House of R - 'Echo' Deep Dive

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

It's time to join Mal and Jo for the first Marvel endeavor of 2024 in the form of ‘Echo’ (10:13). They take on the entire season drop and get into what made the show work and not work for them (28:32). Later, they break down easter eggs and much more. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did Don Draper really buy the world of Coke? Did Tony Soprano really die? Or just order more onion rings? Were those guys really in hell the whole time, or was that just the audience? The finales of our favorite shows can make us argue, make us cry, and make us crazy. From Spotify and the Ringer, I'm Andy Greenwald, and this is Stick the Landing, a new podcast where we'll be telling the story of modern TV backwards, one fade out at a time. Each episode, a guest and I will choose a celebrated series from history, from the 70s to the street, Dreaming era and beyond and do a deep dive on its very last episode.

Was it all a dream? Did it turn into a nightmare? And, most importantly, what can we learn about tomorrow's new shows from the way yesterday's ended? TV is a journey. I hope you'll enjoy this podcast about the destination. Find Stick the Landing on Wednesdays on the Prestige TV feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The playoffs are here and you can predict the action all the way to the finals with Fandul

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See terms at fandual.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business, fast, reliable internet, everything for your business and even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. I'm not angry with you, Maya. Despite the little souvenir you left me, We're so ready to believe the worst.

You raised the hand to me in violence. I thought you saw my actions as heroic. Always had your back. Even then, I couldn't stand when you would get hurt. That hasn't changed. House of R. I'm Joyner Robinson. Joining me today, my beloved, my dearest, my most cherished companion in all things, everything always.

It's Mallory Rubin. Hey, Mel, how you doing? when the gig's done ring pops on me. I mean, no true or words ever spoken from Bally Rubin's lips. We're here to talk about, I am so certain they do. What flavor of a ring pops? Any flavor. I just, I love candy.

This we know. I think I'm a cherry or get the fuck out. Cherry's probably the best. Yeah. We're here today not to talk about ring pops. We are here today to talk about House of ours coverage of Echo. We're doing the whole season today. Episodes 1 through 5 of Echo, the new Marvel TV show that dropped on both Hulu and Disney Plus this week.

If you have not watched all of Echo and you care about spoilers, maybe you want a bamous until you do that and come back. and watch the finale and then come back and listen to us talk about it. But if you have watched everything or you don't care about spoilers, this is the place. We're doing it all in just one episode, a binge drop season and a binge drop podcast experience. Before we get into that, quick programming reminders, I have been promised by one Mr. Stephen Allman that the Mint Edition, here comes the pitch, colon, which franchises should have a musical episode will be my favorite podcast episode of the year. And I am excited to listen. I cannot wait.

Genius. Brilliant idea. Right at my alley, right at my street. I'm so excited. Midnight Boys, also will have their second half of Echo coverage next week, episodes three through five coming from the Midnight Boys. They did a wonderful job with episode one and two. I found their engagement the show. Brilliant. Top-tier critique from our boys. But also just like a really thoughtful, I thought, a preamble from Van that I really, really valued made me just love them, fall in love with them even more than I already was.

That's the Midnight Boys. They're coming. We will be back with more Percy Jackson next week. We are loving Percy. We're having a great, great time with Percy. episode five, phenomenal. We're excited for episode six. So we'll be covering both of those episodes next week.

Also, the hype draft that we were meant to do this week got a little postponed. We'll be doing that next week. We're really excited for that as well. So we've got some good stuff coming next week. That's a lot going on. Percy, Echo, musicals, hype drafts, Mallory Rubin. How can people keep track of all of that? My first recommendation would be to follow the pod.

It's a new year. we've got new stuff to cover. Hit that follow button for the old house of our feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Follow the ringerverse. Follow prestige TV. Follow trial by content. Follow, follow, follow.

Speaking of following. Yeah, the ringerverse. You can find us on the social media platform of your choosing. The ringerverse is on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. If you're in. enjoying the little video breakouts from the live show, the memes, anything else that's cooking. If you're watching the shows we're covering

and you have thoughts, questions, anything at all that's on your mind. Apple Wars. Sign it with your pickle. Send your emails. The inbox is open as always. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Can I spring a little Hobbit and Dragons news on you?

Please. How do you feel in the, deepest quarters of your heart that Matt Smith said that House of the Dragon is coming back in August. Fine. You know, I think that House of the Dragon and NFL season overlapping is not my favorite thing that's ever happened. That's, I think, House of Our Canon at this point.

Yeah. That said, I do think it's a great time of year for us to be in Westeros. So there's a little ringer-wide program. crossover anxiety, just as there was last time, if that ends up being the case. But it sounds like a great way to spend the end of our summer. That's for sure. We were promised early summer, so it's a little bit of a longer wait than we were hoping for, but I'm really, I'm so excited for House of the Dragon teams do. More time to build up the anticipation. There's never a bad time for Talk the Thrones, House of our Deep Dives, all of our House of the Dragon coverage.

It is like my favorite thing that we do. It gives Talk to Thrones more time for us to plan our trip to let it see all the theater. That's something you and Chris and I can put under the Talk the Thrones banner, right? Exactly. Yeah. We will be doing Talk the Thrones for season two of House of the Dragon live from the sets across the globe. That's our current plan. We'll see if we're able to pull it off. We're workshopping it. All right. Echo. Yes. Some quick facts for you. This is five episodes cut down from six, dropped in a full. binge under the Marvel Spotlight banner on both Hulu and Disney Plus. It had a bunch of different people serving in the old Disney Plus Marvel show, quote unquote, showrunner.

Don't call it a showrunner role. But I think the main people we can credit are Marian Dere and director, Sydney Freeland, as sort of our creative team. And then each episode, which is named for one of the women in Echo's lineage in the Echo Lina in the Echo Lina. Each episode, if you look this up on Wikipedia, has like a battalion of writers attached to it. So I think what we can tell from all of that, cut down from six to five, a ton of writers on every episode, is that this is a show that was quite tinkered with. And I think that's something you and I could have figured out just by watching it. But I think what's true as we look at the show is, you know, I just, I just, I do. do. I want to echo what Van said about the fact that, like, it matters to me if this show matters

to someone. Absolutely. That always matters to me. And I think we found things to enjoy about the show. And I think overall, we understand why this is something that maybe Marvel dropped in a hurry because it feels like something's felt a little half-baked or crunched together, that sort of thing. Who knows all the decision-making behind it? But I think what's patently clearly, is that there is an interesting artistic vision here. There's a compelling story to be told. There's some phenomenal supporting cast members, like just absolute legends.

And then, you know, it all got kind of chopped together in a way that doesn't feel quite fluid or quite as strong as, you know, certainly ranks higher for me than Secret Invasion, but, like, you know, is not the strongest Marvel outing. We've seen. So yeah, I mean, that's that's sort of the premise. If you, if you like, I don't know, I think, I think we're having a great discussion about it. We're not going to go, as we're covering five episodes of television, it's not going to be like a beat by beat. Traditional deep dive breakdown, obviously, we would be here all day. But we have some like big topics you kind of want to hit as we go through our experience watching the show. Anything else you want to say on that? I mean, we're going to, I sort of jump the gun on the, you know, the big picture sort of opening snapshot look. Is it? Is it opening snapshot time? Should we? Should we? Should we go right to it? Let's take us into the opening snapshot. All right, quick, quick, quick, quick comics background on Echo, Maya Lopez, relatively recent creation, 1999.

Yeah. David Mack and Joe Kasada during their Daredevil run. David Max, if you want to feel a little joy in your heart about someone who created a character being really excited that their character is getting a TV show, please visit David Max's Twitter. Twitter feed because it's just him being so excited that Echo, this character he helped create is, has her own TV show. And one thing that he pointed out is that, like, in the covers, in the, covers of the issues that he did that had Echo on the cover, they would have Echo spelled out an ASL on the cover of, and then he got, like, excited that they did that in the opening credits of the TV show

as well. And he was just like, whereas, I mean, like, pay your artists. I always, you know. And so the fact that, like, certain Marvel artists are, like, frustrated with the Marvel adaptation of their work, I wholly understand completely. And I believe that everyone, like, David and Joe deserve to be paid for the creation of Echo in perpetuity. Joy, the joy of a creator is something that I just like. Dan Slot is like this whenever, like, a dance slot creation makes it a sway onto the screen, just, like, birming with pride. and enthusiasm for their creation.

So in the comics, Maya Lopez is both deaf and Cheyenne and Latin American. And a series, they have changed this too. She is of Chokhaw origin and extraction. I don't know. I mean, like, the Lopez family name is still there, but we're not exploring any sort of

Latin American side of her lineage at all. So I don't know if that's still a thing even at all. Like Zahn and Chaska, who are playing the Lopez brothers are native. They're not Latino. So, yeah. It's possible that they win this direction with the Choctaw lineage because Al-Alaqwa herself is Mohican and Menominee. And so I was curious why they went with Choctaw, which is neither who Maya is on the page nor who the actress is who they hired.

But what's so clear is that the. The Choctaw Nation was quite eager or at least convinced to significantly collaborate with this production. And I don't know if they sort of went to a couple different nations in the Choctaw was the most enthusiastic to work on it or I don't know what the process was. But at the end of the day, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, the sort of cultural consultancy on this show is so strong. Yes. And the specificity of the Chokhtaw representation is, I think, a huge strength of the show. Yes, absolutely. One of the highlights, certainly.

What do you want to say about Echo's power set in the comics versus, and we'll get into a little more detail later, but like versus what we saw in the show here? Yeah, so this is obviously not our first moment with Myel Lopez. as a character in the MCU because we met Maya in Hawkeye, but inside of these five episodes, we learn a couple things, right? We learn what the MCU origin for the moniker is for Echo, this idea of echoing across generations and the influence and impact and inherited legacy of not only,

from Maya's ancestors of not only the belief in family and protection and community, all of which we'll talk about more, but of this literal power. So the name and the power that Maya is inheriting are connected in the show. We see glimpses across the episodes, and Maya will end up describing this as dreamlike whether or not I'm awake of these key figures

across the ancestry and glimpse the power, right, the glowing, humming orange spiral of energy in the palms. We end up seeing how Maya's mother can use this power to heal. And when it manifests in full for Maya in the finale, we don't still know a ton

about exactly how it works, but we see Maya not only share the power with Trula and Bonnie in the finale fight, but also use the, the ability to access a memory, just as Maya's mother did with her earlier in the show. We see Maya do that with Kingpin. So that's kind of the power set that we're working on

in addition to, obviously, the fighting prowess and expertise. In the comics, that is more of the central focus. The not only supreme ability as an athlete and a fighter and a tactician, but this ability to mirror, right? This ability to see anything that anybody does, which was alluded to, I did think we were going to go more in this direction because that little moment we got in Hawkeye

with the youth flashback, right? And we see the way that Maya is looking at like how the other kid is positioning a foot and everything, right? So it felt like we were heading more in that direction, if not directly to a one-to-one comics, carryover, at least to something that was a little bit more in line with, I see what you do, I learn how to do it. And then Maya in the comic, I echo it.

