know, I just wish she would, like, stay away from Maya so that she survives because I really someone from her family is going to die.

Katie: There’s been too many hints about it.

Taylor: Yeah, and that’s where these stories, I mean, not to be that person, that’s where these stories tend to go but like, that’s what raises the stakes, right? Obviously, the stakes are incredibly high already. She almost just died. Her uncle almost her like biological uncle, almost just died. Bonnie almost just died already. But to raise the stakes then even further, you have to have a permanent death. Something irreversible has to happen. It has to be Maya’s fault because she brought this on this town and that’s, you know, going to be part of her experience it’s going to be what shapes her more moving forward. Every hero has that moment whether she becomes a hero who operates in the gray or becomes a full-on hero we obviously have yet to see, but it’s like her Uncle Ben moment, basically, like every hero has to have one. And I think, unfortunately, any member of her family could do it. If it’s her grandpa, I’m actually going to hide under my couch.

Katie: Stop it, I love him, I would be so hurt.

Taylor: 

I will actually, like, run away.

Katie: He’s an icon.

Taylor: He’s so adorable, I love him so much. So she has I mean, her grandma’s got a stiff upper lip. She’s a little bit of a tough lady, but she’s got a great family and I would be sad to see any one of them, but I definitely think that one of them is not going to make it out of this show.

Katie: I agree, I think that’s what they’re leading up to, and I think they’re also really trying to drive home family. And for Maya, she didn’t really have that. You see the connection all the rest of her family members have. I mean, even the grandparents have gotten divorced and there’s still clear relationships with and some of the uncles and cousins, I’m not quite sure the relations like I’m not sure whose is whose kid and like, whatever. But I mean, regardless, you see, they all have clear relationships with each other. They are all still in that town, living near each other. And then there’s Maya, who, as you said earlier, is out from New York, Maya from New York. She’s not from there anymore. Her origins aren’t the same anymore because she moved away, she left, she became a city girl and now she’s completely different. Granted, she is just for a lot of other reasons. So they’re really driving home this family because they are still, as soon as Maya is in town, Maya’s in town, Maya’s here, Maya’s here. Everybody is celebrating her and wants to see her except her grandma. I just think when you’re driving that point home and you’re driving these stakes that are, you know, Maya’s wrapped into things she shouldn’t be wrapped into because she was raised into them. And now you’re sitting there and you’ve got all this family around and her uncle was involved in a lot of it and everything else. Well, that’s when you start to see those moments where you’re like, someone’s not walking out of here alive. It’s just a fact.

Taylor: Yeah, I agree, and I’m curious about who it is but at the same time I’m like, if I just live in this three-episode bubble, everybody survives.

Katie: Yeah, honestly, that’s kind of how I feel about just like how the show’s going. I’m like, it’s so good now, maybe I just don’t ever find out what happens.

Taylor: It’s kind of like, it’s kind of like stopping The Hunger Games after Catching Fire, and then Peeta never gets hijacked and you’re like, everything is fine.

Katie: But honestly, I would, because I literally stopped the second Mockingjay because I’m like, Finnick doesn’t die. What are you all talking about? Like, no, so I just end it. I’m like, it’s okay, we’re good. 

Taylor: If I stop here, it isn’t real. It’s like no body, no death. I didn’t see it. It didn’t happen.

Katie: Yeah, it literally didn’t happen so I’m good. That’s how I feel. I’m like, if I would have stopped Secret Invasion before six, I would be sitting here going Secret Invasion was really good. 

Taylor: It’s true. 

Katie: Did I? No. Obviously, for purposes of I have this podcast that I need to talk on and have knowledge of, so I couldn’t just stop the show but you know, that is how I feel. I’m like, well, what if four and five tanks? And now you’re gonna hear a very different message in the next episode? I don’t know, I don’t know.

Taylor: Okay, well before I let you put that out in the universe too much.

Katie: I know, I’m sorry.

Taylor: I just can’t let you put that kind of karma out there.

Katie: I’m just so nervous, dude. I mean, after all three shows of 2023 tanked their finales. I can’t, at least in my opinion, tanked their finales. I can’t.

