Kingpin's back. No they will not explain how he survived a shot to the face.
Last time on Echo, Maya had
to deal with the consequences of her actions. She and her Uncle Henry were
kidnapped by his employee, Vickie, and his crew. He plans to sell Maya to Zane,
head of the Kingpin Armory that Maya bombed in episode 2. Maya’s cousin Bonnie
came to the roller rink looking for information on her, having heard that Maya
was back in town. Henry tries to use ASL to warn her to get help, but she’s
grabbed too. Maya frees herself using a knife in her prosthetic foot, almost escapes
but is left trapped in the weightroom. Maya throws together a metal nut firing
potato gun to take out her guard and escape just as Zane’s people arrive. Vickie
is killed for being whiny, just before Maya shuts down the lights and blasts
Rob Zombie. Maya beats the shit out of the goons, but is forced to surrender
when Zane uses Bonnie as a shield. Before she can be executed, though, Zane
gets a call telling him to back off. After, Henry tells Maya that the only person
who could have done that is the Kingpin. Skully gets Maya her new leg and insists
that she talk to her Grandma before going. Maya, conflicted, goes for a drive…
only to find Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk waiting outside her house on her return.
Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
Ep 4: Taloa
We open on New York in 2008. Maya
is leaving her school and stopping for ice cream. She tries to ask for some,
but the vendor doesn’t understand ASL and grows frustrated weirdly fast by her.
Fisk watches from his car until the guy sends Maya off. Fisk tells her to wait
in the car. He grabs the vendor and beats the crap out of him. I’m not sure if
he kills the guy, but Fisk cuts it close if not. Not going to lie, I did kind
of miss raging psycho Kingpin from Daredevil. His white suit spattered
with blood, Fisk calls for a new jacket, as he doesn’t want Maya to see him
like this, only to turn to find her standing at the mouth of the alley. He asks
her to not be afraid. Maya runs to the downed ice cream vendor and kicks him
twice for good measure before they walk off.
We jump forward to probably 2018 or
so, with Maya having dinner at Fisk’s apartment. He toasts to her final lesson.
He tells her that they’ll still be having Sunday dinners together, but it’s time
for her to strike out on her own. He tells her that her final lesson is to
learn that they’re the only person they can trust. He dismisses the Sign
Language interpreter, who is taken into a side hallway and executed. Wilson,
you’re going to run out of minions if you keep executing people willy nilly.
After the opening credits we return
to Maya facing off against Fisk outside her house. Goons arrive and grab her
before she can resist. They force her eye open for Fisk to stick something into
it. What is it? An Augmented Reality contact lens. The lens is able to detect
what Fisk is saying and translate it into ASL via holograms. He has one too, to
translate her ASL to verbal sound for him. He asks to talk. He says that he
thought it was important they could talk with no go-between. She thought he was
dead, but he’s not elaborating on that, and says that he thought that they
could have one of their Sunday dinners and talk.
They go inside. Fisk says that he’s
not angry with her, ya know for shooting him in the face. He thinks that she
might be happy to see him. She insists she wishes he was dead, but Fisk says her
face said otherwise. He says he was hurt that she was so ready to believe the
worst in him. He claims to still care about her and that he can’t stand for her
to get hurt. Maya signs that she’ll open the wine. She pours the bottle out
while he looks at the old family photo. They sit down, she gives him a Dr.
Pepper and tells him she poured the wine down the drain when asked. He pulls
out cookies from her favorite restaurant as a peace offering and she doesn’t
back away. He says he has a proposition for her. He says he’ll give her everything
she wants, if she just comes back to New York with him. He tells her he’ll be
at the Choctaw Casino until Sunday and tells her to think about it.
Maya goes to Henry’s rink and tells
him of Kingpin’s offer, saying he promised to make her Queenpin. Henry asks her
if she’s that stupid. She gets defensive, but Henry tells her it’s because he
knows she COULD do it that scares him. Henry tells her that he’s 45 and alone
because Kingpin killed everyone close to him. He says that after William died
he tried to get out, but Fisk threatened to kill him. So, he came back home and
kept doing Fisk’s dirty work to keep himself safe. He doesn’t want her to become
him. Maya points out that he left her alone in New York, to which he admits was
a shitty move.
We shift over to the Choctaw Nation
Powwow, the festival that Chula was helping to set up a few episodes back.
Chula arrives at the Powwow and stops to help someone set up her booth. Chula
suddenly has a vision, as does Maya at the Rink. They see a pregnant woman
prepare to give birth in the woods, along with the other images we’ve seen so
far, Chafa and her people in the cave, Lowak winning her lacrosse game, an
Tuklo with her guns.
