Echo: Maya

 "You must not run..."

Well, I suppose this is a satisfying finale. Fisk and his subordinates infiltrate the Choctaw pow wow and he sets out to kill Maya's family asa revenge for her abandoning him, which, wow, and she defeats him by channeling te energy and talents of all her female ancestors, seeded throughout the previous episodes. It work well... but isn't it, well, exactly what we expected to happen?

Still, there are highlights. The flashback to the CGI woodpecker is nice, and the scene with Maya meeting her mother's spirit for a spot of heartwarming exposition is nice. It's cute to see Chula and Skully reconcile and hold hands, and, in the end, Maya reconnects with her family properly. All the character threads are more or less resolved. The visuals of Maya (and Bonnie, and Chula!) being infused with their ancestors' power is pretty damn cool.

And Fisk- Maya seems to try to heal him of those deep seated childhood "cycle of abuse" scars... but perhaps it's simply that such trauma can't be waved away. The Kingpin is who he is and, judging by the mid-credits sequence, he has big plans for New York City.

This is, I suppose, good stuff, well executed. But the plot, for me, was ultimately a little too neat and predictable.

Echo: Taloa

 "I suspect you've come to kill me. Again."

For the most part, Maya is likeable, despite how brurally direct she can be at times. She cares, and she tries tyo fdo the right thing. But... pouring good wine away? Outrageous.

This is a rather gripping episode the finest yet, a tale of three tense conversations. The first, between Maya and the Kingpin, is the best: Vincent D'Onofrio, as ever, is simply extraordinary The two of them debate, often bitterly, but Fisk has no ill will for his surrogate daughter and insists he still loves her in spite ogf the minor incident surrounding a certain eye. Indeed, he has a proposition. Joi  him, and they can rule the galaxy as father and daughter. Or words to that effect.

Yet the calm confrontatiin between Maya and Chula is gripping too. Yes, their meeting has blatantly been delayed for plot reasons as they mutually realise they've been having the same visions of their ancestors. But, truth to tell, Chula really was neglectful because she couldn't bear to look upon the grandaughter who reminded her of her dead child.

So then we have the final confrontation between Maya and Kingpin, wherre Kingpin pours out his own abusive past... and Maya can't bring herself to kill him. He thinks he's persuaded her but, in an extraordinary piece of acting, he erupts in rage when he hears she's not going to join him. He's a dangerous, volatile man. But he really does love her...

Good, suble, character stuff.

Echo: Tuklo

 "If the offer still stands... I'm helping you."

This is the best episode so far. Of course, it centres on Maya, Bonnie and their Uncle Henry being kidnapped and waiting for the Kingpin's goons to arrive, including a rather awesome big set piece to Rob Zombie's "Dragula".

But, of course, the episode was about more than that.

Bonnie's Choctaw ancestry continues to be important, and not just in the decoration of the new artificial leg for her made by Skully. Delightfully, we have a pre-titles sequence set in the Old West in the style of an old silent film, complete with intertitles, about another kick-as female ancestor whose skill Maya seems to have... somehow inherited? The character from the comics is well after my time; perhaps this is her thing.

But, even more, it's really about character. Henry, despite his annoyance at what Maya has brought to him, choosing to side with her regardless. Bonnie meeting Maya, in awkward circumstances, and her bitterness about Maya not getting in touch just once. That Skully urges both Maya and Chula to reconnect. That last bit of misdirection at the end, where we think Maya is going to see Chula.. and she sees someone else entirely.

I still don't quite know where this is going, but there's a nice unity of styler, motifs and tropes. This is very good.

Echo: Lowak

 "You seem to have forgotten that the people close to you are the ones who get hurt..."

The strong start continues; I'm enjoying this. Maya is home in Oklahoma, slowly gearing up for a war with the Kingpin about which she seems methodicallyorganised and VERY confident.

Yet it's not all war; there'sa lot of good character stuff here. She's amongst her family... and is she exploiting her naive cousin Biscuits in bringing a war from New York to those she loves? Why is she avoiding her grandmother (Chula) or her childhood companion Bonnie? Is old, delightfully cynical Skully also being drawn into danger? It's a nice bit of moral ambiguity. Is Maya really a hero, or just one side of a gang war bringing chaos and death? Her cousin Henry seems to think so. Then again, it seems he has openly divided loyalties...

But what adds depth here is the thoughtful scenes about Choctaw history and culture, the "first Choctaw"- clearly paralleled with Maya- and the fascinating lacrosse(?) game in 1200 BC at the start that will no doubt resonate later. It's a fascinating reminder to this Englishman that Anglophone North America may superficially seem a culture similar to ours, with a shared language and history... but not really. In truth, it is a faraway land, as old and deeply rooted as anywhere in the "Old World", a patchwork of human cultures all but destroyed by the diseases of we Europeans. I'm not sure of the subtext of all this yet, but I'm certain that one will emerge. I ceertainly loved the scene with the tourists in Skully's shop and their cultural ignorance.

We get an opening titles this time, with the Yeay Yeah Yeahs and an image of Wilson Fisk! I didn't fail to notice the throwaway reference to Madripoor either. But this is pretty continuity-lite, and it's own thing. Good.

Echo: Chafa

 "You have greatness in you..."

Bear with me; Robin of Sherwood will follow in this blogging "slot", then more Twin Peaks, but first I need to catch up with the MCU; I'm well behind.

Already this is different, with a warning about "mature content" and the Marvel Spotlight logo. I'm avoiding online spoilers as far as I can, but Bob Iger's changes at Marvel Studios are clearly under way, with this the first truly street level series under the Disney Plus imprint. Hawkeye came close, but we haven't really seen anything like this since the Netflix shows.

