#echo meta

like its never been before.

the echo trailer that dropped yesterday has confirmed daredevil to be canon.

after years of radio silence they suddenly had scenes, the characters referring to past events, the whole deal. cameos for other unnamed characters have already been teased, so maybe we'll see the rest of the defenders.

all of this has been rumored for months, but this is actually happening now.

yall know what this means.

I think Liz explains it pretty well and I don’t think it had anything to do with not wanting to spend time with Max. “I needed to take just one moment to remember where I end and where you begin.” Liz had spent every waking minute trying to find a way to save Max, she was relentless, single-minded, undeterable. And she did it. She did the impossible, but in the process everything about her life became about Max, her entire existence became defined by her love for him. 

Which is kind of awesome thing for us shippers, because you know ultimate, epic, giant love, but it’s also not sustainable for an actual woman so in this case the writers decided to mine it for Liz’s character arc.  

Who is she outside of this relationship? That is a valid question for her to ask, and it doesn’t affect or negate any of her love for Max.  She gets to be a person too, and have her own goals and aspirations. Her needing/wanting to do that wasn’t the problem. 

We see that she is being judged by people throughout the season for her life choices. Her mother, Charlie, ICE agent, Diego, but mostly she judges herself. She’s embarrassed that instead of being a great scientist, she’s slinging burgers.  

Liz was a completely independent woman before she found Max again. She was constantly moving, never felt connected to anyone including her fiance (I just couldn’t connect) where her work was the only thing that mattered. She ran like hell from people, places, even jobs, anything that might have served as any sort of anchor. Think about it... what kind of person just ghosts their fiance? Disappears without a word? That is just not done. Clearly she wasn’t in love with Diego, but didn’t she like him enough to at least give him the courtesy of a conversation? That is unimaginably selfish. The person that would take that extreme of an action, is not someone who is going to faultlessly slip into a committed relationship. Yes, Max is different, Max is her destiny, she is in love with Max, but that swing from unable to commit to anything to completely committed was B.I.G.

To be clear, I’m not really defending the writing here, because I think a lot of it is manufactured and it happened way too fast.  Given 22 episodes the transition from “yippee Max is alive” to needing to find herself would have probably felt a lot more organic.  As it stood it felt like she enjoyed one night with him and then threw herself into unethical science, neglecting time with him in the process. As an audience we needed more time of Liz just happy to have Max back and basking it, before she’s got restless and reckless.  

At the end of the day, I think we can make sense of Liz’s actions in light of what she went through. Liz got put through the emotional RINGER this season.  In how many scenes was Liz crying? Good grief, the poor thing. First it’s the grief over Max, then it’s an herculean effort to bring him back, the stress and strain of failure, the knowledge that Max was trying to pull the plug, then when he’s back he doesn’t remember her? Why only her? That must have hurt something fierce. Even after the epic, “I’m not better off without you, I’m not whole without you” speech, that had to be devastating. Especially once the euphoria of being reunited wore off. But once Max was back they never took a second to examine how it might affect her. Then she dealt with her worries over his health, all while he wouldn’t heed her warnings. None of that trauma was dealt with. Also Liz was clearly still upset about Max making the decision in the first place to bring Rosa back.   

Then onto all of that, add Rosa being back from the dead, and Liz watching her struggle to the point of overdose. Then her manipulative, absentee mother hits town in order to fuck with her mind some more, she deals with Arturo almost being deported, and then her ex-fiance is back. 

All the while Liz was relegated to being a small town girl working as a server in the family restaurant, and having that thrown in her face, when she clearly is a genius with infinite potential. 

Going Mad!Scientist in a bid to feel like she has some control over all of these things that have happened to her, in a response to all this unimaginable trauma, in a bid to reclaim an identity outside of the-girl who-loved-Max-Evans-so-much-she-brought-him-back-from-the-dead... actually makes sense.  Unfortunately instead of having the narrative recognize these things, instead of making it about her losing the thread in an attempt to take control of her life, they instead choose to frame all her actions simply as her ambition to make a better name for immigrants. 

Which was IMO a clumsy attempt at scoring some social justice points. I get the themes about immigration and it was a way to illustrate Max’s white privilege, and the extra obstacle’s Liz has faced, but that could have been done without using it to justify Liz’s unethical behavior and actions.  I know the show patted themselves on that back so hard for that, but it was a disservice to the character. Anyone of Liz’s intellect would have known that she could never share what she was doing in any way that would allow her to claim that glory for Latina scientists. So it came off as clumsy instead of nuanced, and we got this hand wave of an explanation instead of an in-depth study of a character who went a bit off the rails. 

need a nap. or just a sleep.

And her emotions. I just had a realization as to her... character I guess? Taysa said they had to shoot the scene at the beginning of 6x01 with Monty’s message a bunch of times because she kept getting choked up and SHOWING EMOTION. At first I was like yeah yeah whatever but then we got her backstory in 6x04 and it all clicked into place for me. Echo’s character is exactly the way one would be with her background. Remember all the times it felt like she was emotionless? It’s because that is her coping mechanism. I would say the one other really raw and emotional time we saw her vulnerable was 4x13, when Bellamy stops her from killing herself to die a “warrior’s death” (okay and maybe when Roan cut her out in the conclave). She had no one to be led by bc Roan then Octavia banished her until Bellamy gave her a way out of that unsavory suicide attempt. Because all she has known since her parent’s death is how to take orders, she listens to Bellamy. Then she becomes close with Bellamy on the ring, where they are both without someone to cling to. Bellamy is without Clarke, but he still leads. Echo is without her usual cutthroat leaders, and does not know what to do with herself. By way of coping, Bellamy and Echo eventually seek each other out, BOTH OF THEM. BECAUSE THEY NEED TO SURVIVE. Then we have Echo telling Bellamy in 6x04, “I’ve been fighting to survive all my life.” He looks genuinely shocked- i don’t think he felt like that consciously, but looking at their relationship, it has helped bellamy keep himself in check with his feelings, whatever they may, with Clarke-at that statement and procedes to be shocked through her unravelling. The horrifying story that shows way even after 5 years on the ring with people she grew to love as family, why she shows no emotion. And we see her break, for Bellamy, not so much because it was the right time and place but because he pushed her to the brink and he is the only leader in her life that has the capacity to take the story in and try to help her.

