While not all the Disney+ MCU shows end on a budget busting serving of conventional, climactic fisticuffs, it does tend to be the norm whenever an adventure needs to be wrapped up quick sharp. It’s totally understandable too, but there’s always been that slight feeling that that the more original offerings may have been better served cooking up something other than the standard CGI smackdown that ends 85% of all superhero properties. However, it’s usually a case of being dawned if you do and dammed if you don’t, because what’s a superhero show without a bit of epic grandstanding and the sight of our titular do-gooder vanquishing badniks with reckless abandon?
Ironically, it’s time for Moon Knight – a show all about duelling identities – to try and synch up the more reality warping aspects of the story with some standard acts of good old fashioned world saving – can Oscar Issac’s electrifying double act as Marc Spector and Steven Grant help make Marvel’s weirdest show stick the landing?
With the goddess Ammit on the verge of being released by her determined acolyte and the entire population of the world about to possibly judged for wrong doings they might not have done yet, it might be a good time for multiple personality suffering superhero, Marc Spector/Steven Grant to step in and save the day – however, the fact that they’re current dead is somewhat a major drawback.
However, while Marc manages to bring Steven back to life in the Egyptian afterlife, their only hope lies with the goddess Taweret to contact Layla in the realm of the living and get her to free Khonshu from his statuesque prison to resurrect the boys to save the day.
If that seems like an unfair amount of work to ask of our heroes (especially the dead ones) the plan gradually starts to come together when Layla not only managed to set Khonshu loose, but agrees to become Taweret’s avatar and subsequently becomes the superhero known as the Scarlet Scarab. Meanwhile, Khonshu brings Marc and Steven back to life but is taken aback when they both alter their deal with him to break free of their pact if they save the day.
And so the battle is joined and while Marc and Steven – spectacularly on the same page for the first time – take the fight to a powered up Harrow while Khonshu and Ammit grow to Kaiju size to duke it out all over the pyramids, but even though Marc and Steven wade through thugs like they’re getting paid for it and Layla takes to the whole superhero thing like she was born to it, Harrow proves to be made of sterner stuff.
And then something really weird happens and even though the ramifications mean that the white hats ultimately win and Marc and Steven are finally out from under Khonshu’s needy shadow, the manipulative old bird has a few secrets up his sleeve and knows a few secrets about Spector and Grant that they are unaware of.
So Moon Knight’s finale is predictably yet another case of a big brassy MCU ending muscling in on a very strange show that’s essentially about mental illness colliding with Egyptian mythology, but while a lot of the quirkier aspects of the show have to be set aside to focus on scale and the logistics of getting everyone to the big dukaroo, it’s occured to me that the episode gives us something we haven’t actually seen a lot of. Moon Knight himself. Aside from the jackal fight in episode two and a further set to in episode three, we’ve not actually seen that much of Marc kicking ass in the big, chonky, mummy-in-hoodie suit and similarly we’ve only seen the more dapper Steven (with a V) version prat fall his way through a fair few situations. But during the final brawl we get to watch both incarnations of MK do their thing while their costume changes along with which personality has their hands on the wheel and watching the character flip from Marc’s more Batman orientated fighting style to Steven’s Daredevil-esque brand of ass-whupping makes a lot of things worth it. Also, May Calamawy’s Layla El-Faouly, who’s been bringing it since her introduction, get to graduate to full time superheroing, but I have to say, it’s a shame we don’t get to spend more time with the union between her and Taweret as the latter seems to be treating it as some kind of girl’s night. Elsewhere, it’s hard to miss the sight of Khonshu and the crocodile-headed Ammit brawling like a couple of skyscraper-sized sailors on leave and as a big time lover of Japanese monster movies, I got a massive kick from seeing Marvel bring the monster madness – however, I will concede that it doesn’t make a lot of sense as Khonshu suddenly has the ability to affect his earthy surroundings but hey, y’know… do you not want to watch a random Kaiju fight in the middle of a superhero show?
However, while I’m willing to forgive anything involving towering beasts delivering haymakers, the first third of the episode is somewhat unavoidably messy when trying to tie all of its threads together and get everyone in the same place. The resolution to the rather sizable cliffhanger of Marc entering the Field Of Reeds while Steven freezes solid in the sands of the Duat is solved so easily that you wondered why they even bothered going with the shock moment at all. Also Harrow murdering all the avatars of all the other Gods feels more like a minor footnote rather than an epic crescendo of villainy and these moments and many more aren’t really given time to breathe while Gods And Monsters is more enthused by making as much noise and mess as it possibly can.
However, it is genuinely fun and it manages to contain a moment that plants a gargantuan seed that could fuel an entire second season if its allowed to grow. Remember in episode 3 when neither Marc nor Steven remembered violently messing up that trio of thugs in Cairo; and remember in episode 4 when Marc freed Steven from a sarcophagus in their “mind asylum” and we saw another one rocking ominously? Well, we get another instance that amusingly clears up the whole final battle part of the climax when a thoroughly beaten Marc suddenly blacks out and then snaps back to find all the bad guys soundly fucked up. In any other show, this would be the laziest spot of writing you’d seen since the ending of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 and yet an after credits sting delivers a final twist that is simply devastating. It seems that Khonshu has no problems letting Marc and Steven go, because he still has a deal with the third personality lurking in that head – meet the Spanish accented, flat cap wearing killer, Jake Lockley who happily executes a bonded Harrow and Ammit months later after both Marc and Steven made such a huge point of sparing the cult leader to spite their abusive, godly benefactor.
It’s a good episode made great by that last minute switcheroo and more scenes of Oscar Issac magiking brotherly vibes between his two personalities despite them being the same person, but considering that the entirety of Moon Knight has existed mostly outside the usual comings and goings of the MCU, it’s actually kinda tough to figure out where he could pop up next. I only ask because I really hope he does and watching Marc and Steven learn to coexist on a day to day basis while a Khonshu sponsored killer exists in the same head could be absolutely smashing.
However, until then, laters gators.
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