Taylor: Okay, again, switching gears and avoiding all of the bad vibes I do want to talk about probably our last topic for this first three-episode review, which is the thread of female ancestors that happens at the beginning of every episode. I don’t know how I feel about it because I don’t yet understand what it means. I think I need to see the full show and all five episodes, and I need, I don’t need them to like, hit me over the head with it, because I like to consider myself a relatively empathetic and, like, emotionally intelligent person and I also read a lot. So I can pick up metaphors and stuff. I just need them to complete the metaphor so that I understand what the meaning is and then I’ll be okay. Right now I’m kind of I’m not sure how I feel about it, because I’m not sure what is trying to tell me.

Katie: Okay, so the first thing I want to say is way back when, I know I did it in a newsletter, and I think we discussed it in another episode. This was a rumor going into Echo that she was kind of going to get some sort of a mystical ability and a lot of people and again, I know we talked about it in one episode, I can’t remember, but a lot of people were like, really? Because we have a really cool ground-level fighter. Why would you take that away from her? At the time, it was a rumor. Clearly, that’s the direction they’re going with this show. My understanding is, well, first off, her grandpa explains it is she is directly descended from that woman who, like at the beginning, they kind of all look like it looks like bark. And I’m thinking that because I’m thinking, like, again, Percy Jackson’s on my mind. I’m thinking about how they just showed one of the nature spirits.

Taylor: Spoiler I haven’t seen the episode yet.

Katie: Dude, that was in like Episode One. 

Taylor: Oh. 

Katie: Yeah, so.

Taylor: Well, I’m all caught up except for today, so maybe I just missed it.

Katie: I’ve watched today’s today’s was good, but no, I’m thinking about like in the first episode, but regardless, that woman who they explain is the one who saves her people and that’s how they come to, I don’t know if they come to Earth or they’re born out, and here they are now on Earth, and now they’re human. That’s kind of the whole beginning that we see, because when I first put it on, I was like, I don’t know if this is the right show. 

Taylor: I I was like, did I hit the wrong button?

Katie: I know I was like, this is some like, space stuff happening over here. 

Taylor: Yeah, I was like, did I accidentally put on Guardians?

Katie: Yeah, well, right. I was thinking of and I can’t remember who they are, but like all the gold people.

Taylor: Yeah, the people who created Adam. 

Katie: Yeah. 

Taylor: I can’t think of their name right now.

Katie: I can’t think of their name either. 

Taylor: The Sovereign. 

Katie: But that’s who I was thinking. Yeah, and I was like, I’m confused, but yeah anyway. So she’s directly descended from the woman who saves the entire group, the entire tribe and is the first of the Choctaw. So we see her, she is the one who gets that, she’s the only one who touches that special water at the beginning before they have, like, an earthquake or something. And she gets those swirling figures on her hands, and that’s what allows her to save her people. Okay, then I’m assuming we see the next descendant. That’s Episode Two. That’s the one where they’re playing a game to decides who gets the land.

Taylor: Or not necessarily the next, because it looked like a lot of time had passed but a descendant, because if you think about two between 2 and 3, like there’s a decent amount of time because you went from like because they give you years, it’s like 1200 A.D. and then you do 1800.

Katie: To be fair, I think I ignored the years. I’m not going to lie. I just don’t think I paid attention.

Taylor: Well I’m like the timeline person on this show, so I have to pay attention to these things.

Katie: Okay, okay, so not the next, but one of the next of that lineage. We see that she also has a moment where those symbols show up on her hand and allow her to do well in the game, defend the land, and keep the land for her people. Then Episode Three, we see another descendant. Then she gets the symbols, she’s the one who saves her people. Oh, Taylor’s having a moment.

Taylor: When you said defend the land, it sparked something in me. What has each one of them done in their scenes?

Katie: Defended people.

Taylor: They’ve defended their people and defended their land. And then think about how that applies to Maya, what she was doing in that moment. She was dismantling an empire that had taken advantage of her people.

Katie: Well, right. That’s where I was going.

Taylor: Okay, well, I just put that together.

Katie: Oh, okay, well, Taylor said that beautifully. I was just giving the summary of where we were at as far as the lineage but essentially the idea is that Maya is a part of this lineage, and her grandmother was too. You know that because we see that at the beginning of the first episode as well. Her grandmother I mean, her grandfather says, speaks to essentially her ancestors and that bird was a symbol to her and she kind of had that moment of knowing something wasn’t going to be right. She had like foresight almost. And you see that this has been passed down through generations. I think it’s interesting how they’re telling the story. I’m not really sure where we’re going to go with it fully. We have only seen Maya, I mean, we technically only have seen her use the ability once, which was when she was getting her leg out from being stuck between the train cars. She has had flashbacks multiple times. Again, I don’t know how far we’re going to take this ability. I’d love it if we kind of kept it pretty on the DL with her because I do think she’s pretty cool without it, but I think the explanation behind it is very interesting on its own.