Ooooh! Very true! No, for some reason people are fine bringing up every single bad thing Emori and Echo have done as proof they’re unforgivable (less so with Emori this season; probably because Echo took most of the heat) but also act like Raven is an angel who does no wrong and Murphy is a perfectly redeemed hero now - I love both characters so much, but they are both very flawed, and they’re far more interesting with their flaws.

I think in a competition between the four of them, Raven would win as the most morally good person, but she still tortured Lincoln and tried to turn Murphy over to get tortured for an act he didn’t commit to save Finn.

(Funny enough, Shaw might actually - from what we’ve seen of him - probably the most moral of the five of them, I think, despite his whole “I’m not as good as you think I am” speech.)

You’re so right that the way Echo is most different from Murphy (and Raven, and sometimes Emori) is that she doesn’t make those decisions with her emotions. Raven has lashed out in anger. Murphy has killed for revenge because it made him feel vindicated. Those are probably objectively worse than wanting to kill an enemy pilot to take out the enemy’s advantage (I mean…moral arguments like that can get tricky, so, probably? maybe?) because they’re done with a intention to be cruel and hurtful, whereas Echo is emotionally detached from the situation.

“Echo couldn’t afford revenge” is such an interesting statement. I really love it. To be a good spy, Echo can’t make decisions with her emotions. She has to keep a level head and make tactical decisions that benefit her end goal. It’s likely how she was trained in Azgeda and has kind of transferred over to a lot of things with her, probably. I think one of the most interesting things about her has always been the way her heart conflicts with her duty and watching her get pulled in both directions and try to figure out what to do and which part she sides with. 

Also! Now that I’m thinking of it, I’m pretty sure the ONLY time we’ve seen Echo’s emotions get the better of her this season were because Bellamy was in danger - especially when she was choking Clarke. That’s probably the only time she was going to kill someone based on emotions/revenge, and she actually got talked out of it. 

I love the idea of Echo being popular, especially since everyone gave him such a hard time in Domino Squad. He got into a fist fight with Hevy, and his brothers looked super annoyed when he was talking crap during Colt’s speech. Plus that awfully excellent pun he told Fives during the middle of their most important test. Like, he seemed to grate on everyone’s nerves, even on Rishi Station, and I love it.

These two are destined, they love each other. They will get back together. The only thing in question is the where, when, and how.

As to your question, Liz needs perspective in order to reconcile her own actions, not Max’s. Things would have been very different if Max had made any overture or effort after their fight, never mind a grand romantic gesture. Liz was sitting there hoping, waiting for him, he didn’t show up. She would have found a way to forgive him then, she wanted to forgive him.

Which I think is just more evidence that he wanted her to leave. That is VERY unMax like, so to me it just throws more fuel on the speculation fire that Max’s heart is failing (or something equally catastrophic health wise) and Max is hellbent on protecting Liz from watching him die again.

If Max had just lost his temper and had torched the lab in a fit of anger, and in the heat of the moment, because he was upset about the science and Diego finding out about the lab, by the next day, let alone by the time Liz left town, it would have sunk in what he’d done and in doing so he’d lost the woman he’d loved every single day during the last twenty years. If his motivation was just anger, then at the very least he would have sought out a conversation.

Currently, my thinking is that any potential breakup won’t happen until season 3. I know that they are setting them on a bit of a collision course with Liz pursuing alien science behind Max’s back, but it doesn’t feel like there’s enough time to have that revelation come out AND lead to a breakup or that it’s big enough to cause a break up between them.  Unless Liz gets hurt. 

I say that because I don’t expect Max to break up with Liz over the alien science, but I do expect Max to break up with her, at some point, to protect her. If she’s put in danger by her connection to him or something of that nature. 

Or I expect Liz to break up with Max A) because she’s forced to in order to protect him or B) she’s convinced she has to to protect his larger destiny.

They’ve set up Max and Liz’s feelings for each other as pretty nonnegotiable.  Like they’re done. They’ve each found their soulmate in the other.  That huge love is what this story is at its core, so while I do expect a breakup, it’s hard to picture it coming from this sort of secret. I think there would have to be catastrophic consequences to what Liz is doing (with only 4 eps left) for this to lead Max to not want to be with her.  

Also when looking at the end of season 2, what does a break up here buy the writers or the show?  Maybe a cliffhanger? Perhaps they’re stuck in an era where they think people won’t come back if they leave them in a happy place?  Traditionally, CW dramas break up couples because TPTB don’t want it to get stale with them together.  With these quick 13 ep seasons, and Max being dead for so long, that hasn’t really been an issue.  Which is why I’d think they’d save a breakup for a bit further along in the series and have it be for big, epic, romantic reasons.