I echo it, right. And then Maya pairs in the comics that ability to echo the exact movement or expertise or skill of an opponent and then pairs that with the strategic tactical brilliance, right? So, okay, I know that this is what daredevil is going to bring to a fight. Not only am I going to be able to match, but I can account for my opponent's particular abilities. weaknesses and take Daredevil to a place where he will not be able to do the things that could harm me, for example. So it's definitely different from comics to show on the power front, for sure. And I think a credible theory is that because the power set that Echo exhibits in the comics is

very similar to that a taskmaster, who we met in Black Widow, who will return in the Thunderbolt. So, like, I think it's possible that if Testmaster wasn't going to return, like, maybe there was a plan at some point that Maya would have her comics, you know, skill set. And then they're like, we're going to use Taskmaster again. It feels silly to have these two people with these same power sets. So, originally in the comics, Echo is a Daredevil antagonist. And we see, we see Maya fight Daredevil in episode one of this series. and she eventually becomes a love interest. She's also a moonlight love interest for what it's worth.

And in the comics as sort of in the show, she learns the truth about Kingpin, shoots him in the head. And the comics, she blinds him. Here it's like, this was a scratch cornea. Is that what we're dealing with here? I don't know. It's kind of hard to tell. I mean, in the comics, it's both the eyes, blind. Eventually the site is also regained.

and there's like a process of I don't know, I'm not an eyeball reconstruction expert but yeah, I'm sorry to tell you, Joanna, that this is not an area of expertise that I actually possess or bring to the table today. Because the one, so five months pass between

shooting kingpin in the face and like where we pick up the present day plot. So there's some period of time for healing, but yeah, that all happened very quickly. The eye patch does have a little bit of a electronic aspect to it. So my assumption is that, yeah, it is, it is healing or doing something. But we move past that all pretty quickly.

Getting shot in the face, I feel like it should have more of a bearing on people's, I feel very strongly that it shouldn't matter more. This show, we should say, actually, like, pretty kind of mixed positive reviews from critics overall. I think a lot of TV critics that I talked to who really liked the show, the heavy emphasis was on the supporting cast, actors that we know from recent shows like Rutherford Falls and Reservation Dogs, that idea of like, you know, a very specific community, I think, was of interest them.

And that was, to me, the most successful stuff was, like, this community, this family, these actors, you know, fucking Graham Green is here. Like, are you kidding me? like incredible stuff. MVP. It's a little it gets a little

squalid and lost. Scully spin off when? Yeah, when exactly. Just Scully store. It's just day in life of Scully store. Absolutely. 100%. The

young powerful women on a woman on a path of revenge I couldn't help but think of blue eyes samurai a show that I just watched recently that did this like Blue Ice Samurai is a masterpiece and so it's maybe an unfair comparison but there are similarities there

and so it's just sort of like didn't help I think Echo that I just recently watched Blowai Samurai at the end of last year but yeah some of the other stuff and we're going to talk about marble spotlight

and the binge effect and all of that a little more depth pretty soon but I want to so much more for this show. And, you know, I'm disappointed for it, for everyone involved, that we got this end product. How are you feeling, Mallory? Yeah, I'm curious if you think, not that there's much need to linger on the how many episodes critics get and why aspect of things, but in terms of that mixed positive, I'm curious if you think, which direction would things

have shifted if everybody had gotten four and five as well. Because I will say personally four I thought was one of my favorite installments. And then five has like some stuff to like, but a lot of the classic Marvel finale conundrums. And also the what do we mean by Marvel Spotlight question was most keenly felt in the first and fifth episodes where we are stemming from something and then building towards something. But yeah, I'm curious if you think that would have impacted the conversation around it at all or not so much. It's interesting because I was talking to an unnamed colleague of ours who said that they only watched the last episodes of the season based on Jen Cheney from Vulture of New York Magazine. Incredible. Love Jen said those were the two best episodes.

And I was just like, wow, I really disagree that four and five are the two best episodes. I agree with you about four. Tantu Cardinal plays Chula, another legend alongside Graham Green, like, digging, deepening, digging into her character, getting to watch her finally interact with Maya in a significant way. That was really, really powerful to me. I really, really loved that. Yeah, I love that. But the last steps are really swallowed by Dinafria's performance. And so, which on the one hand for, like, you know, Daredevil fans who get, like, thrilled every time. that DeNafrio shows up.

Like, I understand why he's there. Of which I am, I am one. So I'm trying to, I'm parsing the show through a few different lenses. Yes. That's how you're going to react to me saying that. But like, and I love Daredevil. And like when Charlie Cox shows up in the first episode, I was like screaming like a fan girl. Like I love Daredevil.

Dinafrio outside of, like, I didn't love DeNafrio and Hawkeye. and I'm not sure I love Donofrio here. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. And no matter what, he just sort of like sucks the air out of the room of some of the other storylines and relationships that we were like investing in. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. I guess that's, yeah, that's a good segue into my opening snapshot and then we'll dive into some of these elements more.

I'm really mixed on the show. You know, I enjoyed it more as is often the case the second time through because I think the first time, so many of my questions were about like mix, the mix of the elements and how they related to each other and the pacing. I think that I am often, as you know, a proponent of longer seasons. I'm not sure there's ever been a time where I felt as strongly that like things were obviously missing and reordered and condensed in a way that harmed the final product. And not, I don't, we'll talk about the, the binging in a second.

And I actually thought that was maybe beneficial to the show, being able to watch it that way in this case, which will parse. But there are the makings of a really good show in here. That's almost worse than watching Secret Invasion where you're like, I don't see the vision at all. And here you're like, I see the vision. And it's just bogged down, you know? Yeah. And so, you know, look, we're, we spend a lot of our time covering the MCU. We love the MCU.

We're Marvel enthusiasts. Like, I, I'm not going to say because I genuinely don't believe. It's like the MCUification or marvely aspects that, like, hurt the thing. But I think the question of how everything was balanced together and how a character like Kingpin, or who again I love, or in general, I have some notes on the deployment here. or teasing us on something like Daredevil. And all of these different elements are going to connect. And then we're told they don't connect. That's what Spotlight is.

But the first 30 minutes of the first episode are reheated versions with slight amendments or additions of stuff we've seen in another show. That's bizarre. It's so funny. You and I had like the same reaction of the first episode. And I have seen reactions across the Marvel fanosphere, Marvel Critic sphere that they, like, loved the first episode. And I just think that's fascinating to me because I understand we're getting a little bit into something you're talking about later. But like, I understand the bind that Marvel's in in terms of they want to make this show as friendly as possible to anyone who's watching it, which means they want if you just like, oh, what is Echo? I've never.

I didn't watch Hawkeye. I would like to know. So you, and you're not going to watch one of their little, like, mini recap things that they put up on Disney Plus or anything like that. So they feel like they need to do to catch you up. They could have done a really lengthy previously on. I actually probably would have preferred that. But I also talked to some people and they were like, I don't think I would have understood that at all if I hadn't watched Talk Guy. And I'm like, but I think it was four people who hadn't watched Talk Guy.

And so that hybrid, like almost Franken episode feeling. Yeah, exactly. It's a little bit twigs in between and whether it's part of a connected universe or seeking to not only be a standalone product, but also be one of the on-ramp points for this like street-level story era of the MCU, which I'm really looking forward to. I loved the Daredevil Netflix experience. I loved Jessica Jones.

Like I'm eager for more shows like that in the MCU. you. But that, the particular calculus and alchemy was, I think, for us a little bit off in the final execution here. The cast, as you said, the community focus, I think is just sensational and lovely. And I would have happily spent more time with Chula and Scully and obviously Maya and Bonnie, we barely got any time with it all. And Biscuits, who was kind of like in a an instant icon territory to me. Like, I wanted more time with those characters because I thought the performances were extraordinary.

And the really beautifully rendered sense of this family and this community, I thought was wonderful. And, like, we do not get a lot of stories where our lead character is a native, deaf amputee. And, like, that's awesome. And it was wonderful for all three of those aspects. of Maya's character and Maya's life and Maya's reality to be not incidental, right?

Like central aspects of what it meant to be in Maya's world. I thought those were like highly successful elements of the story. And ultimately, candidly, more important and like consequential to get right than the stuff that we bumped on. But I think the fact that those were so successful, that gets back to what you were saying a minute ago. And I agree of like there was something special here. And so it's like you feel a little bit.

We're left, I think, longing for what this could have been. That's the opening snapshot. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need Weather Tech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

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Pick up fees may apply. Let's get into what I'm going to call the medium dive. Yeah. Sometimes one kingpin punch kill somebody, I'd say that's canon. And sometimes you need one wall thrust, one dumpster thrust, and nine subsequent punches to still not kill someone. Which kind of dive will it be today? Let's find out.

I just promised you want to talk about the bench effect and how that impacted our. viewing experience. Mal watched the three critic screeners and then watched the final two when they dropped and then watched it all through again. I watched it all in one go maybe because I forgot to read when our screeners expired. Who could say? But I watched them all in one go when they dropped earlier this week. And I think what's always true of a binge

and Netflix has certainly benefited from this with some of their shows is that a binge watch tends to smooth over patches for viewers. And, you know, even people who are like, you know, critics or podcasters or whatever, if you're just like sort of on to the next one, you don't have a week to marinate in sort of like, well, that was weird that that happened in that episode.

Yes. Theorize and parsing. Yes. Yeah, exactly. We're just sort of like inhaling. Yes. This, I watched it on my Hulu, no ad breaks, but it has ad breaks built into it, these weird little fade to blacks, which Percy Jackson also has. It's an interesting little phenomenon going on right now

where we have like those fate to blacks. But don't feel organic. They feel like they're like within the middle of like a scene. I don't like if you're going to have commercial breaks, that's fine, but can you put them between the scenes? That would, that's my only note. I think it was smart.

Honestly, we were, we were alarmed, I think, when we heard this is going to be a binge drop. Yeah. And not only was it a binge drop, but Marvel moved it off November into a January binge. And if you listen to trial by content, January is traditionally a month of the year where you dump things that you don't have a lot of faith in. So this felt like a double dump, like a binge drop in January is like the least faith that Marvel could have exhibited in this show. I'm not certain that, I mean, like talking to some of my TV critic. friends and they were like mostly alarmed by they were like this isn't the worst marvel show.

