Viewer Log: Moon Knight ep 3

 They're wrestling for control.

Last time on Moon Knight, Steven Grant dealt with the ramifications of fighting a monster in your place of work. The Jackal demon was invisible to the camera, so it looked like he was having psychotic episode and then wrecked the toilet. He was obviously fired. Steven started looking into the key he found hidden in his apartment and found his “alt” Marc Specter’s secret storage unit of weapons and money. Marc manifested to Steven and explained that he is (maybe they are?) the Avatar of Khonshu, and Marc just needs to take control of their body for a bit to finish this last job and then he’ll disappear forever. Steven doesn’t believe him and threatens to turn himself in and be put into a medicated coma. Khonshu doesn’t love this idea and chases Steven. Steven runs out into the street and into Layla El-Faouly, Marc’s estranged wife who had been looking for him. After catching her up to what’s going on, despite Marc’s objections, Steven is kidnapped by cops working for Harrow. Harrow explains his whole deal, that he’s trying to free Ammit and create a utopia that doesn’t have the option to be evil. By having Ammit pre-judge people for any evil they *might* do and kill them. Steven isn’t super jazzed by this, and Harrow summons another Jackal to kill him. He escapes thanks to Layla’s arrival but gets knocked out a window. He is able to summon his own Moon Knight suit, a literal 3-piece suit with a mask. Steven does okay against the Jackal, but it’s too powerful for him to beat. He tags Marc in, who leads the monster on a chase before impaling it on an art piece. He learns that Harrow got the Scarab, he lost it in the struggle, and vows to beat Harrow to the tomb. He also refuses to let Steven back out, revealing that he is now strong enough to hold it. They travel to Cairo and the closing shot is on Marc drinking heavily while Steven looks on via a mirror dejectedly. Let’s get to it.

 

Episode 3: The Friendly Type

 

We open on Layla at a forger to get herself a fake passport. She’s certain that Marc has gone onto Cairo, and she is going to follow. We get some insight on her pass with the forger, Lagaro. She grew up going along with her father to dig sites. More recently, she’s been stealing antiquities and returning them to their rightful owners. Reverse Indiana Jonesing, I guess.

 

Yeah, I'd be shocked too.

We cut to Harrow leading his expedition to Ammit’s tomb with the scarab. He’s got a huge crowd following him. The Scarab leads him to a specific point, and he announces to his followers that they found it. One of his people reports that Marc has been seen in Cairo and they assume he’s tracking them. But that can’t dampen Harrow’s spirit.

 

We jump to Marc chasing down Harrow’s men on rooftops. The guy he was following was shanked and killed by three others. They show off some fancy knife skills, but Marc is the fist of vengeance. He beats the three up with only taking a few hits for his trouble… before he looks into a knife and sees Steven pleading with him to not kill anyone. Marc seizes up and then wakes up a few minutes later in a taxi. Steven took over, let the goons go and got in a taxi for the airport in the short time he was in control. Dude is efficient. Marc sees the goons walking out of the building, gts out and chases them again. He has a harder time at street level, but does lock onto them. He grabs one of them and punches him a few times before asking where Harrow is. Steven distracts him for a moment, saying that’s enough and he gets beamed on the head. Marc has another seizure, but this time when he wakes up he’s outside of town, covered in blood, and two of the three goons are dead. He asks Steven “what did you do?” but Steven is just as confused. He confronts the one living goon. Khonshu tells him to take the kid to the ledge. Marc does so despite his reservations and holds the kid over the ledge by his scarf. Rather than answer, he says “praise Ammit” and slices himself free. Khonshu, rather nonplussed, says he thought the kid would talk. Marc and Steven fight for a bit, not sure who killed those people, before Marc asks if they couldn’t get the other God’s involved. I bet Thor would love to throw down with Ammit! Oh, wait, no, Ennead only. Khonshu tells him they could, but unless they have solid evidence, they run the risk of having him imprisoned in stone. Marc isn’t against the idea, which makes Khonshu miffed but he agrees to get things rolling. Khonshu causes an eclipse, saying that he’s giving the god’s a sign they can’t ignore. In town, Marc finds a portal to the meeting place, Khonshu warning at the last meeting he had been banished. Khonshu walks off, telling Marc he’ll be there.

