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Episode 2 of Echo opens in a Choctaw settlement in Alabama in the year 1200 A.D. Which shows us a flourishing community with massive mounds and bordering walls unlike many other pop culture depictions of teepees we’ve seen in past Indigenous representations in pop culture. We see the people playing stickball, which sometimes was used as a substitute for war. Instead of bloodshed they would settle disputes in a more peaceful manner. In this case the losing tribe of this game would be banished forever. Lowak, the character the title of this episode is named after, has speed and agility but is being overpowered by the stronger men in the game. Lowak harnesses the power from her ancestors, seeing a spiral design on her palm, to win the game for her tribe.
BISCUITS: A TRUSTY SIDEKICK
Her cousin Biscuits (Cody Lightning) shows up with some food for Maya, driving her Grandma Chula’s (Tantoo Cardinal) Rural Mail Carrier truck. She sends him to Skully’s (Graham Greene) pawn shop to pick up some supplies. Biscuits assists Skully with a sale while name dropping a little town called Madripoor, that you might remember from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
RUNAWAY TRAIN
The cornerstone of this episode is Maya planting a homemade bomb on one of Fisk’s trains. To send a message and take the throne as queen of the crime empire. Of course, Biscuits is Maya’s ride and getaway truck. A super well done heist like sequence, with the big stand out part being the sound design. This series does an amazing job of putting the sound in the perspective of Maya, with only her heartbeat being audible. The train car she is after is labeled D9-X, likely a reference to Daredevil Issue #9 the first appearance of Echo in the comics.
After she plants the bomb, she misjudges her jump, getting her prosthetic leg caught in the coupling between cars. She sees visions of her ancestors, her hands glow with that same spiral design as Lowak in this episode’s opening, giving her strength to escape. Jump to New York City where the train arrives and explodes.
A NEW BEGINNING
Maya visits Skully asking if he can repair her prosthetic leg and give it a few upgrades. She notices a statue of Chafa (seen in episode 1) and Skully talks about how the ancestors watch over their family in times of need. Her uncle Henry “Black Crow” Lopez (Chaske Spencer) confronts Maya and asks her not to bring this war to Tamaha. Her childhood best friend Bonnie (Devery Jacobs) messages her upset that she’s in town and didn’t reach out.
This episode might have had a slower pace, but made up for it with character development for Maya and the people from her past showing up for, or at least trying to support her. This is a massive step in her forging her own path, outside the shadows of her father or Kingpin.