So for them to treat it like it's the worst Marvel show. And I was like I think it's that they didn't know how in fact impactfully bad having a week to week on something like Secret Invasion would be for their brand. And I think they moved it off of November because they wanted to get it away from the Marvels to spread it out a bit. And I was actually talking to Arjuna about this a little bit. And it's also this idea of like spread it out on the calendar because we don't know when we're going to like theoretically we're going to get an Agtha show eventually, but we don't know. And there's one live action Marvel movie this year. So maybe it was like to have something on the calendar in 2024, who knows? But like it all smacks of lack of faith. But I do think at the

end of the day, if I had to, you know, in a coldhearted business sense, judge it, I'm. I'm like, this is probably the move. A binge drop was probably the move. January is probably the move, honestly. Yeah. Anything you want to say about that? No, I think I agree. It's difficult for us in this era of phase four into phase five,

MCU fatigue, superhero story fatigue to like separate how a particular thing is marketed and positioned from like decisions that are made about the overall proposition, right? And so I agree with you that this, after watching it, I think a binge was not only appropriate for this, but actually smart. It's a fun show to zip through. I still wish we had gotten a sixth episode instead of five, particularly because, you know, outside of the first meteor episode where, again, a lot of those minutes are going to scenes we've seen before. The episodes are short. We have three of the five episodes. checking in. And this is with previously on, with credits at the opening credit, with the end credits

that are at the 41 minute mark or below that. So we have multiple episodes of actual story in the 30 minute mark of a five episode binge drop. That's just, that's not the TRT there is pretty compact, right? So I wish we had gotten a little bit more. And I think that a, I think that the binge still could have sustained a little bit more. We don't have to go old school Netflix. Like, here's 12 hours that we expect you to watch in one weekend. Though I used to do that. And honestly, I did it happily,

but I'm a glutton and a sociopath. Why do you say used to? As if you haven't like watched full seasons of Doctor Who. True. Multiple seasons of Doctor Who over weekend recently. Like a new Daredevil season would drop. But I would just be like, well,

that's Friday night and Saturday, baby. And I'm hyped. I'm hyped. But the, and I think it is difficult for us. sometimes if we're being frank to separate our like media bubble, Twitter bubble, internet bubble discourse lens from like do people who don't spend all their time on Twitter think?

What does it mean that they have made this a binge drop and moved it to January and done X, Y, say? Maybe. I don't know the extent to which that sparks or triggers alarm bells in, mass across the fandom. I think it's something certainly that people are aware of because it's so different as a model inside of the MCU Disney Plus era. You pair that with like the other aspects of the release, right? The spotlight banner stuff, which we want to talk about next. The TVMA, this is the first MCU story with a TVMA rating. I'm eager to talk about that for a minute. The dual release

on Disney Plus and Hulu, the number of components here that said like this is being brought to you and presented in a different way, it makes you afraid that they're bearing it, that they think it's not good. And it's like, ultimately, there was more here to work, more here to work with than in some other cases. So I hope that that didn't discourage anybody from checking it out. And in general, the last thing I'll say about the binge release is just like,

I'm in favor or trepidation when we see a headline aside. I'm in favor of the MCU experimenting in order to find a more successful way to reach and engage people. You know, if the outcome of something is, hey, it was fun to binge five episodes, then cool. Like, maybe there's something there to mine and work with. Not to get too far in the weeds of, like, strategy,

but it seems odd to me to change, like, five different things because how do you know what's like, you'll be able to track. Science and experimentation work. You're right, Joanna. Yes. You changed one thing. I'm not a scientist, but, like, you'll be able to talk

who watched on Hulu and who watches on Disney. And you'll be able to, no, I'm not. And I'm not something. with sign to myself. I don't know how to reconstruct an eyeball, but I do know a little bit about marketing strategy, and I would say that this is not the way that I would test five different things at once.

But the spotlight effect is really interesting. This is another thing we want to talk about. Make sure we talk about. This is the first, quote, unquote, spotlight project. Frankly, I mean, we're being encouraging of the things that the show got right. And I will agree with you that I

really could have stood one more episode just to give some air to these relationships. Perhaps then the phenomenal actress, Deferi Jacobs could have actually had a plot line as Bonnie. Bonnie most of all, I think, really suffers from the five episodes. Like really bad. And then you see like scenes that are so obviously should have come before that have been pulled through and moved around just to like spread out some character stuff. And just everything, like the stuff that we like, which is the community family stuff, feels like it gets a short shrift. And I'm just like this should have been the whole show, to be honest. It should have just been like her returning home and what that felt like to her

and maybe connecting with her power set, but like not what we got. And like there were moments, I do want to highlight what I liked about the show. There were moments of real frustration for me watching this show. A lot of it had to do with the gap between what I think this show, the heights it could have gone to versus what we got. But someone I think it was just like bad storytelling, bad writing. Like that also exists in the show. And so, you know, the spotlight thing is really interesting to me and the TVMA thing is really interesting to me we think it's I mean

I'll just be extremely blunt I think it's laughable to call this a Marvel Spotlight it's baffling to me to debut this concept I don't understand it I'm completely perplexed by it because the concept of Marvel Spotlight as they themselves have said is like we're supposed to think of this more as like a standalone kind of story

like almost like a one-shot sort of thing. We can disconnect it from Continu. You don't have to have watched this. You don't have to watch everything else in order to understand this, or you don't have to watch this in order to understand everything else. And I think you and I might agree that you could see easily applying that label to Werewolf by Night, which got a different label, which was like special presentation. But Were Wolf by Night is a perfect example of what could be a Marvel Spotlight.

Moon Night, we would argue. You could also get away. If he never came back, you could also call that a Marvel Spotlight if you wanted to. This is baffling to us because the first episode, as you mentioned, has literal scenes from another TV show. Renner is here. Charlie Cox is here. And then Vincent D'Danoffrio is here for so much of the show. And then the mid-credit sequence teases the Daredevil show, which who knows when we're going to get it.

But like, it's a direct- set up for Bornigan. Pitch forward for Darederville and Born again. So calling it a Marvel Spotlight is the only thing I can think of is it's further evidence of them saying, don't hold us to this going forward. Do you know? Like if we decide to binge drop this, bury this in January. And if it doesn't work out, we may never see Echo again.

Everyone's like, these are all the plans for Echo going forward. I'm like, there is a world in which we don't. see Echo again. I'm not saying it's the world that I want, but like, that's something they could do if they decide this didn't work. Do you know? That would be a deeply upsetting outcome, I think. So here, this is, I'll read a passage here from a little website called Marvel.com. Quote, Echo will be the first series under the Marvel Spotlight banner. And head of streaming, Brad Winterbaum said of the Desperts, decision to launch the new battle with Echo.

Quote, Marvel Spotlight gives us a platform to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen. And in the case of Echo, focusing on street-level stakes over larger MCU continuity. Just like comics fans didn't need to read Avengers or

Fantastic Four to enjoy a ghost rider Spotlight comic, our audience doesn't need to have seen other Marvel series to understand what's happening in Maya's story. Now, I think we agree that the fact that they felt a compulsion to insert so much from another show proves that that is not true, that they did not feel confident that people would find the story accessible. That's borne out,

maybe by a little of the anecdotal evidence that you were sharing earlier, right, that people felt like they needed that, which is fine. It wouldn't be the first time in the extreme of the MCU that you needed to have seen something. Now, the fact, so this is again where I'm like a little bit of two minds on this. Stop me if you heard this before. Stop. Yeah. Because I do think that the instinct to create entryways and on ramps for people who have not devoted

the last decade and a half of their life to watching the MCU is not only wise, but frankly, like, gracious and necessary. Yeah, like people, it's become, it has felt, even for people who have seen a lot of the MCU, it's very clear that it feels

prohibitive for some people, right? Like, I can't keep up with this. It's too much. And then there's the sensation that if you haven't seen every single frame of every prior installment, you won't be able to check out something that might genuinely be more interesting to you than the X number of things that came before. So thinking about that, right, and what it means, and we love a connected universe, to be clear, I love a connected universe. This is not an anti-connected universe take.

It's just like being mindful that there are people out there who want to play in the Marvel sandbox and spend time in the MCU, but don't. know how to make that feel feasible is, I think, a good level of awareness to have about the way that the audience feels about the vastness of the thing. This is simply not applicable here, though, right? And it's apparent and the bookend of the start and close of the season. And so what it does, I think, is, and this is unfortunate. And this may be like overstating something that people will, like, move on from in five minutes. It's possible. A lot going on in the world. But you take something that is intended to give people confidence and you undermine

the mission further because it doesn't make sense, right? And so then the next time the Marvel Spotlight Banner is applied to something, people don't know what that means. And so in an effort to address something you have actually exacerbated, I think, a concern. That's unfortunate. I have to wonder if like something like if, if then we get Daredevil Born Again, whenever, again, that happens. And if that's a, if Marvel Spotlight just means Marvel Street Level and Marvel Street Level just means what, like, the Netflix projects used to mean, you know what I mean? Fine.

Then, don't say that this is like akin to not needing to have seen, read any other comics before picking up another issue. Yeah, street level MCU, like, let's go. I'm here for it. I love those characters. In terms of, is this the same or is this not the same, which is a debate we've been having since Hawkeye about, certainly about Vincent Dauphrey, Kingpin.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Stephen Denight, who's the creator of Netflix's Daredevil, Showrunner, at least, he tweeted that in watching the trailers, like, this kingpin and this daredevil are clearly the same as the Netflix versions is something that he said, like, sort of like, no matter what anyone says. And no matter if the hammer is different as it is in this, and no matter if, you know,

Matt's suit is slightly different, like, that, that we're, and I don't know. And I think, I really think what's going on with Marvel. They're being kind of squarely about this. They recently put the Netflix shows on the timeline tab on Disney Plus, not the ABC shows. Aeasy's of Shield, Jomey, keep your fingers crossed. We'll see. But like, the Netflix shows are, they're putting in continuity.

But I think they're sort of like, they're giving it a kind of, kind of. They're like, I feel like they are saying they're in continuity. We're in dialogue with these shows, which were once, by the way, the rejected, like, stepchildren of the MCU. But we're embracing these shows. Kind of. If you never see Danny Rand again, don't come knocking because, like, we're not going to talk about it. Or if we're going to tweak things here and there about what's going on with these characters or where they came from. Yeah.

we reserve the right to do so. But it's kind of the same. Yeah. It's kind of the same. I don't know. I think that's really fascinating. The Matt Murdoch stuff, though, I do want to talk about. Because like I said, I just shrieked like I saw Harry Styles or the Beatles.