 

It's a cool clubhouse.

The portal leads to the inside of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Steven geeks out pretty hard in the reflection when he realizes it. The God’s Avatars arrive. He meets Yatzil, Avatar of Hathor, who is quite friendly to him, saying that no god matches Khonshu’s theatrics. Hathor and Khonshu are old friend, apparently, but the old buzzard never mentioned her to Marc. Before they can talk more, they’re called to order. The trail begins, with Hathor obviously taking the reigns from Yatzil, and introducing Horus, Isis, Tefnut, Osiris, and herself. Osiris begins, I think, telling Khonshu that he was banished before because of his theatrics and other garish behavior, and warning that if he messes with the sky again, it’s stone time. Khonshu takes over for Marc, saying that he was banished for being the only one to not abandon humanity. The gods claim that they leave their will up to their avatars and try not to meddle so openly as Khonshu. He tells them to shut up and start meddling or risk losing the world. I’m paraphrasing, but not by much. Khonshu is apparently also the god of bluntness. Khonshu asks for judgement against Arthur Harrow for trying to free Ammit. They summon the accused.

 

Harrow's whole defense is that they need to ignore
evidence and focus on the fact Khonshu is
unstable and so is Marc and Steven.

Harrow arrives and immediately gaslighting Marc. Harrow basically says “Nuh-hu” to everything Khonshu says to him, and then throws the fact that Marc suffers from DID as evidence that Khonshu is unhinged. Guys, you’re gods, a dude with more than one person in his head is no where near the weirdest thing you’ve dealt with. Marc tries to take a swing at Harrow but is stopped by Osiris. They free him and ask him if he is “unwell.” Marc admits he is, but that they need to focus on Harrow. Osiris says that Harrow has committed no offense and lets him go. I guess the Gods didn’t notice the several people pre-judged and sent to the Egyptian afterlife huh?

 

Yatzil stays behind and informs Marc there is another way to stop Harrow and get to Ammit’s tomb. She explains that while the tomb was hidden from the gods, Ammit had followers and one of them, a medjay named Senfu had a map. He kept it as a “just in case” situation, if the gods decided to show mercy. She tells him to start searching the black market, as Senfu’s sarcophagus was stole and sold on it. 

 

Later Marc, explores an actual market, gets a drink and asks the vender where to find Senfu’s sarcophagus. The man is visibly freaked out and walks away, just as Layla walks up and informs her hubby that he had the right guy at the right place, but the fact he’s not-Egyptian made the conversation dodgy at best. She offers to help him and not having other options, he agrees. That night, they take a boat to wherever Layla’s plan leads. They air out some of their relationship stuff, we’ll work together to save the world type stuff. They’re heading to Mogarts, a collector of rare antiquities. They enjoy watching a few locals celebrating, before the personal stuff rears up again and Layla asks why he didn’t tell her about Steven and his condition. Marc says that he had it under control until recently, but *something* changed and he and Steven started swapping more randomly. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Layla says they could have handled it together, but Marc says that he doesn’t handle things that way. The moment breaks and they get in mission mode.

 

Moon Knight has awesome entrances.

Their boat lands and they get off. Marc sees someone following them. Layla asks if he’s one of Harrow’s men, but they aren’t sure. They go inside, and find some kind of jousting tournament going on. They meet with Bek, Mogart’s top guy who brings them to an area to wait for him. Mogart greets them, and Layla introduces Marc under an alias. He leads them to his collection, him pontificating on how what he does is so good. He seems suspicious of Marc but lets him have a look at Senfu’s sarcophagus. They examine the sarcophagus but don’t find any map or anything unique to lead them to a map. Marc, realizing he knows nothing about hieroglyphics, but has someone who does, tells Layla to watch the guards and asks Steven for help. Steven plays hardball for the body, but Marc’s not budging. He eventually agrees. Marc starts folding the pieces of fabric on the sarcophagus as Steven directs, making a star chart. He’s interrupted by the guard, but Marc grabs the gun and holds it on him. When he realizes Layla’s at gunpoint, he surrenders. Mogart has him get on his knees. He brings Layla over to execute them both. Marc tells him to check the sarcophagus. They’re interrupted by Harrow’s arrival, him offering the scarab and Ammit in exchange for the sarcophagus. Harrow start poking at psychological scars, Layla’s dead dad issues, Marc’s trust issues, etc. Khonshu tells Marc to summon the suit. Harrow, at Mogart’s request, chants his magic chant and destroys the sarcophagus. He walks off and then everyone notices that Marc is gone. He got on top of the display pyramid and into the Moon Knight suit.

