‘Echos’ Recap: ‘Die Rache’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the season finale of ‘Echos’. To revisit the previous episode, click here.
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Our journey through the Sundance Now series, Echos, has offered up quite the engaging and wild ride. For this series has been downright unconventional from the get-go. In large part because it seemingly abandoned its mystery roots and commentary on wealthy inequity in our world, to focus on its characters and their plight and the struggles that the have nots face in this world and what’s amazing… is that it never once lost its ability to engage us and entice us. A feat it accomplished by making sure the danger surrounding young Max remained fresh and tense. But alas, after five weeks of explorations and ponderings, the season one finale of this series opted to take the show back to its humble roots. 

Which it was able to do, by quickly wrapping up the biggest problem hanging over the lives of the characters in this tale. For in the opening moments of ‘Die Rache’, Nellie and Tyler were able to find Officer Kaltbrunner and tail her to her mother’s apartment. Wherein they found Max tied up and ready for punishment from a broken peace officer. But thankfully an assist from Liebknecht kept Kaltbrunner from doing something drastic. Which also allowed for everyone to leave unharmed, reuniting Nellie’s family at last and seemingly bringing an end to this harrowing journey. Since Max was home again and could heal from the horrors of the tunnels. 

Not to mention, the reconciliation between Nellie and Janosch, really did make it appear we were heading into happy times through and through and well… that’s when mystery and commentary came back to the forefront of this show. For the killer of Max’s girlfriend and close friend was still at large and that needed to be solved. Especially since the police were basically done with the case with Kaltbrunner playing the hero/savior, courtesy of a smart move on Liebknecht’s part. Which motivated Tyler to dig deeper on the matter, especially since Liljana had new digs to live in once she got out of the hospital and that came out of the blue and had to be financed by someone. But despite her best efforts to get her to explain her role in this… Tyler received no answers.
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But the audience sure did. In that, it was Anna all along. For she used her vast cash resources to pay for the sacrifice of Werner to get her baby boy home and when the clues led back to her… she simply took matters into her own hands. Solving the mystery as to how Max got out and reminding us of the fact that in this life, folks with money to spare… wield incredible power through and through. The kind that can make life difficult for everyday folks. A reality that was hammered home further by the power play that Anna took part in involving Lisa’s company, so Anna’s investors would make their precious money and get off of her back. But as if often the case, for every action… there is an opposite and equal reaction and Anna’s push to rule overall, backfired for certain.

Since we saw Tyler return to her firebug roots by setting fire to Nellie’s home in an effort to send a powerful message about messing with the lives of others to her mother. A move that sets the stage for a powerhouse season two where the haves and the have nots go to war and well, hopefully a second season of this dynamic show does get a green light. Because it is original and engaging and we simply cannot leave on that note. We have to know what will come of this act, and of Janosch’s meeting with his twin. But while we wait to see if year two is in the cards, we can revel in a solid finale. One that closed one door to violently open another.

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