The Most Valuable Asset Marvel's Echo Borrows From Fast And Furious
The following contains spoilers for "Echo."
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is vast, which can make it difficult for various stories to stand apart or make their mark. The MCU shows on Disney+ have even more working against them, as there's so much TV out there that divesting people's attention can be difficult. For the latest entry in the MCU, "Echo," the series drew its greatest strength not from other comic books or even superhero cinema, but from another major franchise: "The Fast and the Furious."
While it may not be intentional, "Echo" mirrors "Fast and Furious" in the way Maya (Alaqua Cox) is aided by her extended family, including her estranged grandmother Chula (Tantoo Cardinal), her cousins Biscuits (Cody Lightning) and Bonnie (Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs), her uncle Henry (Chaske Spencer), and her sorta-grandfather Skully (Graham Greene). Each character offers something very different to Maya, much like the way the "family" of the "Fast and Furious" movies helps Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) with his street races and heists. Family can take many forms, but in the case of both "Echo" and the "Fast and Furious" flicks, they're essential to keeping the story moving and making the audience care.
The supporting cast holds it all together
In the "Fast and Furious" movies, Dom is the strong and silent type, occasionally dropping a few lines about family but mostly just looking cool, while Maya is the strong and silent type out of necessity because she's deaf and communicates entirely using sign language. With such intense but stoic protagonists at their centers, these stories need lively, unique characters to round them out. Maya has an incredible family that surrounds her with warm love and tough love, helping her to see her life of crime for what it really is and giving her an identity she can be proud of. She even takes up her heroic mantle because of her family, as she is an echo of her ancestors. Her living family gives her plenty of strength, too, and they make the series more than just another show about an (admittedly badass) hero fighting the bad guys.
Maya's uncle Henry understands her because he's a part of her father's family and has dealt with the criminal element before, and he not only helps her personally but shoots a henchman who was about to fire a rocket into the Choctaw pow-wow. Similarly, Biscuits helps Maya on a train heist of sorts and also takes out some henchmen, trapping them in their vans with his freshly souped-up pickup truck. Even Echo's grandma Chula and cousin Bonnie get to throw down with the baddies in the final battle, with Maya channeling her ancestors' abilities into her living relatives. Everyone contributes to her personally and helps save the day, just like the "Furious" family.
Everybody loves a cookout
At the end of "Echo," it looks like Maya is going to leave Oklahoma and her family behind. Instead, she ends up showing up to a family cookout with the whole gang, and it feels a whole lot like the various barbecues and cookouts throughout the course of the "Fast and Furious" franchise. (Seriously, there's been a cookout in almost every movie going all the way back to the first one in 2001!) These get-togethers usually serve as a way for the characters to catch up following some major explosive event (sometimes literally) and re-establish their bonds as "family," and that's exactly what the end of "Echo" does. Maya has been away from the people who love her most for two decades, but they manage to smooth over their frustrations with some potato salad and grilled meat. It's honestly pretty relatable — who hasn't squashed a family beef with a cheeseburger and coleslaw?
The supporting cast of "Echo" helped deepen the titular character and the series, in large part due to incredible performances. Just like it's impossible to imagine the "Fast" flicks without Michelle Rodriguez or Tyrese Gibson, it's hard to picture a second season of "Echo" without Jacobs or Spencer. Then again, if there is a future for Echo on TV, it's probably in "Daredevil: Born Again," which means she would be headed back to New York, likely alone. That's a shame; if "Echo" and "The Fast and the Furious" have taught me anything, it's the importance of family.
"Echo" is now streaming on Disney+.