Like, that's how I felt when I saw any time I see Charlie Cox show up as Matt Murdoch. Zahn McClarnan, as her father aside, because Zahn is a very important actor to me and I care about him a lot. but I was a little distracted by the like, is this recycled Hawkeye footage or is this new stuff that they shot? This fight was the highlight of episode one for me. And I think that action highlight of the show for me that they just sort of like bloom you. I know there's like a train heist. There's a lot of stuff going on. But this fight between them.

Skate life laser tag fight in episode three. Are you a laser tag officinato, Mallory, Riven? A fission, I don't know. I would say I'm interested in the idea of laser tag. I can't remember the last time I participated in it, but I was like, this looks cool. It's a toss-up between this fight between Matt Murdoch and Maya and Biscuits straight up murdering two vanfuls of people in the finale. I thought that was either one of those two action beats.

That was great. No notes? No notes. No, no. No, I was like, Biscuits is a thinker. I do wish that Biscuits would work harder to make sure that Billy Jack is safe at all times. Like, keeping Billy Jack in the truck while driving toward a tunnel alongside a high-speed moving train. As Maya jumps into and shatters the windshield, I had some notes on.

But in general, Biscuit's willingness to get involved, I was impressed. But he straight up, he put Pilly Jack in the back seat. Is that not? protection enough for a dog. I'm not a dog owner, so I don't know. I did not feel that the pillagack was safe. No. I don't know.

I don't know how to protect a dog. I don't know how to reconstruct an eyeball. And I do not know how to play laser tag, except I assume you just aim and shoot. But this fight, before Matt even gets there, it's they're shooting it as like a pseudo one shot, you know, a digitally assisted one shot,

which is meant to invoke the signature. fights of the of the three seasons of Daredevil. They have a big, long, one or set Pete, the most famous being the first in the hallway, season two, we're in the stairwell,

of Daredevil. The fighting style of Daredevil, who is both a brawler and then just, like, extremely elegant, there's a few of those, like, little twirl jumps,

or, like, when he goes through the gun rack with, like, on, like, toes pointed, just flying through the air, very, comic book accurate. Red and black suit is here.

None of this ugly red and gold suit that we got in She-Hulk. Love everything else about as a appearance of She-Hulk, not the suit. The USC Trojans with the kit coming to the MCU and the She-Hulk. Their double suit, no. I think my favorite move

in the entire season is in this fight when she's sort of like she grasps the ankle of her prosthetic and sort of whips her her leg at Matt. I just thought that, like, in terms of utilizing, as you say, like making every aspect of her, like her, we're inside her head. We understand, like, what the soundscape is like for her.

Or using her prosthetic in the fight in that way. Like, all of that is just sort of like you're watching a very distinctive style of a distinctive physical performance matched with one of our most distinctive fighters elsewhere in the MCU. And that's just, and, you know, they're paired in the comics and all this sort of stuff like that. It's just, that was a real highlight for me. Yes. Again, deeply perplexing on the spotlight continuity front because it feels like such a promise of what is to come in addition to giving us that jolt of daredevil euphoria that we feel when we see.

Charlie Cox on the screen anytime ever. Charlie Cox is just a very special thing in our lives and our hearts and it's always a joy to see him. I, okay, I had again kind of like a dual response to this. I agree with you. I thought the action was really awesome in this sequence. I liked this fight. I liked the Skate Life action sequence in episode three.

I have a couple questions. I'll say a couple of questions. couple more of the things I liked, and then I'll hit my questions. Your note on like the soundscape and sound design, in general, I thought was just really awesome and fascinating and compelling, but the way that that manifests during a action sequence where suddenly the sound is sucked out of the moment and we hear the heartbeat, right? Like those are incredibly immersive elements of the action execution and in general, like the soundscape of the story. So I thought, all of that was awesome. Obviously, it's a thrill to see Daredevil always. Two things. Okay. One, the Daredevil Kingpin of it all. We'll talk more about Kingpin specifically, obviously, in a minute here, but we're at No Way Home,

She-Hulk, Hawkeye, Echo, where we're getting like glimpses, little promises, little moments, and amuse-bush, an appetizer. I love a tease. I love a setup. I love a glimpse. I'm officially losing my patience. And so I actually was like, to me it was weirdly.

And I'm so much an easy. As you know, I'm like such an easy mark for any kind of like cameo. I was surprised that when I saw Daredevil, I think it was actually more when he didn't come back, honestly. It was less the reaction in the moment. I'm more like, wait, it was just to give us Daredevil once. It was just to say Daredevil once. say Daredevil was there. Like, right?

Just to say, there he was. You got your Daredevil action sequence. And I'm like, okay, I guess. I sort of chortle to myself about this. Because, like, I remember when the Netflix shows came out and Marvel refused to acknowledge their existence. Yeah. Marvel was like, we're not going to talk about the Netflix shows at like Marvel MCU,

Marvel Studios, was like, we're not going to talk about the Netflix shows because that's a different thing entirely. And then the Netflix shows. had to talk about the Marvel movies in a weird way where they're like the big green guy or like whatever. It was like a really weird relationship. The fact that they have gone from the like rejected stepchildren of the MCU to Charlie Cox is like shiny starry gloss that they're putting. They're like, oh, we drop. You know, it's like when Downey or Evans show up in the first Spider-Man movie, you know what I mean? it's just sort of like we've we put uh someone from varsity is here to add legitimacy to this

show it shouldn't need it but like you know in in their minds they think that they need they need that and i just love that like charlie cox has gone from like jv to varsity but like so much and and and hawkie too renner like was was like a jvanger essentially you know and it's just like the power dynamics, you know, not to quote the rock, you know what I mean, but like the hierarchy of power has changed the MCU. I rewatched Hawkeye before watching Echo. That was a really charming show until the very end. And even at the end, there was a still just a boy, I loved my time with Lucky the Pizza Talker. I wanted to a Kazi update. I was looking for a Kazi update across Echo. I want to know if Kazi survived his gastrointestinal mauling.

Speaking of mauling, can I ask you about the TVMA? Bullets bury a grayed corneous. Also, you know, a bullet through the side, you find some dental floss, and eventually you find a mortician and you're good. And a mob doctor? Yeah, you're fine. TVMA, Joe. Yes. Yeah.

there are some violent moments in the fight. The, the, I actually wrote down. Let me find it. Yes, the captioning during the first kill in that first fight is spine shatters. Like, I don't want to apply. Crunchily. Yes, exactly. If we were doing that, it would be spine shatters crunchily.

Like, there are violent moments. We've got some head bashing. There's a kick, sliced neck moment later. Did this feel like it needed to be TVMA to you? I did not think that this was violent enough. Like, this is, I'm not saying it needed to be the Punisher, but I'm surprised that it got this label. I guess that's the product of the Disney orbit and, like, wanting to make sure the people

who are expecting something that is really family-friendly aren't outraged. But if you're going to put TVMA on something, I think we could have gone a little bit further. I don't mean to sound deranged, but I was a little bit puzzled by that. It didn't feel like it met that label. When the hapless roller rink employee

looks like a bartender I once dated. Oh, interesting. When Victor Vicki Tyson gets shot, and gurgles his blood over his own eyeballs. And it's just sort of like dangling over the side and we get the upside down view of his like bloody head. That feels TVMA to me. Yeah. Okay.

That was in the specific shot was in like the coming this season trailer. I'm like if we can put it in the coming this season trailer, it doesn't need to be TVMA. I don't know. In general, I think people are too skirmish about sex and violence. but, you know, if it's Disney, I understand, I guess. Yeah, okay. Fair enough. I largely, I don't disagree with you.

But I sort of see, I don't know, there's a lot of questions about the show. And perhaps there was an even more violent version of it that existed once. I used to say, King Pit. Yes. Addition or distraction. Okay. Sprinkle throughout the via flashback, but they're full force in the final two episodes. As you mentioned, if you got the critic,

screeners, the end of episode three is a real like, da, da, da, Da, Kingpin is here, sort of thing. There is some rich thematic stuff at play here in terms of like why Maya is so important to him. The flashback specifically, as you mentioned, when he has to brutally throw the ice cream guy across the dumpster a few times and wants to change his pristine white, now blood spattered jacket so that Maya doesn't have to see it. she comes and literally grasps his bloody hands like kicking the ice cream vendor great moment very

special very special little girl um love that makes her like an irresistible prize for him right he's like here's someone who sees me and accepts all of me is like me steve arino we haven't steve on an episode so long steve's here steve erino will you play this clip for me please i keep this with me. It's to remind myself of where I come from and what I had to do to get there. It's something that I want to pass on to you. My father felt stronger when he beat my mother until I got strong enough to stop him with that. I killed him to be free to move forward in life. So enough games. Here, free yourself. Go ahead. Free me. This is a show that is so much about family, obviously, dual identity, legacy. What do you do with the strengths you have in Kingpin's

mind here? He's talking, he's talking about the hammer that he used to kill his dad and all this and stuff like that. This is the legacy of violence that he wants and brutality that he wants to hand down to Maya and then later we'll talk about the legacy that the women in her family want to hand down to her. And especially, especially, it's not just a gendered thing because both in the flashback, her father, by flashback, we literally seen from Hawkeye, her father, and her uncle, his brother, Henry, are just sort of like, don't be like, um, don't be like, um, us, we want something different for you, right?

We're connected to Fisk. We are in the world of crime, but we want something different for you. This is not the legacy we want for you. Kingpin's like, this is a legacy I want for you. This is like, be my right hand, like be with me, be my daughter, be my family. You and I are the same. We only have each other. A real gaslight isolate, a culty vibe from Tampin where he's just like, it's just you

and me. No one else is like us. No one else understands us. against the world, like all this sort of stuff. Yes. So my question to you, Mallory, is like, would you let Kingpin gaslight you if it meant you got some Levine cookies while he did it? I would have consumed the wine.

I will say that. I don't think I would have poured the wine. I'm like, you know what? They're here. They found me. If they're going to kill me, they're going to kill me. I might as well enjoy a lovely vintage, you know? Why a depressing?

myself truly I would do a lot for delicious baked goods. You know this about me. It's something I know and have to acknowledge about myself. But I don't think I would sit down to Sunday dinner on a Thursday

with the man that I knew had killed my father. I don't think I would do it. No. Yeah. How about you? Yeah, it's a bridge too far, probably for me. I'd be like,

Moller's like, I could goldbelly my own living cookies. Yeah, exactly. But cookies aside. Yeah. So I have a lot of thoughts on this. I'll answer your initial prompt and then some of the sub prompts here. Addition or distraction to your question? I'll say addition. I think I'm higher on the Kingpin execution. Part of it is because I'm just, I think, so in the bag for Kingpin as a character. And I love Vincent Anoffier's performance. I said this many times before, but in the pre, this stuff has made its way onto your Disney plus Carousel era, anytime we would all, like, say, if you could bring three characters

from the Netflix shows into the MCU, who'd you, it's like the easiest. Kingpin and Daredevil. Let's start there. My three, I think we're always Kingpin, Daredevil, and Jessica Jones. I love Luke Cage. I love, obviously, I mean, it's always tenant season here at House of Art. So if we could get a little bit of Gilgrave in the mix, I'm not going to see. I said no, but I just...

