“Echo 3” is an intense spec-ops thriller that shows the rescue of scientist Amber Chesborough, who is captured by Venezuelan militants in Colombia. Her brother Alex Chesborough, AKA Bambi, and husband Prince, both belonging to US Special Forces, set out to find her before it’s too late. Prince and Bambi share a past involving the death of a mutual teammate, which has gotten them into a sort of cold war. Will they be able to get over each other and save the person they both value most in their lives? “Echo 3” stages an intimate drama set against the backdrop of a fast-paced thriller.
Spoilers Ahead
Toast To Murder
Somewhere near the Colombia-Venezuela border, three people are put on their knees and held at gunpoint in a swamp by members of the Venezuelan militia. It is execution. One of the captives, a Christian woman, starts praying. Then the screen goes dark. A gunshot is heard. Time turns back six months. Amber Chesborough (Jessica Ann Collins), the younger sister of Alex Chesborough, aka Bambi (Luke Evans), is getting married to Eric Hass, AKA Prince (Michiel Huisman), Bambi’s teammate in US Special Forces. Before she can walk down the aisle, she calls for her brother to help her reassure herself that everything will work out just fine. Alex manages it nicely and promises to keep her husband safe in the field and bring him back to her. Amber walks down the aisle. The champagne bottles pop. Prince and Amber are husband and wife.
The occasion has brought together all the members of Alex’s special operations team and their families. Prince’s father, Eric Haas (Bradley Whitford), and his third wife, as well as Ms. Chesborough (Valerie Mahaffey), the mother of Alex and Amber, have also come. Her addiction to drugs is something Alex tells her to lay off from at least at the wedding. She tells Alex to get a drink and cool himself down. After all, his sister has married his rich friend. On the other hand, Prince’s father is having a dance with Amber and asks her if she has given thought to have a baby. Altogether, it is just another traditional wedding.
The day turns to night. The calm of the wedding is replaced with the chaos of the celebration. People are losing their minds on the dance floor, drunk as they are. The special operations team promises to look out for each other and raise a toast “to murder.” Only minutes have passed after the toast when Drifter, the team leader, gets a call. He informs Alex about a flyaway the next morning. Drifter then informs his team, Alex, and the others. It is a hostage situation. Alex takes Amber, who is having the time of her life on the dance floor, to the side and tells her that he has to be at work at 8 am the next morning. Amber is heartbroken, but she knows that he has to go. They still have 6 hours. Amber walks into the pool. Prince follows her.
Dead Or Alive?
A helicopter carrying Drifter and his special operations team flies over the ice-capped mountains of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. They arrive over the landing zone, and Prince sets up his rope to drop down. He has reached halfway when the team realizes that the headquarters’ drone, responsible for showing the team the landing zone, is over the wrong mountain. This means that the zone the chopper is hovering over isn’t clear. When the drone is brought to the top of the correct landing zone, militant movement is observed. The very next moment, the helicopter starts taking fire from a heavy machine gun. They shoot down the bunker, and Prince drops to the mountain. More militants are on their way. To avoid any more firing, the rest of the team lands 500 meters away from the target location, where Prince is. They have to climb up the hill to get to the location. Prince uses his scope to see that the militants are taking hostages toward his team down the mountain and radios them about it. Drifter, Alex, and the rest of the team decide to save the hostages first and then head toward Prince. They set up in their position while, on top of the hill, Prince takes cover behind a tree. The team kills the militants and rescues the hostages, but Prince, who has just killed two more militants, is still not out of danger. Headquarters confirms that a quick reaction force is on the way. More movement is observed on the mountain. The team has to hurry toward Prince.
The team spots Prince across from their position, but a bunker with a heavy machine gun at the top of the hill will have to be taken down first. Drifter and Triple decide to flank the machine gunner while Bambi covers their positions. After taking down the militants approaching them, Drifter slowly makes his way up the hill and shoots the machine gunner. Prince is clear to come across. Drifter is on his way down. At the very next moment, a bullet hits Drifter in the chest. He falls. Price takes a hit on his leg too. Triple is 10 minutes away. Bambi will have to make the decision quickly, whether it’s Drifter or Prince. More fighters are heading in his direction and will be at his position in less than 30 seconds. Receiving no word from Drifter in the comms, Bambi radios to Triple to get back to the chopper and rushes toward Prince. He tells Prince that Drifter is dead and pushes him. Both roll down the snow. There would be no telling if Drifter was indeed dead or alive.