Taylor: Yeah, I love that it’s a maternal line and not something that passes that there’s no men involved, basically.

Katie: Period.

Taylor: Which is cool because Maya is a baddie and she is one of the coolest ladies in the MCU right now. I’m just going to put that out there. She kicks butt, she takes names and she really doesn’t need that much help to do it. And so I think it’s really cool that this show is highlighting her matriarchal power and the line through the female or the female line, I should say, and the powerful females that she is descended from. I think that’s really awesome. I also agree, I don’t want Maya’s training, her abilities, her physical like on the ground abilities to be overshadowed by anything mystical because we do have a Scarlet Witch, we have a Sorcerer Supreme, and we have seen those types of abilities before, anything mystical really. I don’t know that I need Maya to have it. I think she’s a really cool character on her own. And yes, this is obviously a part of her, but I think also it’s entirely possible that she is only, like I said before, able to tap into this power when she’s defending her land and her people. So it’s possible she’s only able to really tap into it in Oklahoma. If she were to ever go back to New York and take on a Kingpin or whatever, or resume her life there, I don’t think she would have this power because she is drawing the power from her ancestors on her ancestral land. So I think it’s one of those interesting powers that I’m like, okay, cool, I get it. It has a lot of meaning, and that’s really cool. But I’m also kind of glad that it has, at least in my theory, a limitation where you’re not just going to be able to use it all the time and use it as a crutch, because, lady, you don’t need a crutch like you are just absolutely destroying everyone all on your own. You’re good enough on your own, my girl.

Katie: I really like that you said that because I was kind of picking my brain, and I kind of as soon as you were starting to say it was when it came to me as well, that it was like the best way for them to handle this without them going full mystical, bringing her into a realm I don’t think she needs to be in because again, I’m sorry, but can we just focus on some ground levels for a little bit? I love me some cosmic, I love me some mystical, and you know what? That’s awesome. But at the end of the day, when you have these amazing ground-level characters that you actually are going about telling stories of, you don’t need to up them into something. There doesn’t need to be a level-up. They are great how they are and especially Maya is insanely amazing how she is. I mean, again, a gentle reminder, that she essentially is like Taskmaster. She can replicate people who are fighting her. She replicates their fighting styles so on top of just being absolutely amazing as a fighter herself, she has that ability already. I just think if we allow for this limitation, which I do very much like, it allows the story to be told. It allows her to really draw from her roots but again, to your point, it stays at her roots. It’s not something that follows her beyond them. So when she returns to New York, which I see her story doing, in the nicest of ways, I’m not sure what we will continue to do with Maya in Oklahoma. Then the power’s gone, and that works for me. That tells the story the way it needs to be told. And again, I’m also thinking we just had Kahorri, right? We just had Kahorri come in, and she’s arguably one of the most powerful beings right now in the Multiverse. I’m not sure we need another mystical story in that direction when we have somebody who essentially embodies the Tesseract. Just my thought process. So I like that. I like that idea, and I hope that’s what they run with.

Taylor: Yeah, so I think on that note, we’re going to call it an episode on our Episode 1 to 3 reactions for Echo. We’ve spent the last little bit of time talking to you all about how amazing Maya is and this show is fantastic, and I personally am really, really excited to finish it. So definitely stick around with us while we finish the show and come back to you with our full reactions for all of Echo. You can make sure that you are following along with us on your podcast platform of choice, by giving us a subscribe or a follow. Definitely make sure you’re also checking out our website for calendars and things like that and that’s also the hub where you can go ahead and support the show if you would like to help us make the show better.

Katie: You could also give us a follow on Twitter at SisAssembledPod, Instagram, and Threads at SistersAssembled and subscribe to us on YouTube at Sisters Assembled as well. And next episode, we’ve already been kind of talking about it, but the next episode will be us covering the final two episodes of Echo, that is Four and Five. So stick around because we’re really excited. We like this show so far. I really hope that tone does not change by the next episode, but we really are enjoying it. So make sure you guys get ready for that one and we can all be continuing to enjoy Echo for the next little bit because we hope you guys are enjoying it just as much as we are. So continue to keep up with Marvel content and watching Echo if you haven’t already, and keeping up with us as Marvel just blew your mind, so let’s talk about it.