For a couple of years there, you were like, number one, Danny Rand. I remember that really distinctly. You were like, Iron Fiss first. That is a filthy lie. That's my memory. I don't know. My memory's pretty airtight, so... So, like...

I'm delighted. You're wearing your Iron Fiss shirt right now to this recording. I'm wearing a Carhart shirt. You're right. It's a classic. Friday. As most stringer versus stew on most pots, no. It's actually not a Henley, you're right?

It's been a while since you've seen me in something other than a Henley. I'm mixing it up, mixing it up today. So I'm glad to have Kingpin in the MCU. Like, kind of full stop. Now, let's move from full stop into nuance. I think that the MCU is still trying to crack how to do Kingpin right. And that feels true to me. So I know I joked about this before and I actually try like not to get too hung up on stuff like this generally. But I did think it was bizarre that it took

11 wallups to still not bludgeon a guy to death. I'm like, this is actually odd to me. In terms of the balance of how Kingpin is used in the story and whether that feels. feels right or wrong? The balance question I'm with you on. The moment when Kingpin finds Chula on the mail route

and she says my granddaughter, right? And he says, tell me about her. The look on his face, I like felt a full body chill. And I'm just like, I... Oh, that was a great interaction. Yeah. I agree. I really... This performance and this character

I really like spending time with Kingpin and Stories. So I am excited to get more Kingpin moving forward. I'm not sure if you've heard on local news by you, but the people of New York are looking for a bare-knuckle brawler, Joanna, to lead them. I wonder how that will bear out. Mayor Fiske, here we go. In terms of the actual...

I'm just thinking about America's mayor, Rudy Giuliani. I was just talking with Rob Honey about... on our Fargo pot. Dude, Fargo rules. Isn't Fargo so good? Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

But I was just like, I was like, how would Rudy Giuliani do in a primary against Wilson Fisk? Wow. And I would watch it. Well, one day, if we ever get Daredevil born again, you will have an opportunity to parse that hypothetical. I don't know that Rudy will be there, though. I don't know. But yeah. So, okay.

In terms of the actual deployment inside of the story and how. Kingpin and Maya function together as a pair. What I love about it thematically is that they are both characters defined individually and together by contradiction. So the same alley fight that I just critiqued from the like, are we adhering to the comics power scale or Spider-verse power scale where one wall up kills Peter Parker? Let's put a pin in that for a second. A moment like that captures successfully to me the dissonance that makes Wilson Fisk an interesting character.

The fact that he is driven to that level of savagery because he's a family man. Because he sees that guy treating Maya like shit and it actually does break his heart. Now, when he later deploys the I always loved you like a daughter to, like you said, gaslight, isolate and manipulate her, that's what makes it fascinating to me. I like that aspect of their relationship. And I think particularly because those contradictions are then present in Maya. So one of the moments that's pulled directly from Hawkeye

is the William, you have to learn to jump between two worlds. Quote, it's a longer scene in Hawkeye. We get a reminder of it here because that aspect of two worlds for Maya is very central to the focus of this series. Fisk or family? right when she called him out on not even care like you gave you stuck this contact in my eye and you put that bud in your ear to pretend that it was so we could communicate when you can't even be fucking bothered to learn ASL and then also it was a tracking device took a little too long to take the contact out and throw it in the trash can took a little too long to do that yes and

juxtapose that against Meyer returning to Oklahoma. Two decades have passed. And every single member of her family still remembers how to sign. Every single member of her family still knows how to communicate with her. What's interesting to me about that, yes, I love that contrast so much. What's interesting to me about that is that, so Toloa, her mom is also deaf. And then in the the description of Bonnie, so presumably a storyline that we would have seen if it hadn't been cut, Bonnie's described as a child of death adults, so CODA. It's not just like Maya, her mom and presumably her aunt, I suppose. Like this is like a thing that's in the family.

And so it's not just for Maya. There is that actual line that Chula has to Kingpin where she says it was like, she learned it for her daughter and now she keeps it going for her granddaughter. So, like, they make it seem, but yes, yes. Yeah. The fact that Scully still knows how to sign I'll say, I'll say it's like, you know, whatever. Point to one thing that's not great about Scully. I'll wait.

There's not a single thing that we can point to. Oh, wait. If he wants to, like, slink up to me at the counter of his store and try to, like, seduce me openly. Oh, my God. In the, I don't know, Wednesday afternoon. Go away. We're closed. You're not closed.

You're napping. old Billy Goat Chula as radiant as the sun shouting, shining out of my just no notes. A delight. End to end. Here's where my like truly most cynical nature comes in. They did make it a story point. To me, it feels very obvious that Vincent Donofrio refused or was not good at learning ASL. Because there are so many workarounds for him not learning ASL.

there's the translator in the in the background there's this like yeah just like you walk toward and into a hallway draped in plastic tarps a plastic a dexter hallway when I go down the dexter hallway pop into the powder room instead actually probably right with you actually can't eat the bathroom before I go what might be true is that kingpin's hallway is always dexterized because you never know I like this I like this so they're going to shoot in that hallway yeah I like this. And she's like, I never thought it would be me. Couldn't it be me. I am very useful. I go out this way every day. Okay. Yeah. It just seemed to me like Vizantafri didn't want to learn ASL and so they had to work around that. And like the computer programmer was just really astonishingly, I thought it was ridiculous. But they did make it, they wove it into making it a plot point and that was as best they could do with that situation. You have that larger two worlds question for Maya, but also that

contrast that is on offer, right? Like we think back to another Hawkeye scene because this is not actually a sensible inclusion in the Marvel Spotlight banner to Clint pulling off the Ronan hood showing Maya, I want you to know actually that it's me and saying we're weapons, but when you're filled with rage, it makes you blind, you can be used, can be manipulated. Trust me, I know. Okay, weapon versus protector. No path is a pure and violence free one for Maya, right? But it's a matter of positioning. You have like the lovely sequence in the finale opening flashback with young Maya and her mother and the woodpecker and her mother saying, we don't harm living things. Now, I think that Maya will always be a character in the Marvel universe who is capable of extreme violence,

but how is it channeled and toward what end, right? And so her mother in their, I thought genuinely beautiful and moving finale scene that was just absolutely lovely. They were the protectors of their people. Speaking of the ancestors, they fought for their family, now it's your turn. And Maya is saying all I bring is danger. I have to leave. and her mother saying, don't run, stay, fight for us, not only embracing that legacy of protection,

but learning to re-contextualize how you see yourself and what you think you've been made to be. Like the idea that your skills can be used to help other people, not just harm other people, and that that is part of the choice between Fisk and your family, I thought was a really interesting central tension for Maya. The stuff with her mom at the end there, it did really get to me.

It's funny, I was talking to some people I am friends with who were like really down on the series and they were like, they were rolling there. I was like, that got me. And they were like, we thought it was really cheesy. And I was like, oh, man, it really got me. But when she says, mom stuff gets to me though, but like when she says right after that part that you mentioned, when she says, remember your gifts, strategy, cunning, ferocity, love, all of that is infused in this.

Like, speaking of the suit that she was made for her, every scene of the suit shows that you're part of us and we're part of you. I love you always. That idea of like, yeah, fight, protect family. In the words of our Lord and Savior, Vend Diesel, right? Like both Fisk and these like women and her family are like family protection. But like family protection for Wilson Fisk means blood drenched, disproportionate violence, like all this sort of stuff like that. And when when Maya's mother repositions it as these are your gifts and your gifts are not violence, death, destruction, blah, blah, it's strategy, cunning, ferocity, love.

Let me just like shift the lens of what you think you are. You think you're a weapon. You think you're the danger. You're not. You're the protector. I mean, I just thought that that was really beautiful. And like thinking about that, when you have that hanging over, the sequence when Maya at the end walks into the powwow and with all the women around her in their regalia and she's in her regalia and she's her, the beat of her heart sings up with the beat of the drum of her people.

And she's just looking, looking, looking for the danger. She's just like she's, I mean, obviously that's why she's there, blah, blah, blah. But it's just like the visual of that of her like in perfect step with the women around her, with the people around her. The drums are going. And she's just on the watch for who is going to harm my family, my immediate family, but also my larger family of this Choctaw, like, gathering. I thought was a really beautiful part of an episode of television that I didn't think worked tremendously well. Okay. In addition to her mom, let's talk about the family community step because we agree.

We're completely on the same page that this is the strongest, other than Bonnie, which we're going to talk about a second. This is like the strongest part of the whole thing. Graham Green and Tatu Cardinal are just like legendary performers. Unbelievable. Who have taken this assignment incredibly seriously and are just like we're, we don't know how to do anything other than bring our A game. So that's what we have brought to this property here.

We are here to tell you how we feel. But to have those legends, those acting legends, mixed in with like up and coming talent like Devery Jacobs, who is incredible on reservation dogs. Like absolutely stand out on reservation dogs. I was so excited when she was Kasten's project. Did not bear all the fruit that I wanted to, but like, you know, that she's here.

This is it. Let's start with your guy biscuits, though, because Cody Lightning, by the way, incredible name, Cody Lightning, who was in smoke signals, an incredible, incredible, incredible film from the 90s that I love. Fortunately's to the win, another great film from like the early odds that I really love, was like a kid actor. So like hasn't had like a major adult role outside of this.

And so like I love that he's here. He's here for comic relief, obviously. Here to maybe be a questionable dog owner. That's all part of it. I have this conspiracy theory. I'm not sure it really bears fruit. But I have this conspiracy theory that, like, he was added or amplified or something like that to lighten the tone of the project. I don't think he was, like, added whole cloth.

