Viewer Log: Moon Knight ep 2

I'm starting with the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways.  

Last time on Moon Knight, Steven Grant had a really bad day. Well, it started off fine, with him getting to work, realizing he had a date he didn’t remember asking for, but then he woke up in a field in the Swiss alps. There he met Arthur Harrow, a leader of a mysterious cult town with the power to “judge” people. This judging causes them to die instantly. He wants a golden Scarab that Steven doesn’t remember stealing. Steven tries to hand it off, but his body won’t allow it. He escapes the alps, wakes up in his bed and thinks it was all a dream. But its two days later, he missed his date, and his fish seems to have regrown a fin. Weird. He starts seeing a mysterious figure in white with a bird’s skull following him, right after finding a phone and key hidden in his apartment. At work the next day, he’s confronted by Harrow, who explains he’s an acolyte of Ammit, an Egyptian Goddess whom judges’ souls upon their deaths. She got sick of waiting to punish the wicked, though, tried to start punishing the living for crimes they haven’t committed yet, and was sealed away for it. Harrow wants the Scarab because it’ll lead him to Ammit’s tomb for him to free her. Steven gets away from Harrow, but that night is attacked by a Jackal monster Harrow summoned. He escaped it but was trapped in a bathroom. His reflection, who is his alternate persona (he has Dissociative Identity Disorder) Marc Spector, talks to him and convinces Steven to surrender their body to him.  They switch and Marc suits up into Moon Knight, the fist of Khonshu. He dispatches the beast as the credits roll. Enough recap let’s get to it.

 

Episode 2: Summon the Suit

 

Oh hi Marc.

We open with the noises of Moon Knight beating the Jackal creature to death and Steven waking up, him running out of his bed and tripping on his bungee cord. Yeah, he thinks it was a dream again. Don’t worry, this’ll be the last time. After his reflection doesn’t talk to him, he heads to the museum for work. Inside, he discovers that the bathroom was in fact destroyed and that the security cameras for some reason didn’t catch the Jackal. It just looks like he’s running around like a crazy person and then destroyed the bathroom. Steven has the security guy fast forward to when he left the bathroom. While to the guy, he’s Steven, Steven and I could see that Marc is in the driver’s seat. Steven is unfortunately blamed for the destruction and is fired. HR offers to also set him up with an appointment with a psychiatric hospital, just because, I guess. He must turn over his nametag, which just felt like a kick in the shins.

 

He talks to the gold statue actor, who helps him figure out that he should investigate the key that he found. He goes through several branches of a storage unit company before he finds the one that he’s looking for, the guard telling him that he’s got unit #43. He’s lead inside and finds that it’s filled with gun, money, and other military paraphernalia.  He finds a bag with Marc Specter’s passport in it, and the scarab. He switches it on, it seems, and the scarab starts hovering in his palm. It’s a compass, but it’s not pointing north. Marc starts talking to him through his reflection, telling Steven he’s in great danger. He wants to protect Steven, but he can’t have Steven interfering. He wants Steven to sleep, so he can take over and take care of this whole scarab situation. Steven refuses and asks what he is. Marc explains he’s the avatar of Khonshu, his fist of justice. Steven doesn’t believe him, and says he’s going to turn himself in, and hopefully get filled with enough meds to banish Marc. Outside the locker, the lights flash and Khonshu appears. I guess he’s pissed and worried that Steven will mess this up again. The Lunar Lord tells Steven to “give it back, you fool!” But Steven runs outside and into the street in fear. He immediately runs into a woman on a motorcycle. In the mother of all coincidences, this is none other than Layla El-Faouly, aka Mrs. Specter. Weird. She and Steven drive off, her chastising him for running off and hiding under a weird alias. She tracked his phone, so I guess her tracking him isn’t so weird. She knows about Khonshu and his suit, which is more than what Steven knows. He convinces her to take him home and that he’ll explain everything.

 

Avatar of and High Priest of Khonshu, everyone.

At his flat, which I wonder how Steven wondered how he was paying for a big London flat on a souvenir salesmen’s paycheck, Steven sees Marc in his reflection and Marc tells him he’s in over his head. He tells Layla that this is his moms flat, okay, that’s how he explains it, which surprises her because I guess Marc and his mom haven’t been talking. He seems to impress her with French poetry, and the fact he’s learning hieroglyphics. That is until she gets mad and tells him she’s not buying his bad accent and persona. She gives him the divorce papers that Marc gave her before he left, dick move, which shocks Steven. He starts telling her about what has been happening, digging for the Scarab in the bag as proof, while Marc tells him to not do it. He stops digging for the scarab when Marc tells him this’ll get her killed if she sees it, but he telegraphed too much, she shoves him out of the way and finds it. This scarab, as it turns out, is from Ammit’s tomb and points to the tomb’s location. He tries to give her the scarab, and that seems to convince her that Steven is not Marc. They’re interrupted by the police arriving to ask him a few questions.