Accountability
Days pass. Realizing that Prince hasn’t yet gotten over Drifter’s death, Amber decides to pay her brother Bambi a visit to ask about the mission. Bambi tells her that he didn’t really have his eyes on Prince after the operation began until the point where he pushed Price down the hill. He was doing his task, and Prince was doing his own. Amber decides to get the two together for dinner.
At the restaurant, Bambi mentions Drifter’s two sons and how they are both solid boys. This sparks a debate between him and Prince about Drifter’s absence from the lives of his two 12-year-olds. Prince doesn’t accept how casual Bambi seems to be regarding two kids who don’t have a father anymore. For Bambi, the kids learned a lot from their father when he was present, and it will help them grow into better human beings. Bambi defends his decision to leave Drifter and save Prince, which is a decision that Prince, too, might have to take in the future, choosing one or another. Prince, on the other hand, wants Bambi to take accountability for his actions, i.e., Bambi is potentially responsible for Drifter’s absence. Both are correct, but both deny accepting their truths. Ultimately, Bambi apologizes to Amber and leaves.
Amber and Prince return home and have a quarrel about Bambi that ends with Amber finding a beacon. Prince tells her that it is so that he can track her in Colombia, where she is headed, within a few days for her research. She doesn’t like it and heads out for a run to clear her head and have some time alone. Inside the house, Prince thinks for a while before turning on the beacon and putting it inside her backpack. The next morning, Amber arrives at her lecture on psychedelics. She will be heading to South America to study plants and the rituals of the shamans in hopes of finding a cure for addiction. Some days later, Amber and her team arrived at a location in Colombia, around 100 miles from Venezuela. They set up camp somewhere near the Colombia-Venezuela border and began their work on alkaloids, organic compounds found in plants that can help cure addiction. The team even meets the shamans and finds out about their rituals. The work is good.
‘Echo 3’ Episode 1: Ending Explained – Where Is Amber’s Beacon?
Two weeks have passed since Amber went to Colombia for her research. Bambi is at his house with his mother, who is worried sick about her daughter. Bambi, too, hasn’t gotten a call from Amber in the last few days. Amber and her team of two are working at their camp when a group of men with guns arrive at the spot. They seem to be militants. A member of Amber’s team shows one of them, on horseback, a piece of paper carrying permission to do their scientific research. The guy then orders his men to check all the bags while being careful of the equipment. One of the militants pulls out Amber’s backpack and takes out its contents one after another. Eventually, he finds a beacon. Amber and her teammates are put on their knees and held at gunpoint in a swamp by members of the guerilla. It is execution. Amber starts praying.
Bambi is at the bar when he receives a call from Prince. There is a situation, and Bambi needs to see him immediately at his place. After Bambi arrives, Prince tells him about Amber’s beacon, whose signal hasn’t moved in the last 24 hours. That’s when Prince finds out from Bambi that Amber is working for the CIA as well in Colombia. Prince is exasperated, to say the least, as neither Amber nor Bambi told him about this. Bambi calls his friend Mitch at the CIA to find out if anything is wrong. Prince’s fear comes true when Mitch confirms that Amber and her two scientist friends were taken captive by an ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, AKA the National Liberation Army) guerilla group that was operating in the area. Amber is alive, but her two friends have probably been killed. Bambi tells Mitch to keep him updated every 30 minutes. Prince asks Bambi about his trust in the CIA. It is clear from Bambi’s expression that he would rather get Amber back home himself. Bambi and Prince suit up and pack their bags. Within a few minutes, a chopper lands in the yard outside, and they both get in. The helicopter takes off. Bambi and Prince are going to Colombia to get Amber back. Bambi and Prince have no idea what state Amber is in. It certainly won’t be easy for them to make their way to Colombia without people at the top, especially the CIA, finding out about them. They will need clearances, and that will take time, something that Amber is running out of.
See More: ‘Echo 3’ Episode 2: Recap And Ending, Explained – Do Bambi And Prince Negotiate Amber’s Release?