But there's that really, you and I both clocked it and I talked to a couple other people who clocked it. There's this really weird 80-yard line at the beginning of the very first flashback with Bonnie and Maya are doing, like, the shadow puppets in the, you know, they're camping out. And as they're leaving, Chula says, Biscuits will be saddened and get dead. didn't get to camp with the girls. It's 80 yard. And at this point, we've heard, like, there's already a line about, like, Biscuit's parents that already happened, but we have no idea. We're like, what, what? What was that line? Why was it there? And I was like, is it because they added the character of Biscuits later? I don't think they did, but there are all those, like, the weird walkie, there's like a lot of walkie moments with Biscuits that you could have added

later. There's like the weird, his friend, like the side biscuit plots. It feels like, here's what I'll just say. If Bonnie got most of her plot cut out, which is what it feels like, they're like, let's not touch a hair on anything that Biscuits does. So we'll do like his whole side quest to get the truck, which matters in the payoff and the finale. But like, we're going to spend time with that. The previous shopping list, the, you need to camera the size of the homing purse. Yeah. Like all that stuff. I mean, it's delightful. And I'm glad to hear. But it was like, it felt the, the equation felt slightly off balance. Yeah. If that makes sense. Yeah, and I think especially because Bonnie is positioned as the one who has this

connection. Deep connection with Maya. You know, we have that lovely little moment where we get to see them as children. And Maya says their sisters and by more cousins, we're sisters, like the depth of that love and devotion, the way that they both cry for each other when it's time for William to take Maya out of town. Even the moment where like the card that Maya hands to William and the high. hospital bed. At first I thought, oh, my God, this is going to be for her mother. And it was for Bonnie. And like, it was just, I don't know, really, really touching and sweet. And then when Bim Biscuits first shows up, thinking that there's a squatter at the house, which was

very funny, I was like, wait, who is this? And then tracked the mention on my second watch from that, that fire scene, very strange. I'm interested to know more about the, the whole family unit and the deep passion for peaches. That was wonderful to hear. Here's what I'd like to say about biscuits. We already talked about Billy Jack. I'd like biscuits to focus a little bit more on the welfare of his beloved pet, but to biscuits's credit, Maya came back to town. Yes, he has questions. Of course. It's been a while. She's like, tell no one I'm here. Also, can you? please get all of these supplies for me that are clearly going to be put toward nefarious use. You can have dinner with Chula until you're 60. I need you on this mission. I have given you

no advanced intel, but I have taken your phone and added tracking software to it. Please follow me in the truck that you said you're not comfortable driving into a high speed chase from an action blockbuster, and he's there for all of it. But here's the real, real service the biscuits provides. He shows up with snacks.

He has, in his hands, Joanna, fucking onions, Doritos, Pop-Tarts. If I found my way to a long-lost relative or friend, and I needed a sign

that they understood something foundational about who I am and what I need to feel okay, it would be receiving a bag of funions from that person. Seriously. Can I say what's funny is that what's on Maya shopping list is like all this spy shit and the bottom it just says Vienna sausages? Like she thought she could just live on Vienna sausages and he's like, no girl. Yeah, no, you need the sustenance of a Dorino. You need a pop tart. Love a pop tart. You need to keep the sugar levels up. Bonnie, I don't know what else to say about this. And like, guess a frustrating thing about by the time we get to Bonnie, we're, what's, okay, what's potentially

interesting about Bonnie is that, and this is, this is the hints of the better show that I feel like we didn't get, echo shows up and she gets, she accuses Henry, we'll talk about in a second, she accuses Henry, her uncle on her father's side of abandoning her in New York. You weren't there for me, you chose yourself, blah, blah. And she says a very similar thing to Chula, right? Like, you chose, in your grief, you chose yourself over me, your granddaughter. And earns concessions from both of them eventually, where Henry says that he was scared, didn't want to lose people.

Why do you think I'm alone? And Shula says, you remind me, yes, too much of your mother. Yes. Bonnie comes in and she's like, you abandoned me. Yes. I said you messed up the house texts. I was there for you and your father guys. You're accusing everyone of abandoning you.

You abandoned me. Yes. I was trying to hold on. We were sisters. I was trying to stay connected to you. You, like, refuse that. By the way, if my cousin, who I was like BFF to the point of her sisters, leaves out here for them in 20 years, I don't know.

Like, everyone's like, 20 years is a long time. Everyone's like, Maya's in town. We haven't seen her in 20 years. Maya's here. I'm like, that feels like it's been five years. That's how they're treating Maya coming back. Anyway, Biscuit's recognizing her is, though she looked, a lot of Cox looks like the actress was playing the younger version of her

because it's like her cousin or whatever. But the Bonnie, so the Bonnie's stuff should have been really good. Yeah, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially since Devery Jacobs is such a talented actor. And it just feels really inert. And I don't know if that's a function of it being inside of that roller rink kidnapping plot or like why it felt the way that it felt.

And then it just felt like, and then she, Bonnie shows up to be a hostage in the finale. And that's like the extent of Bonnie. Bonnie is twice a hostage. Bonnie is a state life hostage and a kingpin finale hostage. Yeah. That was a bummer. And so because it doesn't work as well as I think it should, then it feels like is we just get three conversations in a row with family members of you abandoned me,

you didn't choose. It just feels then repetitive instead of sort of narratively rich. And that was. That's a bummer. I like, you're, you're pinging something here that is interesting to me, which is like, again, to get back to that idea of contradictions, I like conceptually that Maya is so wounded, as you're outlining, by the people who she felt abandoned her, and then becomes that for somebody else. And then even in a moment where she is confronted with that directly is her instinct is to go, because again, as we talked about earlier, she's worried that she is going to bring harm. upon them is the danger, but also just that their lives are not shared anymore, right? This is not where I belong.

Queenpin is something I need to pursue. We're in different worlds. There are two worlds, right? And I don't know how to move between them anymore, actually. And I don't know if I want to figure it out. So conceptually, that's interesting, to not get the time to really, because we have so much focus devoted to that first aspect of feeling like you weren't there for me when I needed you, you kind of need the other side of that to carry equal weight, right?

For those moments with Bonnie to be as central and for Maya to have to confront. Because like what she says to Kingpin, right, she calls him a monster. He's like, you knew what you were a part of at every turn, right? And then she, so he's challenging her and then she challenges back to say, like, you isolated me. You lied to me. You told me that you were the only person that I could. could trust. You created a fiction for me where I thought my life had to only be about you. Again, Kazi Aracier, but let's still, I guess that's all part of the kingpin track suit empire.

So we'll table that. We'll put a bit in that. For somebody to say that to Maya, like, I tried to be there for you, but also I needed you to be there for me and you weren't is really interesting. And I wonder how much more emotionally impactful that tension in particular would have felt if we had gotten the Bonnie dynamic and equal balance. It would have gone a long way, I think. It's really a shame. Yeah. Uncle Henry. Mallory had to endure several texts for me.

Endor. I loved them. Send more. Just wanted to talk to you about how incredibly. I know you said we're not going beat by beat deep dive, but we are doing that on the scene where Uncle Henry answers. the telephone and a towel, right? This actor, who you may know from Twilight or better yet the English, who is so incredibly good looking, the English is just like out of control.

I haven't had a pleasure. The smolder on him in the English is just like absolutely out of control. And so the fact that they're like, yeah, we're going to put him in a towel. I was like, I understand why you did that. did it for me and I appreciate you. I like, I would have, I could have happily taken more of Zahn

as her father. Again, Zon is like one of my favorite actors currently working. And so like, time of the first episode and to film additional season of the first episode was a delight. I could have stood many, many more flashbacks with him.

We're getting flashbacks throughout the whole series. Why not have more of, more with William? Yeah, exactly. But Henry being there, Including seeing William and Henry. Exactly. I would have loved.

I would love that too. To see them, to have Henry there, though, as a connection to her father and an organic familial connection to Fisk, right? Like, he's still in the organization, so he's still, like, kind of connected. I think it was really smart storytelling and it worked pretty well for me. All the Henry stuff worked pretty well for me. But again, I might have been blind by science. It's possible that I was just sort of like in a haze whenever I just. saw like heard choir singing anytime he showed up but um yeah i think i know biscus was the comic relief

but i do want to shout out after zane receives the new york musical accompaniment phone call from kingpin calling off the execution and mya's like what the hell just happened and henry's reply is which part the part where we were kidnapped by the guy who cleans my skates The In a New York Minute, the in a New York Minute ringtone for Kingpin made me think of Percy Jackson. We were talking about like what other songs Lynn could have been singing in the elevator. I was like, in a New York Minute is definitely one of them. By the way, just a quick, this is not necessarily a logical place to do this, but we are talking about a music thing. The music in this show was beautiful.

Dave Porter. It's Dave Porter who did all the score for Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul because the head writer on the show is. a Better Callsall head writer. So she got Dave Porter who was like one of the all time TV scores. The Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul like scores are one of the best of all time. And he's like, no one does a better job of like, he doesn't do themes the way that we talk about with like Jekino or Ramin Javati. So you're not like, oh, here's this character's theme coming up.

But in terms of like precise mood setting. Yes, absolutely. Dave Porter is the king of that. So good. Yeah. I was so excited when I saw his name. It's like it was a triple musical achievement because the tone and like you're saying mood setting, I think is exactly the way to capture of the score. Wonderful. You have the injections of pop and needle drops in like skate life. You know, you're getting centerfold. Centerfold. One of my greatest jams of all the time. We got Casey and Jojo all my life in here and I was ported back to middle school in the most powerful way imaginable wild times. But then you also have these beautiful, we, I was Googling because, of course,

I was not familiar with, say, when we remained by Samantha Crane, this gorgeous native song. And so, like, to have all of these different musical elements was just really enriched the overall. And Allison Krause is also here. We're going down to the road of Frey. Okay.

That was, that was also. Yeah. Gorgeous, the accompaniment there. Yeah, music was great. Sorry, back to Henry. No, let's roll out to Scully. in terms of like needing to figure out family dynamics when you're like, who the fuck is biscuits?

I was like, it took me a minute to realize that Scully is not her actual grandfather, but just Chula's ex-boyfriend, essentially. Someone Chula was dating when her mom got in that accident. But family can mean all kinds of different things. But he says something like, I don't get involved in family business because like since I'm not seeing your grandmother anymore.

So this is like, he was a grandfather type figure to her 20 years ago, but I guess there still have that connection. Again, he's delightful, wonderful. And he gets, you know, to your point about like every aspect of Maya is a part of her in this story, she gets her prosthetic caught in the train coupling and it's, you know, wrenched and destroyed. and she has to get a new one and Scully

in his junk shop makes her this like first a junkie but then eventually like a top tier quality prosthetic I do like, we talked about this a lot when we talked about Miss Marvel,

Kamala and like her getting her costume from like you know where the bangle comes from where the various aspects of her you know where the red sash comes from where all the various aspects of her costume come from and how they connect to her family and to her culture, et cetera. So we'll talk about Chula and that outfit in a little bit, but the fact that her

prosthetic here comes from Scully. And I love what he says. I love what he says here. Steve, can me listen to this clip, please? Hello. You live in New York. You represent your people. that means

Chakta Tushka is on the scene but if you don't like it I could paint it matte black

I love that extreme so much because it's like you know because he has put this this embellishment on the front this gold embellishment And she has this fun joke in return. It really pains me that I can't clip things that Maya have said and include them in here. But, like, she has this funny retort about how she'll just, like, pull her pants, like, down over it.

