In one of the most proactive episodes to date, Moon Knight finds some direction heading into its second half of the season. Spoilers Abound.
Let’s begin this review with the episode’s biggest revelation: that Marc Spector is probably the primary personality. In what’s easily the biggest takeaway from this episode of Moon Knight, this revelation changes a lot of what we’ve come to expect of the series because thus far, we’ve seen it all unfold from the point of view of Steven’s perspective.
Why does it matter? Well, this wholesome vegan museum worker whose humor and irreplaceably terrible British accent is the whole reason the audience should feel invested in. His occasional slips out of consciousness, waking into the mysteriously superheroic and deadly Moon Knight is the hook. Which is why the sudden shift into Mark’s world in this episode has some major implications in that this is evidently Mark’s story. Not Steven’s.
It’s Mark who is the person in a longstanding relationship with Layla. It’s Mark who travels the world for long stretches at a time. It’s Mark that serves Khonshu on assassination missions. It’s Mark, in this week’s episode, who is the one summoned for a mysterious council of the Gods.
We see all of this unfold in his adventure to Cairo. Featured in Marc and Steven’s back and forth adventure, as the two jump-cut forward battle-after-battle, and later, race to find the tomb of Ammit before Arthur Harrow can. It is in these sequences that we finally get some Khonshu action. Where, after forcing an eclipse, the God of the Moon speaks to the Gods of Egypt. This leads to seeing the beginning of the end as Khonshu’s actions lead to his own imprisonment, and Arthur Harrow’s gaslighting of Marc/Steven’s psychological health.
Layla, meanwhile, is playing the spy on her own in this episode. She gains passports to enter Egypt, and of course, has some moments of sincere backstory about her father who’d passed away. If there was ever a reason to check out her story in an episode, it would likely be this one, as she takes the helm in a fun and assertive way. Hunting leads and kicking some serious butt. Most importantly, we get a hint of her and Marc’s life together as a married couple though are still left uncertain as to what the bigger secrets behind their relationship are: like just how much does Marc know about her father’s death?
Besides these developments, the best things about this one were the city of Cairo street chases, the fight sequences (including an odd round of joust), and the implications of a third more murderous persona (Jake Lockley). It’s a good episode. It’s just mostly a substance episode that builds the overall conflict of Arthur versus Khonshu, along with questions just as to who really is Marc Spector.