Henry rushes a catatonic Maya to Chula’s
house. She comes out of it as he parks, Henry telling her to talk with her
grandma to figure out what is going on. Maya gets out and walks over to Chula.
Chula doesn’t say or sign anything, just gestures Maya to follow her inside.
Chula offers her a drink, but Maya asks that they stop pretending everything is
normal. Chula agrees, sits down, and asks what Henry thought was so important.
Maya explains about her visions, and how they seem to be getting more intense.
She describes her visions, and Chula claims that those are the same visions
that she had while she was in labor with Taloa. She explains that there was a
complication with her pregnancy and that the doctors said that it was in ‘gods
hands’ as to what would happen to them. She says that her family took her from
the hospital to a midwife in the forest. Chula gave birth and saw visions of the
cave while she did. She said that the ancestors have an ability to know when
they’re truly needed. They came to her and tried to help her. She was able to give
birth and says that Taloa came into this world to heal others. She claims that
there’s an unbreakable connection between mother and daughter and when Taloa
died something in her broke. Maya says that Chula disowned her, but Chula says
that she didn’t disown her but her father. Obviously, that isn’t a good enough answer
to Maya, who says that all she heard growing up is how Chula broke up their
family. Chula says she was angry. She claims that the ancestors are reaching
out to them when they need them most. Maya says that Chula chose herself when
she needed her most and storms off. Once alone, Chula goes down into her garage
and looks at a vest she’d been working on at some point and started crying.
While this is going on, Biscuits is
shown to a junkyard by his friend and sets out to find parts to fix Chula’s
car. Maya is driving through town, and Henry is making repairs to his rink.
Chula starts working on the vest again. Maya heads to the Casino, her gun drawn.
She finds Kingpin waiting for her. He seems nonplussed by the gun in his face.
Fisk claims that he always loved her like a daughter, and that there was a time
when they relied on each other. When he asks her if she remembers, she signs
that her memories are a lie, a lie that turned a monster into a hero. He claims
she always knew what she was a part of. Maya, not an idiot, says that now she
sees that he was using her the whole time. Even a gift like her contact lens is
a sign of that. Why? It’s proof he didn’t care enough to actually learn ASL for
her. He shouts that he was there for her but then tries to compose himself. He
says that he failed her like his father failed him. He shows her the hammer he
used to murder his father, saying that it reminded him of where he came from
and what he had to do to get here. He says that he killed his father to be
free, to move forward in his life. He gives her the hammer and tells her to
free herself and him. Damn. Maya puts the hammer down. Fisk claims that they’ve
come full circle and asks her to come home in the morning.
Maya returns to her house and looks
out over the lake. She remembers Fisk, and all the things she’s done in her
life for him and against him, her family, and friends, all that jazz. We see
her race away from Tamaha. Fisk on his jet gets a call from one of his goons, saying
they tailed her, but she’s gone. Once alone he has a tantrum. Classic Fisk.
This was an interesting penultimate
episode. Seeing Fisk and Maya interact has always been interesting, but post
shooting him there’s a tension to their chats now. I don’t think the show has
necessarily done a good job as to explaining why Fisk wants Maya back. On the
one hand, this might suggest that he genuinely cares about her and that he has
no ulterior motive to wanting this surrogate daughter back. On the other, there
is no incarnation of Wilson Grant Fisk that I can believe doesn’t have ulterior
motives. So that makes this feel like weak storytelling. I did like the plot
point about the contact lens that interprets sign language, in both how that
seems like a great gift, but also Maya being smart enough to realize that it
highlights a key disfunction in their relationship. Namely, that despite how
much Fisk claims to care about her, he’s never bothered learning how to communicate
with her, something that literally every other person in her life was willing
to do. It’s a poison relationship, plain and simple. The flashback scene with
the ice cream man and Fisk beating the guy to a pulp for the ultimately minor
offense of being mean to a deaf girl. Is it bad? Yes. Did he deserve to be
beaten to a pulp for it? I’m going to say no. It does a good job of showing why
Maya was so devoted to Fisk for so long and for her ability to ignore the red
flags about him and her father’s death. It’s hard recognizing your heroes as
monsters. I liked the explanation that Chula gave for their power here, and how
it’s a connection to their ancestors that manifest in a time of need. And how
that explanation is absolutely not good enough for Maya to forgive her for not
being there for her. The scene with her working on that vest suggests she’s going
to be finishing up Maya’s Echo costume for her, which should help a bit more. And
that’s all I have to say about that. See you next time.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/99286784
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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