After its absolutely stonking, brain bending first episode, there’s a feeling that directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have kind of directed themselves into a bit of a corner when it comes to moving on with Moon Knight. You see, not only was the episode refreshingly separate from the MCU at large allowing its delirious weirdness to fully breathe, but it didn’t even really bother with any of that superhero malarkey either, which meant we had an entire episode to indulge in jarring time jumps, narrative trickery, frantic action sequences with zero context and the perversely endearing accent of Oscar Issac’s jittery Steven Grant.
However, the time of entertaining confusion is past and now it’s time for the show to start making sense after climaxing with our hero giving up his mind to a second personality before transforming into a caped, glowing eyed mummy and bearing a jackal monster to death.
Take away boys – let’s see you script your way out of this one.
After his bout of turning into a superpowered being and pounding the snot out of a creature out of Egyptian myth, Steven Grant awakes both in his correct body and (hopefully) in his correct mind back in his London apartment. However, security cameras have recorded his frenzied chase through the museum from the night before, proving that all the freakish happenings from the last few days have indeed occured, but hasn’t managed to capture the jackal creature that pursued him or his awesome transformation.
He is, of course, fired, but he manages to locate that golden scarab that everyone wants to locate, however, matters soon start to finally make sense (in a fashion) when his reflection starts chatting to him once again in an American accent. This other, more confident, version of himself is Marc Spector and the two identities once shared the same body while being kept utterly apart, but now that the fractured parts of his personality are fully aware of each other, things have gotten far more complicated. Adding to the insanity is the fact that Marc is the current avatar of the justice obsessed Egyptian moon god, Khonshu and is blessed with supernatural powers while in his service.
However, this doesn’t stop self flagellating cult leader Arthur Harrow from trying to receive the scarab back for his cause and he’s got some startling revelations of his own for Steven. It seems that he himself was once an avatar of Khonshu, but due to his rather abusive treatment at the hands of the bird headed God, he now worships Ammit, who believes in punishing the wicked before they commit their crimes.
As Steven becomes ever more involved in the action (much to the annoyance of Marc and Khonshu), he’s thrown by the appearance of Marc’s wife, Leyla, who hasn’t heard from her husband in weeks and who also has a vested interest in the scarab. However, Steven just can’t help biting off far more than he can chew and even the appearance of his very own super suit isn’t going to help much with another one of Harrow’s Jackal monsters on his trail.
So, while episode one was free to do whatever the fuck it wanted to do, episode 2 now comes with the expectation that it’s going to have to back everything up with some sizable globs of explanation – which isn’t all that simple to anyone not aware of the basics of Moon Knight lore. However, Summon The Suit not only makes a sizable bout of batshit exposition impressively easy to follow when it comes to the issue of Steven’s crowded mental state, but addition of moon gods and super powers slips right in with deceptive smoothness.
Pound for pound, Moon Knight’s first episode may possibly be the best first episode that Marvel has pulled off since fully commiting to Disney+ content as the defiant lack of answers kept thing moving fast while making tremendously fun to not know what the hell was going on, however, now that episode 2 has to pump the brakes a little and let us behind the curtain, that sense of freedom has naturally diminished a bit. However, while the episode now has to put the work in and fill some gaps, the solutions it offers prove to be rather intriguing to follow.
The first is that we get a proper reading on Ethan Hawkes utterly broken Arthur Harrow and reveals him to be a man stripped to his core by the strain and pressure of being an avatar for the admittedly heavy handed Khonshu. While this is easy to imagine (it’s quickly established that Khonshu is indeed a manipulative prick, even for a moon god), it also explains Harrow’s motivations that in his deluded state, he’d flee to yet another god whose methods make more sense, even in a twisted fashion. In this way, it puts his desires roughly in the same league as Thanos or Kaecilius from Doctor Strange as deeply disturbed people willing to do inhuman things in order to make the universe better while spouting out new age justifications like “The difference between medicine and poison is sometimes the dosage” even – as Steven points out – if it means killing babies.
The other aspect that really stands out us after giving us the low down on the link between Khonshu and Marc, the rules tend to amusingly change when Steven attempts to summon the power of the Moon Knight. The character has had different looks in his comic book history before, but to realise different ones in the show as variations of how both Marc and Steven wield the power is magnificent. While Marc is a hulking, mummified warrior in a cape, Steven takes the notion of a suit far more literally and transforms into a more bespoke, conservative version of the hero – although his fighting skills and banter aren’t quite up to the task quite yet – “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, my name is Steven with a V” is resplendantly cringe worthy.
Adding to matters further is the addition of May Calamawy’s Layla, Marc’s wife and a smart way of getting both Marc and Steven to interact without having to resort completely to having Oscar Issac yell at his own reflection like Norman Osborne or Gollum. However, as the episode ends with Harrow in possession of the scarab that will lead to Ammit’s tomb and Marc in full possession of his body, matters feel like they’re going to switch from reality warping comedy/horror to a more typical type spy thriller as the show moves the action from London to Cairo.
However, I have to be honest, I’m not sure I actually want Marc to take the lead seeing as the time we’ve spent with the simpering, stuttering Steven means that I’ve grown rather fond of the goof, wobbly accent and all and a to switch to Marc means the show will have a far more conventional lead. Still, even though a lot of the strangeness has now been explained, Moon Knight still deftly remains one the most bonkers worlds the MCU has even introduced that even makes the physics defying realms of Doctor Strange seem fairly rational. Still, as the superhero influences gradually take control, hopefully the show can continue to milk its more eccentric aspects to appease more gods than just one with a bird head and a really shitty attitude.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 