So, like, don't worry about it. But, yeah, so he's given her this, like, flashy gold, you know, embellishment to put on the front of it. And he's like, you know, you're representing. You're a chucked-a-warier. It's part of who you are. You're representing. Be proud of who you are. but that little joke about like Matt Black

and it's just like and the next shot of her I think is on the bike and you're just like her helmet is this like the maddest blackest thing one could possibly ever happen. She does say she likes a simpler look but then at the end there it is you know proudly displayed so that was awesome.

I thought that Scully was sensational the humor, the charm there's that aspect of like it tells us a lot that we see multiple characters go to him in a moment of need right Maya for the repair, biscuit when he's trying to find something now there's like an actual like well you have the stuff I need in your store you have a repair shop here you actually probably can solve this from me but also it tells us something bigger than that

which is like they know he's a person they can rely on to help and not judge which feels like very palpable the we get a couple scenes with scully and chula and those were some of the moments where I most powerfully felt a desire for a longer show. with more to be in this world. Yes. Even in, I mean, the Bonnie thing is I think in terms of like the practical implications for the plot in Maya's arc maybe where we feel that most keenly. But this was just where when she comes for the sewing machine and they, the way that they are looking at each other, like when you have a moment where you achieve

something in a story where you can sense an entire shared history between two people and a look, it's a hard thing to do. And, you know, how much do I owe you nothing? just promise me you'll come back once in a while. Like, I found myself yearning desperately for more time with them. It was just, it's two titanically talented performers sharing a beautiful moment. I just wanted more. It was so lovely. And it takes people as good as they are to, because what happens in the scene when she's like,

she comes in and she's like, you may not remember, but, you know, and so you know immediately he still has that sewing machine. Like, you know immediately that he does. Of course he does. Put a little blanket on it, cleaned it, oiled? The way he talks about how he cleaned it and oiled it and put a little blanket on it for her, though her reaction, I knew you'd come back for it, meaning I knew you'd come back for me, like all this sort of stuff like that.

Like, it's just, I just had to wait. Like, it's just, yeah, I could be above. And then there's just like little funny moments where when she goes to sit down and she's like, you sit over there. He's like, you know that old chair hurts my back. Like all of like those little. Small exchanges are just like so sweet and wonderful. The sewing machine scene, though, is one of the best indicators of this show being chopped together because it is pulled into the finale, even though it makes no sense because the costume's already done.

So why would she go at the end to get the sewing machine when she's already made the costume? So it's clearly pulled forward. Without it there, there's no Graham Green in the finale at all. Right. So I'm glad that it's there. And Scully's not even invited to the barbecue at the end. What's that about? Henry's there.

One of those nasty Lopez brothers is there. Chula hates the Lopez's. He's there. But Scully's not invited to the barbecue. Are you kidding me? I like to think he was invited and just had stuff going on. Or he was just running late. He was going to show up.

He made something. He was like making some delicious fry bread or something like that. He was just like slaving over something to impress. Chula with and he's like It's unthinkable that he wasn't invited. I can't bear it. Absolutely. Chula, last and not, certainly not least.

The icon. I think I think without question for me, the funniest moment of the entire show is Biscuits driving slowly by and his truck and the look on his face and the look on her face. It's just like 10 out of 10, no notes.

Tanti Cardinal in the fourth episode when she is explaining when we get the final sort of like in the lineage flashback of the birth of Maya's mother and she's explaining what happened. This is the one I am most aggravated. I could not clip for you all because she goes in and out of talking about it and then silent ASL and I couldn't I couldn't get a clip to capture this moment. So just remember it fondly as we're talking about it. I found it just absolutely gorgeous.

Talking about leaving the hospital to be with her sisters, talking about they're not always there, meaning the ancestors, but they're there when you need them most. And talking about her grief, the indescribable connection between mother and child, her grief. And again, it is a shattered moment. The shattered. and also the sign for child so she's just cradling.

You know, it's just like so upsetting. It's a great, it's a well-written scene. It's well-performed. And it smoothed over one of my bigger frustrations leading up to it is I was like, what grandmother on earth? I understand her being angry at William. I agree with this strongly. But lumping her granddaughter into that anger was so baffling to me.

I was like, I can understand her. I can understand the opposite. reaction of her or being like you get out of town you never talk to us again yeah this is my granddaughter it's my mother this is my daughter's daughter she is mine she you're you know yeah fighting her blaming william the way she does but like but she's just like get the fuck out of here and take this child with you and then and then and then my is back in town and she's like she's got a corrupt biscuits like she's so and the the turn she takes is so yes rapid it's so confusing again This just all would have benefited for more time.

For sure. I don't understand a person who would, a grandmother who would push their granddaughter away under those circumstances until she sold it to me in this scene. And then I was sort of like, maybe I do believe. I don't know. I had a very similar journey. I actually like paused a couple times to ask Adam if I had like missed something about why Trula was not. had cut Maya. The William thing was established in the hospital.

Sure. But what had happened there with Maya? And, you know, it's ultimately like a line in a half. I couldn't bear to be around you. You're so much alike. But it was such a magnetically, like, captivating, and emotionally revealing moment. and to go right from that into,

I think the generations are echoing, reaching out to us at the time when we need them the most. I love that you called out the not always. Like that line I could hardly say they were always with me really struck me and all of this is in rapid succession here. But it gives us that it's not an excuse. I think Chula is made to feel ashamed. And Maya ultimately like charges out of there, right?

I don't want your cookie. I don't want your pop. Stop pretending things are okay. And like the explanation that I reminded you of the person who I also lost and was grieving and mourning and was never whole again without is not okay. Right? Yeah. But when we hear Chula explain the way that the presence of the past is this boon and this guide and this force of might and protection and ability and achievement in moments of need while also ignited. the moments of absence was such an effective way to grip us.

I had the same questions leading up to that scene, though, definitely. As I said, we're going in and out of spoken dialogue versus sort of whispered signing and then sometimes no aspiration at all, just signing in these exchanges. So I want to talk a little bit about telling a story through ASL or through the silences occasionally for Maya. It's not easy to do, obviously. Like, you know, it's a challenge, especially, I would say, especially the way that people watch TV now, which is that they often second screen things. So, like, you can't really second screen this show because- I love that about it. Yeah, if you look down, you're missing huge chunks of dialogue.

Your attention is required, and it should be. I think it should be for everything. Exactly. That's what I mean. Like, it's, I like people having to put their phones down. People are hard to make this stuff. It has been done before very effectively in things, Coda, a film that I love. Or just movie.

This close show that I really liked and the creators of that show, the stars of creators of that show were on the writing staff for this project. And so Josh Feldman and Shajana Stern. But I think that it's sort of hidden myths for me. Honestly, I don't know that it was like always successful the way that it was done. in this show and I could not always tell you why some of it has to do with the proficiency level of certain you know like I

almost felt like there was like a discomfort for some of the actors in trying to perform their lines and perform the ASL at the same time whereas someone like Graham Green who's like I'm just going to say this as slowly as I need to to also sign at the same time and it felt natural and like and maybe maybe that's supposed to denote that these people are a little rusty maybe maybe it's intentional and they are a little rusty and that's certainly like a

a green light you could you know like not an excuse but sort of like an interpret a kind interpretation a kind lens you could put on it but I would just say for me it was hit and miss with some of these exchanges yeah that's interesting I think I felt I enjoy kind of tracking the differences, both between the characters, but also even inside of maybe certain conversations, when is a character who is using ASL to communicate with Maya also speaking aloud?

When is a character whispering? When is a character moving in and out of a different cadence of speech to pair with the ASL? I thought that was just so interesting. And there obviously also is this, like, physical aspect then to the performance and the nature of the communication.

It was so interesting. And like I think like like like I said at the beginning in the pod, I just think that broadly the embrace of this as like this is this is Maya's life. This is this character's life. And so what would it mean? And again, we talked about like the difference between King Van and Maya's family and in the not only proficiency,

but like willingness to use ASL. whether the characters view the fact that Maya is deaf and that they have thus learned or not learned sign language as something that unites them in a community or something that is a way to isolate other people was also such an interesting way to draw distinctions across the groups, right? Like Kingpin uses that disadvantage to say like, okay, I had to have an ASL interpreter here because I couldn't communicate, but that person ultimately is a liability. And I'm going to get rid of them because I don't want them to know anything,

but also it's more than that, right? It's like you must be reliant on me only. I can't have anybody else here you could turn to. Whereas, like, we see how go to the skate life sequence in episode three, one of many examples we could point to when Bonnie comes in and Henry has to play out the ruse. You know, Henry knows that he can, yeah, give Bonnie a little clue via ASL because they both are able to communicate that way, thanks to Maya and their larger family. You know, similarly, like in that same stretch of that episode after Bonnie is captured,

Bonnie's like, I can, you know, I can tell Maya what you need me to tell her, but ultimately what she does is give Maya a warning. They're waiting for somebody who's here to, like, pay you for them. So I thought it was, like, not only in terms of, like, honoring what Maya's life would be like and making that a fully incorporated aspect of the story, interesting to see how it actually like manifested for communication for the characters. As an advantage, not not to be seen as a disadvantage, but to be seen as an advantage. Yeah.

Yeah. So I really like that. And then again, just the overall I thought sound design of the show was really cool. Yeah. When the sound goes out, it is interesting when that happens. Some of it felt very intentional. Some of it felt like they made the decision later to do it. But I don't know.

Again, it's been done and done very well in the past, so I know it can be done in a way that doesn't take me out in a way it took me out a few times watching the show. But I do agree with you that I love especially that like Bonnie and Henry exchange where it's just sort of like, I know we have this in common. And we're on the same side here. Throughout the season, we get the lead up to the power reveal, the power set reveal in these vignettes that we get throughout time. This reminded, I mean, it's a very comic book thing to do, but it specifically, and I'm not alone in this, reminded me of Damien Linoff's Watchman and the way in which they use certain historical vignettes there, moments in the history of a people to tell this larger story of, you know, vigilante justice or whatever the case. maybe. We start with the great Julia Jones. And again, the Julia Jones aspect here, Julia

Jones is Chaffa, who is like, you know, one of the original Choctaw people, that origin myth that is used to sort of start off the show. Unlike Devereign Jacobs, who I think is underused, I think it's interesting to cast someone like Julia, Julia Jones, someone who I've seen in Westworld and countless other things, is like a known actress. to have her do this largely entirely silent role that is just sort of like in the flashback centric but it was powerful to me. This is a case of casting that felt really powerful to me

to have someone who is like who is recognizable at least to people who like watch a lot of film and television in this. She has such a presence. Origin. This is the original and she's so beautiful and graceful and powerful. It's just like incredible. But this is this is the like traditional Choctaw origin myth pegged to the thing called the thing called the Sacred Place called the Mother Mound in southern Mississippi.

