Marvel has a lot of interesting characters in their ever-expanding universe. One area they’ve been fairly lacking in is Native representation, although they’re working on it. Among their few Native characters is Echo, Maya Lopez. The MCU version turned up during the Hawkeye series, and now she’s off on her own adventure.

The opening of the season starts off leaning in to some of the Choctaw creation myth. In the MCU, Maya is Choctaw, and the showrunners have done a good job of incorporating Choctaw culture into the series without hitting any of the bad stereotypes (no beads, fringe, or animal spirits to be seen). After some truly stunning visuals, the focus changes to 2007 Oklahoma, where we get to see a very young Maya, along with some of her family, have one last night of good times before tragedy strikes. Nothing is the same after that night, with changes both physical and emotional. This sets the stage for Maya and her father ending up in New York City and eventually working for the Track Suit Mafia and the Kingpin.

There’s a nice scene of Maya and her father as he talks to her about dragons and having to live in two worlds, a struggle many Natives feel. Then, we see her education progress, as Maya gains skill and a very powerful friend of the family. As time passes, Maya takes her place among Kingpin’s organization, but then comes the Blip. While Maya wasn’t Snapped away, she was still affected when Hawkeye, in his Ronin persona, paid a lethal visit to her father’s place of business. Later, Maya goes on a tear and ends up in deep trouble with the NYPD. She gets bailed out by Kingpin, who starts immediately taking advantage of what’s happened and twisting her into a loyal henchwoman.

Sometime later, Maya advances through the ranks of Kingpin’s organization, creating some jealousy along the way. She and two other of his men launch an attack on a rival organization. There’s a lot of action, some great fight choreography, and a special guest star who shows that while Maya is good, she’s not at the top of the pecking order. At least not yet. Later, Kingpin talks to her about the fight and is impressed she did as well as she managed to. This leads to a montage of Maya working her way up even higher in the criminal family. Later, we see the Hawkeye/Maya confrontation and what she ended up doing for revenge at the end of Hawkeye’s series.

Jumping ahead five months, we see Maya on the run, clearly not in the best shape. After several near-disasters, she makes it back to the house we saw her enjoying her last “normal” day of childhood in. She crashes on the couch for a while, and then has an unexpected reunion with a relative. He seems like a good guy and clearly not part of Maya’s New York world. Even this innocent soul looks a bit worried when Maya says both that she won’t be in town long and asks him to keep it to himself.

Maya heads out on her bike, driving around town. She stops to watch a basketball game and we learn why she paused there. On a lot of Indian reservations, basketball is the big game, mostly because, unlike just about any other sport, all you need is the ball and hoops. Not needing team equipment makes it a lot more affordable to economically depressed places like the Rez. Moving on, Maya goes to a skating rink, and has a less than friendly interaction with Vickie, the counter guy. Eventually, she goes on to meet another relative, Henry Black Crow Lopez. The MCU has done some impressive deep cuts before, and I’ll mention here that one of Marvel’s few other Native characters is a magical warrior called Black Crow. It might be a coincidence, but it might not.

Maya has a long talk with Henry and gets some help for at least one of her current problems. As that happens, we see Vickie is even more of a jerk than he seemed at first glance. Going somewhere more private, Henry listens to what Maya has to say, and isn’t interested. He mostly seems to be reacting out of fear, and I don’t blame him at all. Finally, he says he won’t help and leaves her there, watching someone from afar. The final scene, ominously, is back in New York, where someone is making a surprising recovery that bodes ill for Maya.

What I Liked: I’m always thrilled to see Native representation in pop culture, and even more so when it’s done well. This was done very well. I was also happy to see Graham Greene among the cast; I think I’ve enjoyed every single performance of his that I’ve seen. While far from a hero, Maya is an interesting and compelling character. I think her poor cousin Biscuits is going to get into a lot of trouble trying to be nice to her. The fight scenes were done fantastically well, and I enjoyed the few cameos we got from the wider MCU.

What I Didn’t: I’m going to guess Maya becomes another character who never actually uses her codename. The MCU seems pretty anti-secret identity in general, and most of the codenames go unused as well. Yes, I’m a geek, and yes, I do care. It seems kind of a stretch that a little town in Oklahoma is connected to organized crime in New York, but I guess we’ll see how this develops.

I really liked this episode, and I suspect the rest of the series will be as good. I’ll give this a high 4 out of 5. Hopefully, eventually, Maya will join several other characters that go from the small screen to the movies.