 

He tries to blow them off, but they force they’re way in. He tries to get them to leave, but they keep looking around his apartment. Layla, thankfully, climbed out of the window and is hiding on the roof. They’re looking for a “stolen item,” and find his bag of goodies. They arrest him and take him away. On the drive, they reveal that Marc Spector is an international fugitive, that he’s wanted for hitting a dig site and killing several archeologists alongside his mercenary team. Steven denies it, and the cops agree. Why? … because they work for Harrow. Damn. They park in an abandoned factory and get out to get their boss. Marc tries to take control, but Steven fights him off. Steven tells him he’ll never give him control again. Harrow pulls him out, explaining that he just wanted to get a better understanding of his situation which is why he left him alone in the car for a few minutes. I guess multiple personalities explain why Steven’s scale won’t balance. Marc sees Khonshu behind them, the moon god demanding Steven kill Harrow. Harrow is unperturbed by this info, revealing that Khonshu has no power in the physical world and Steven doesn’t have to do what he says. He takes Steven through the neighborhood, explaining that it used to have a huge crime rate but that dropped after his cult took over. Yeah, this is the moral dilemma here, Harrow’s cult provides protection, stability, and safety, but requires culling people that technically haven’t done anything. Harrow reveals how he knows so much about Khonshu, that he was a former Avatar. Harrow claims Khonshu works too slowly, and that Ammit is true justice. She will “eradicate the choice of evil.” Harrow explains that the scarab will lead them to Ammit’s tomb. Harrow asks for the scarab, Steven says he doesn’t have it, and Marc starts talking in a reflection demanding he not give up Layla. Harrow tries to talk to Marc, telling him that Khonshu is always dangling the “one last job” promise. Steven, though, is still hung up on the “judging an innocent person” thing. Harrow claims that the cure is a little taste of the disease in this case. Steven can’t accept the “sacrifice the disease limb to save the body,” argument. Harrow takes his cane, the gift Ammit gave to her first avatar. It has a bit of her power in it, and he threatens to use it on Steven unless he gives him the Scarab. Layla arrives, revealing she has the scarab. Khonshu and Layla tell him to summon the suit, Layla giving him the scarab. They run because Steven still doesn’t know what that means. Harrow uses his cane and summons another Jackal.

 

Psycho Colonel Sanders, indeed.

They lock themselves in a storage room. Layla tries to draw Marc out, but Steven refuses. Layla tells him that he, Steven, can do this, but he has no confidence in himself. The Jackal bursts in, Steven being the only one who can see it. The creature tackles him through a window, as he falls Khonshu demands he summon the suit, which he does. Steven gets his own Moon Knight armor, taking the “suit” comments a bit… literally, as his suit is a literal three-piece white suit with a mask. Marc in a reflection calls it “Psycho Colonel Sanders” look. Steven looks for the scarab but finds a pair of batons, right before the Jackal tackles him again. He fights the invisible beast, much to Layla’s confusion. It gets him in a strangle hold, and she throws a bottle at it to distract it. it smacks them both around, Layla stabbing it with the broken bottle, and Steven smashing a trash can into it.  Marc keeps asking for control, but Steven thinks he can do it. He leads the creature towards him and clocks it on the jaw. While he celebrates his one good hit, he gets smacked around. People watching think that he’s having a seizure or is a fancy drunk. Steven throws the Jackal at an oncoming car, hurting it and him.

 

Steven gets up and sees Marc in the reflection. Marc compliments his punch, but then tells him that he can’t handle this, and that people will get hurt soon if they don’t end it.  They swap, and their suit changes to. Marc leads the jackal up a building and across the roof. He leads it across several more buildings, the moon above hem. He finally grabs it and impales it on a modern art piece. I think? No idea what that spike is, really. Marc drops the suit and learns that he dropped the Scarab in the fight. Arthur gets it, killing a homeless man that found it. Layla sees the whole thing before driving off on her motorcycle.

 

Come and get him, Fido.

Steven, via a nearby mirror, asks Marc if this is what being on the inside. He tells Steven that it gets easier, but he just needs to breath. Steven wants the body back, but Marc refuses, as he has stuff to do. Steven tries to force the swap back but he can’t do it. Marc says that their condition has changed, and now the one in control of the body is stronger. Steven tries to guilt Marc to swap back, but Marc won’t do it. He says that once he finished his mission, he’ll leave and let Steven have the body. They start arguing, Marc revealing that he’s doing this in part to make sure Khonshu doesn’t try to take Layla as his replacement once his service is over, and things getting heated until Marc destroys the mirror that he was talking to Steven through in frustration. Khonshu arrives in a blow of wind. He pretty much gaslights Marc into working harder, threatening to take Layla if they part ways like Marc wants. Marc vows to the tomb before Harrow and asks where he must go to. Khonshu answers “Where do you think?” We cut to Marc sitting in his underwear, possibly drunk, in a Giza hotel room, a dejected Steven watching from a mirror. Damn.

 

This was a solid follow up episode. We see how adding Marc to Steven’s life complicates it almost immediately. I should point out, despite how the show frames it at first, Marc is the “original” personality. So, all this talk about Marc complicating Steven’s life is funny, since ya know, if you go with first dibs Marc had it. I liked getting some insight on how Khonshu works as a god. Khonshu is violent, attack first ask questions later, and manipulative as hell. Harrow hits at it by guessing the “one last job” bait that Khonshu used on Marc when he spoke with Steven, and when Khonshu told Marc that he’d make Layla the offer if Marc broke their deal. This isn’t the last time we’ll see him use manipulation tactics to get what he wants. Harrow is interesting, but his cult is kind of generic? It’s a pretty box standard “We’re peaceful but at what cost???” dystopia in the making. The line about eliminating the choice off Evil was pretty ominous. May Calamaway is pretty great as Layla. She’s out of the loop on some things, like Marc and Steven’s DID, but in the loop on others like Khonshu which makes for an interesting dynamic. I liked getting the conformation that Marc distanced himself from her to try to make her seem less like a good candidate to Khonshu. Trying to divorce your loving wife is a dick move but I kind of get it if it’s to keep her from becoming the Avatar of a vengeful god. Harorw getting the Scarab is bad, but we’ll get more of that later. So… yeah, good episode. See you later. 

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