It's a place you can go and visit. But this idea that the Choctaw people emerge from the underworld via this location is their origin myth. If you go to the Chalktown Nation website, they have this whole page that's just like connected to Echo because again, they worked in close connection. There's also behind the scenes interviews with a number of people who consulted that Disney put out. But the Chalkdown Nation itself has like an echo page. And so there's just like a bunch of little graphs on various cultural, authentically cultural. aspects and moments that they put in the show. So the little woodpecker and the origin myth, like all of that is, is part of the Choctaw tradition. And I thought it worked really beautifully.

Yeah. I loved this intro. Yeah. Me too. Episode two, we get Ishiboli stick ball. We're in Alabama. And all of these things get closer in time and closer in location to Maya where she is. We're in 1,200 AD, Alabama. And the thing that is most important as we meet Lojak this athlete who is frustrated

in the face of a physically massive opponent, I wonder if Maya could learn anything from that. The thing about a Shiboli that is fascinating is that it was used instead of war, these games were used to settle disputes. We get this line in the episode where one of Loweck's teammates says, whichever team loses this game will be banished from these lands forever.

So instead of, like, fighting a battle, they're playing this game. Anything you want to say as a sports expert on this stickball sequence? No, I thought this was so interesting. And like, just across the episodes, we'll get to the episode three, flashback and figure in a moment here, but the aspect of what we were seeing that felt distinct, right, to that particular ancestor, that

moment in time, that moment in this family and people's history. But then what is kind of definitionally shared and how everybody is able to, like, access and tap into this unifying power

in a moment of like supreme need. This isn't, oh, the first day that I was cognizant of my powers and the world around me, I knew how to use them and did it all the time, right? This is like something that stems from an urgent requirement. And that's, I think, a fascinating way to think about what unites a people and how you then work to protect each other because you are definitionally required to protect from something. So we see that time and time again.

The fact that we go from this like intensive but nonviolent, you know, way to settle a dispute in the stickball sequence to the 1800s and the light horseman story where, of course, position incredibly where it's like Indian country was like infested by outlaws and it's like it's this flip, this reversal of the old like cowboy and Indian, you know, stories that we used to tell where it's like these are the white violent interlopers into this territory but what's interesting about this we don't get a location on this but it says late 1800s and um because the Choctaw people were displaced in 1831 from where they were to lands west of the Mississippi that are modern day Oklahoma were likely in Oklahoma late 1800s means we're in So again, we're closer to where Maya is now because Indian displacement, the Trail of Tears, which was coined by a Choctaw Chief, all of that came in the 1830s. So we were moved off of, out of Mississippi into Oklahoma. And thinking back to Miss Marvel and thinking about the moment of partition that we saw in that Miss Marvel plot, which was...

mixed effective only because of the way it was done, but not because of like the substance of it. I thought that like the substance of it was was very interesting and compelling. I think it's interesting. The choice here is to not show the displacement, but to show the show of strength. Yes. You know,

these are moments of strength for these people. Yes. Not moments of persecution necessarily. And I think that that is a very deliberate, interesting choice. Anything you want to say about this? Light Horseman Vignette, episode three. Great. Episode four.

It's the birth of Maya's mother. Yes. In 1970s, Oklahoma. So again, we are closer and closer in time and location to where Maya is. We've already talked about sort of this idea of the different concepts of legacy. But I think it's really beautiful that in terms of like, when later Tala was talking to her daughter and she says strategy, cunning, ferocity, love, like this idea of love and healing as a gift as much as any sort of athletic prowess or

sharpshooting might be, these are all a strength and this is a strength in you. What you do may be occasionally like violent or physically tough and all sorts of like that, but like you're also a healer. You are also capable of such love. all of that is also true in you. It's a very beautiful concept. To the point where when this all manifests for Maya in the finale, and she uses these powers on Fisk,

and is in this formative memory that is, like, familiar to Daredevil Netflix fans. Yeah. And we see this grown, hulking man shaking and sobbing on a child's bed. And she, she, what is she, what choice does she make? And this is as he is in real time at the powwow, like charging toward her with the, you know, the hands over ahead with the ready. Donkey Kong. Yeah. Yeah.

Move, yeah. Let go of the pain. Let go of the anger. You are my uncle. Shut him out. This is a, the climactic confrontation, at least inside of this series between characters who used to be united and have become opposed. And the lesson, I, I, did. To your point, like, is that all of those aspects of what Maya carries from the people who came before are equally worthwhile and potent.

And so to see her using that healing and that love, like to not say actually like, yeah, okay, you isolated me, you lied to me. You deceived me. But like, you were a part of my life and I would like for you to be okay was kind of an amazing thing to see. And is your is your interpretation that he like Whole Coth rejected that effort? Like what impact, what lasting impact? This is one of my notes on the finale sequence.

And what I will say is I was like, I can't believe we're here again. We're here and it's a showdown and there's a gun and it's like, is this just the Hawkeye finale again? So at least we did something different from the Hawkeye finale. But is this going to be the emotional? psychological equivalent of scratching a cornea. Is that all she did again was like scratch his drama and that's, and he's on a plane

and kind of fine and running from air? Yeah, I mean, I certainly like, I didn't read it as he is healed and he is a change man. Yeah. I think the absolutely shaken way that he demands to know, you know, what she did, the way he shouts, what did you do? What did you do? And then that kind of like a hollow, vacant look on the plane and the stinger, which is I think part I didn't bring Maya back. I didn't win. Maya didn't choose me. Maya chose made the other choice. Maya chose her family is part of what's weighing on him. But also like there is this what just happened to me. What sort of transformative experience did I go through? I would say that it's like completely valid to leave a question like that open to set up a future story. But also I thought it was kind of like. And the way, and this is connected to the way all these powers manifest and this legacy that Maya is inheriting and carrying on,

because you have this beautiful moment of the legacy payoff, right? They're in my blood, in my heart. I'm a part of them. They're a part of me. I'm their legacy, not yours. Love the idea. I think that the way we watched, every episode is named after one of those characters and the way that we learn about them and see this power manifesting and move across time and move across this, this family,

thematically, conceptually, I thought it was beautiful and really interesting for all the reasons we just talked about. And then in kind of classic, like,

Marvel finale fashion, the way it actually manifested, I just think there were a lot of questions. Like, wait, what is the power action? Punch in real good?

Yeah, like, what is the power actually, how is it then shared with everybody in the room? What actually did happen with Kingpin there? Do we, are we not clear on it because that's going to be a central aspect of his arc in the next

story or just because it's like a product of an unclear presentation in this episode. And so then you have those aspects kind of like... How spotlight-y is this Marvel Spotlight situation? Yeah. Like, is this going to feel at the end of the day like this never happened? Again, this is like a fear that I have. It's just sort of like, Kingman's going to show up in this Daredevil show. And if you didn't watch Echo, it won't much matter.

that's my concern. Seems entirely possible, yeah. So that would be a shame, but yeah. It would be a shame. But like, it feels like a nonviolent way to have resolved to use her mother's powers, a nonviolent way to resolve it.

His henchmen then just, like, shows up with a gun and they sort of back out of the room is like very odd. I just found all of that very odd. There is this chatter I've seen around, this idea. that like if they end up doing a street, if they bring Echo back and do like a street level,

if we get Jessica Jones, if we get Matt Murdoch, if we get all of this, they're just going to replace Danny Rand with Echo with Maya because the glowing fist vague, vaguely ancestral mysticism glowing fist superpower is close enough that they could just like make her the pseudo iron fist going forward.

Interesting. Not sure I love that. Sure. I would like simultaneously for we've talked a lot about now this original Iron Fist is not an MCU mistake. Obviously that's outside of the the MCU but we talk a lot about like one of the

achievements of the MCU let's update or amend something that didn't work. So like actually trying to do a better job with Iron Fist at some point would be worth a worthwhile pursuit. But also like I think given the choice they've made now inside of Echo to so firmly root the manifestation of Maya's power in her family history and in the Choctaw Nation, it would be bizarre to me to say actually it's like this other character that you guys know.

No, no, I'm not saying like they would say she is ironfice or whatever. It's just like she has like a vague enough power set that's similar. Yeah, it would be strange, I think. We'll see. It's not, yeah, anyway. I do, I don't think this is really the moment for it, but eventually I want to sort of talk about, and I don't think it's a conversation of just me to have, but like how white heroes in the MCU get their powers versus how non-white heroes in the MCU get their powers, because there is this like ancestral mysticism well that we keep going back to for all these things. And on the one hand, it involves these like beautiful explorations of a culture that I think are amazing. And on the other hand, I'm just sort of like, have a gamma ray accident also. You know what I mean?

Like it seems like a well we've gone to a few times if you want to talk about Telecon, Nora Kunloon, Taolo, like all that sort of stuff. So just something, just something, a seed to plant. And if you wildly disagree with me, you know where to find me, Hobbitson, Dragons, and T-Mil.com. All right, before we go, let's talk about Easter eggs. This isn't like a massively Easter eggy show, because. Because it is a Marvel Spotlight show. He's not trying to be a super Easter eggy necessarily.

But to the extent that there is an egg or two, a, you know, a light whipped omelet, if you will, anything you want to call out in this series? I think my two favorites, I'm always a sucker for a Roxon sign somewhere. You know, love looking for the word Roxanne in the background. So I enjoyed when Maya pulled up to the gas station and it was Roxon Station. And I got a kick out of at the pawn shop biscuits, jumping in to say all that shit in Anthroposy is from Madrefour. I think we should. I think all Marvel March going forward should have a maiden Madderpore sticker out.

That was really good. That would be really funny. What about you? Yeah, it's got it's either Madipur or the Black Knife Cartel being like the, the, the baddies that show up. All right. Well, we did it. That's Echo.

Five episodes. We'll be back next week. Percy Jackson. So we are having such a great time with. Echo, I wanted a bit more for you, but there were some high highs, and I'm always glad to have discussed anything with Mallory Rubin. That is also true. Thanks to Mallory.

Thanks to Virginia Ram Capul for his production work and this episode. Thanks, Steve Allman. Back in the Habit. It's so lovely to have you back, Steve. And we'll see you next week for hype drafts in Percy Jackson. All right. Bye.