And this opening episode is, basically, superb, Indeed, all the more so for much of the first half being a recap of Maya's backstory that we've already seen in Hawkeye. There's greater depth, though. We see more of Maya's family, her childhood in Oklahoma, her identity as Choctaw. I love the riffing on what I assume to be Choctaw mythology.

All of the backstory is in greater depth, though. This time it is Maya Lopez, not Clint Barton, who is the star. It may look like a recap, but it works. Plus we get a nice little Daredevil cameo.

It's all extraordinarily shot, too. The many fight scenes are truly cinematic. I'm one of those people who are easily bored by fight scenes, and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. And then we learn (well, we suspected, but...) that Wilson Fisk, just as Maya determines to take over his empire, is alive. I'm hooked.

Hawkeye: So This Is Christmas

 "Is this what heroes do? Arrest their mothers on Christmas?"

It's interesting watching this season finale the day after an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Doctor Who finale. But Hawkeye was in no way overshadowed.

Much of the episode was a big, fun, set piece Christmas party battle, with trick arrows, owls, LARPers, falling Christmas trees and... the actual bloody Kingpin. Wow. Vincent D'Onofrio is exacrly as superb, in the same way, as we've seen, but in another context. No way does he die. No bodies are seen.

Yet there are so many character moments. Kate is such a hero. Her whole privileged life is based on immoral acts... so she abandons it, in a heartbeat, hard though it is. Because kit's the right thing. Her mother is an unrepentant gamgster and criminal who isn't very good at gaslighting... so she gets her arrested. Hard, so very hard, but the right thing. Also, she's awesome in a fight. And this time more tactical. And Clint is, by now, impressed. So much so that I suspect he sees a successor in her, accepting her as a partner and inviting her to spend Christmas with his family. And she's made very welcome, bless her. 

Kate's confession to Hawkeye about her childhood glimpse of him is cute. And the scene between Clint and Yelenba turns out to be far more heartwarming and less murderous than we might expect. The rapport between Kate and Yelena is awesome too.

And we even get a musical number at the end.

This is really rather good. Not top tier telly, perhaps, but well characterised and acted. I enjoyed the episode and I enjoyed the series.

Hawkeye: Ronin

"Kate, this is not cutlery."

This is a bloody brilliant episode. Yes, there are revelations upon revelations, but after last episode we see Kate deflated at Clint's rejection of her, until she's ultimately determined to, er, reject his rejection, and he ends up saving Clint, as Ronin, from Maya, genuinely saving him. She even has her escape route planned. Nice one.

And Clint seems to accept her. He's very much worried, though, hinting that the Tracksuit Mafia is much bigger than Maya, that there is a "Big Man" behind the scenes, gunning not only for him but also for his family. Yet he has revelations for Maya, too, about who killed her father...

Families are very uncertain here. We learn that Yelena died when Thanos snapped his fingers, only to instantaneously return after five years, her sister dead and very much blaming Clint... why? Her conversation with Kate is delightful. Florence Pugh and of course Hailee Steinfeld both excel. Yet we also have a final bombshell... Kate's mother seems to be the one who hired Yelena. Well then. And it seems her boss is... Kingpin.

Yes: Kingpin. As in Daredevil. As in the Netflix shows now appear to be canon...

Hawkeye: Partners, Am I Right?

 "If I ever met Huey Lewis, I'd be a wreck."

Hawkeye is not, perhaps, the best Disney Marvel series yet, but it's pretty solid. This is, of course, the episode where Clint and Kate really, really click- the movie marathon, reminiscencing and planning scene are wonderful- and so it's inevitable that he should angrily drive her away at the start. There's a harbinger of this in thev awkward scenes at the Bishop residence, as Kate's mum warns Clint not to make her lose her daughter.

And then we have Clint admitting to Kate how much he misses Natasha, So, when it turns out that not only are the Tracksuit Mafia taking notes on his family but suddenly a Black Widow assassin turns up... and it's Yelena. Ouch. No wonder Clint reacts like he did.

Kate is awesome though, charismatic yet vulnerable, and clever enough to work out who Ronin really was. And it's confirmed, as if there was any doubt, that Jack is a baddie.

This is very good. Not great, but very good.

Hawkeye: Echoes

 "I mean, look on the bright side. You don't have to go and see Imagine Dragons."

Kate is right. Imagine Dragons are exactly the sort of depressingly and cynically mainstream landfill fodder that I imagined middle aged people would listen to when I was young. I'm forty-five now, and I hate that sort of AOR bollocks even more. I've heard it all; I want music to be DIFFICULT. 

Anyway, Hawkeye... I've been impressed with the build-up, but this is where the series really starts to shine. We're introcuded, via her childhood, to Maya, a deaf martial artist. We see, in flashback, that her father dotres on her... and you know what a sucker I am for daddy/daughter relationships, becausewe daddies of little girls are softies about this. He learns ASL, bless him. He's a good dad. 

But he's also an organised crime type person. And dies in his daughter's arms, killed by... Ronin? Oh dear. Revenge looms should Maya learn whom Ronin is. And Maya ends up as the immediate leader of the tracksuit mafia, and chief baddie for now...

And yeah, as a hearing aid wearer, I felt the portrayal and humour of hearing loss was on point and enjoyable. I mean, Clint's hearing aid is clearly private, well posh, and no doubt much better than my NHS hearing aids. But at least mine are free at the point of use.

The car chasw, with the arroes and trick arrows, is awesome, andwe're getting a real bond between Clint- no spring chicken- and the young, athletic, idealistic and very likeable Kate, who is slipping nicely into Padawan territory. He's blatantly a father figure to this rich orphan, as she sees him potentially sacrificing his family Christmas to save the life of this stranger.

This is getting VERY good with this episode. And I love the wink to the traditional costume.