 

Marc holds the guards off while Layla gathers the pieces of the chart. Marc kicks a lot of ass while Layla fights Bek. Steven keeps whispering in Marc’s head, telling him to have restraint. Steven finally forces a change, swapping to the suit-suit. Steven tries to get everyone to calm down but gets stabbed for it. He tags Marc back in. He keeps getting lanced, Layla, seeing it, stabs and kills Bek before running to Marc’s rescue. Mogart rides up and slaps her down. This infuriates Marc who kills the guards and then Morgat, rolling Layla out of his path as he does. Khonshu tells him Tick tock as they walk off.

 

Iffff I could turn back tiiiiimmmme, Iff I could 
fiiiinnndd a waayyyy.

 As Marc and Layla drive, he deflects Layla’s questions about what secrets he’s keeping from her. She doesn’t buy it and is visibly upset by it. But they have a mission. Eventually, Harrow’s men find them and start tailing them as they drive into the desert. The fragments are too broken for them to work with. At Layla’s insistence, they swap, and Steven gets to work with some tape. He explains when she joins him, that the Egyptians invented modern navigation, and gets the pieces together into a star pattern. They can’t do much with it, though, as while they can see the constellations, the problem is the star chart is 2000 years out of date. If they can’t see the stars on that date, they don’t have much to work with. Khonshu informs him that he remembers that, and every other night. He offers to turn back the night sky but warns them it’ll come at a cost. He tells Steven to tell Marc to fee Khonshu after the gods imprison him for this. Steven and Khonshu raise their hands and literally turn the sky backwards, the stars and moon flashing by at blurring speed as they do. While that is happening, The Gods gather and begin a ritual to imprison Khonshu. Khonshu and Steven hold the sky in place long enough for Layla to get a picture of the sky, just as the gods seal Khonshu in stone. They get the coordinates as Khonshu is sealed. Steven’s suit melts and he passes out from the strain. The Gods let Harrow into their sanctum again, and show him the sealed Khonshu. When he’s left alone with the statue, he gloats. He promises to do what Khonshu did not, and that his torment forged Harrow. He owes his victory to Khonshu. Creepy.

 

It was interesting to see how this episode flipped the script of the first. Rather than seeing Steven do something mundane before blacking out and doing violence, we see Marc doing something violent before blacking out and doing something mundane. A nice twist. The hints about Marc and Steven having another side even more violent than Marc is interesting. They telegraph that reveal pretty hard, what with the “I didn’t do it, did you?” thing. Getting more of Marc and Layla is nice, even though they seriously need a marriage counselor at this point. You sense the tension between them, that they both want to break it but aren’t sure how. I think my one gripe is how much Harrow is able to get away with here. Dude just says “nope” to the accusations and then throws Marc’s mental health under the bus and suddenly everyone trusts him implicitly. Never mind he has Ammit’s tattoo, Ammit’s staff, a vendetta against his old master, and was in the desert where they buried Ammit. Like… yeah, there’s evidence that Khonshu is off his rocker but to act like there’s none against Harrow is insane. And him just walking up to further complicate the plan at Mograt’s was just weird. Dude walks far for a guy with glass in his shoe. Oh, and that final bit with Khonshu and Steven turning back the sky was brilliant. Beautifully done, and yet I can’t help but wonder how freaked out the Egyptian people are. Last time something like this happened, half the world died for five years. Bet it’s giving some folks some flashbacks. So, yeah, a good episode. Next time, we’ll see how Marc and Steven handle the loss of their powers. See you then. 

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