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: 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.

The Third Man (1949)

"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Yes, it had to be that quote. Predictable but necessary.

This film is, essentially, superb. It tends to suffer somewhat from the overly high expectations one tends to have for films as critically acclaimed as this, but I won't discriminate against it for that. The film didn't choose to be so hyped. In truth, this film may not be quite amongst the best ever made but it is, nonetheless, utterly superb.

I won't recount the intriguing plot with its twists and turns and the gradual reveal of the story of Harry Lime, played with splendid charisma by the great Orson Welles. But the script paints as dark a picture of human nature as one would expect from the typewriter of Graham Greene. Vienna is made to look awesome by Carol Reed in its monochrome splendour, and the cast is superb. This is a Vienna still under occupation by the four powers, where even minor aristocrats resort to the black market to survive. This once-great imperial city has fallen very far indeed, with its grandiose Habsburg architecture seeming to mock it. 

Above all this film has atmosphere, pervaded as it is by a sense of doom and pessimism. And above it all floats that zither tune. This is a film that everyone should see.