After shooting and presumably killing Kingpin, a.k.a. Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) at the end of the Hawkeye series, Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) returns to her childhood home in Marvel Studios’ Echo. Leaving her life in New York City and returning to an unfamiliar one, Maya finds herself on her own and trapped between two worlds while trying to navigate who she really is.
Echo, which debuts on Disney+ and Hulu on January 9, is a series that fleshes out the street-level world of the MCU while also giving us deeper insight into Maya Lopez – and her connection to one of Marvel’s greatest villains.
Kingpin’s Empire
Echo will be a chance to understand Kingpin on an interpersonal level and within the context of his crime empire. Even after causing the events that led to the death of Maya’s father, William (Zahn McClarnon) - as seen in Hawkeye - Kingpin took Maya in and shaped her rage and fighting abilities into lethal weapons for his needs. Cox says, “Growing up alongside Kingpin, she always thought [that he] was probably doing some of the right stuff because she trusted him and she believed him and she was able to learn a lot violence-wise from him.”
Yet when Maya learns of Kingpin’s role in William’s death, the question becomes what happens when those weapons – her abilities – are pointed back at him. With time and distance from Kingpin, Maya starts to Realize Stuff about the way he ran things and decides to take him on. “She realized the truth,” says Cox. “She's starting to doubt through her teens what his true intentions are. And so then when she realized, ‘This guy's not authentic. I'm going to go find my own path,’ that's when she realized she could break free.”
However, Kingpin doesn’t consider being shot in the face – as Maya did to him in the Hawkeye finale – grounds for a severed relationship but merely respects it as a casualty of their business. “He still wants her by his side,” D’Onofrio explains, “She shoots him and he realizes that that's the choice she made, but he still wants her by his side. ... What he wants is what he wants and he'll do whatever he can to get it, even if that's to take a bullet.” Describing their relationship as more father-daughter-like, D’Onofrio continues, “He's convinced that he's going to get her back, and that's where the drama starts in the story because she's being drawn away from him by something very strong.”
“After she left New York, she didn't want anything to do with Kingpin and the business anymore,” Cox says. “She wanted to go straight to Oklahoma to see her family and figure out what was happening.” Yet Maya doesn’t leave that crime world behind with a clean break, “She didn't know it yet, but her goal was to dismantle [Kingpin’s] empire.” And so that central struggle will play out between these two. When asked if Kingpin ever considered or prepared for the possibility that Maya would ever figure out he had orchestrated the events that led to the death of her father, D’Onofrio replied, “He always wins in his mind. [...] Whether he fails or succeeds in other people's eyes doesn't mean a thing to him. He is what he is, and that's it.”
D’Onofrio teases that the inevitable reunion between Kingpin and Maya will be “not just a physical battle, it's an emotional battle. It's a battle about the past, and it's a battle about not letting go or letting go of the badness in one's life. The outcome of that is going to dictate what happens between the two of them.” Cox describes Maya’s “surreal” feelings on the other side of this reunion as “just a jaw-dropping moment for her. He’s unkillable and so she's afraid and scared and worried for her own life, too.”
As unkillable as he is though, Kingpin is human (until proven otherwise) and his empire must go to someone. The outcome of their reunion is critical to Kingpin because, to him, it’s about the bigger picture - his legacy. When asked if Kingpin considers Maya someone who could take up his empire after him, D’Onofrio replies, “Yeah, I think he's considering that in a real way in the Echo series.”
Maya Lopez, the Prodigal Daughter
In Echo, Maya seems to finally be dealing with the trauma of losing her parents, which is amplified by her learning of Fisk’s betrayal and returning to a town that her grandmother, Chula (Cardinal Tantoo), sent her away from. “The original sin of this family is Maya's grandmother [...] banishing her to New York with her father, and then turning her back and never looking back,” executive producer Richie Palmer explains. “It was that sin that drove the family apart.” This disconnect informs the fantastical element of the show that director Sydney Freeland attempts. “Once we started creating her ancestors, we wanted to explore what I think a lot of native cultures in the United States are, which are matriarchies. So for us, then that evolved into this sort of matrilineal bloodline of Maya Lopez, and it allowed us to meet all of these other tough badass women from [her] heritage.”
One of those other badass women is Maya’s cousin Bonnie. However, Maya’s homecoming happens after 20 long years away. Transformed and hardened by the New York City crime world, who Maya has become is a surprise to many. Palmer says, “Each one of them probably has their own different reaction. I think that her grandmother expected the worst of young Maya, which is kind of sad. Whereas somebody like Bonnie had high expectations for Maya and knows that deep down in there a real good person is hiding.” Devery Jacobs, who plays Bonnie agrees, “It's a shock. ... For Maya and Bonnie through the season, their relationship is really tested. I think for Bonnie to see just how hardened Maya's become is a heartbreak in and of itself.”
Freeland, however, provides her insight into Native communities. “I think not a lot surprises us. It's a much different sort of pace of life on the reservation. We have all walks of life, so people encounter all sorts of conflicts in their lives. I would say personally, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised by Maya Lopez showing up to town.”
On the other hand, Maya’s reappearance is an ominous sign for Chaske Spencer’s Henry, who works for Kingpin. “Henry knows what she's capable of probably more than anybody,” says Palmer. “I think he's a little scared of her when she first shows up in town because he's not sure. ‘Is this my niece showing up? Or is this Kingpin's number two, and am I in trouble?’” Chaske Spencer agrees: “She represents the past and a lot of stuff he's done and the guilt. I think for Uncle Henry, it's like the Ghost of Christmas Past coming for him.”
As for how the other characters deal with Maya’s return, we’ll have to see when all five episodes of Echo premieres on both Disney+ and Hulu on January 9.
