Viewer Log: Moon Knight ep 4

 I'd be way more concerned about my powers being gone than these guys are, just saying.

Last time on Moon Knight, Marc got in the driver’s seat of the body and set about finding Harrow. This was complicated slightly by Steven trying to force them to give up and go home. Marc tracked a trio of Harrow’s goons, but after getting his bell rung by a pipe to the head, he blacked out and when he came back he killed two of the three and the third killed themself to escape. Marc has Khonshu summon the Egyptian Gods to try to stop Harrow, but somehow, the former Moon Knight tricked the gods into thinking Khonshu is the one in the wrong. A friendly Avatar, Yatzil, tells him to try to use the black market to find the sarcophagus of Senfu, a former acolyte of Ammit. He was one of the few people to know where the tomb was. Layla joins him and brings Marc to Mogart, the current owner of the Sarcophagus. They get there and find fragments of a star chart, but Harrow interrupts them, destroys the sarcophagus and Mogart sends his men to take care of the two. Marc suits up and takes out the guards. Layla swipes the star chart fragments. They drive out to the desert, and Marc swaps with Steven who figures out the star chart. Then, he and Khonshu combine their power to turn back the night sky to 2000 years ago. They get the coordinates as Khonshu is sealed in stone by his fellow gods. So, they know where to go, but now Marc and Steven don’t have access to their powers anymore. Whoops. Let’s get to it.

 

Episode 4: The Tomb

 

To be fair, Khonshu hasn't looked better.

We open on Osiris’ Avatar taking Khonshu’s statue and placing it in storage with other imprisoned gods. Guess that explains why you don’t hear about some of those guys anymore.

 

Meanwhile, Layla tries to wake up a comatose Steven/Marc, just as some guys show up and start shooting them. She pulls the body down a sand dune and evades the truck for a few moments. She gets to their car and hides in the back. The goons find Marc/Steven, but assume he’s dead. Layla draws their fire by lighting a flare. When they drive around to find her, she runs up and throws a second flare on their ammo stockpile, destroying it and killing them. Steven, I believe, gets up and gives her a look.

 

Falling in love with my husband's Alt face.

They drive toward the tomb. Layla tries to get Steven to swap to his more combat orientated self, but Steven is hesitant to do it. He convinces Layla that Marc would be more liability than help, and she agrees, thinking he’d go lone wolf on them. So it’s her and the aspiring Egyptologist. … They’re definitely going to die. They get out of the truck and hoof it to the tomb. They find Harrow’s people already there, digging. The camp outside is empty when they arrive. They search around for supplies, while alone, Marc tries to convince Steven that it’s a suicide mission. He warns Steven that without the power, suit, or weapons, they’re screwed. Marc realizes that Steven has a thing for Layla and threatens to throw them off a cliff next time he’s in control. Layla preps Steven for the dig, notes he smells like Marc (weird) and goes in for a kiss, but Steven stops her, telling her that Marc pushed her away to protect her from Khonshu. He drops the “you might be in line to be the Avatar” truth bomb on her, which shocks her. She still wanted to be in the loop about things. The two do kiss before Layla dives. When alone, Steven suddenly punches himself in the face. A minute after Layla drops, Steven falls after. He geeks out about the site as they go. Layla tells Steven about her dad, the archeologist on a mission who died for it. Steven tells her that he’d be proud of her. They head deeper.

 

Imhotep. Imhotep. Wait, sorry wrong franchise.

They find maze deeper inside. Layla finds bullet casings, wondering what they’d be shooting at. Steven realizes that the maze is in the shape of the Eye of Horus. He analyzes the image, and they figure the tomb would be in the long line in the Eye symbol, as that represents the tongue and an Avatar is the God’s voice. They find a chamber where the guardians of the tomb are depicted. They also find a sacrificial alter with fresh blood and flesh on it, which isn’t the best sign. Steven spies a possible opening higher up and goes to check it up. Steven tells her that Ammit will be bound in a stone statue like Khonshu is. He finds an exit, after geeking out over some of the equipment, just as they hear a bunch of gun shots. They hide. One of the guardians drags one of Harrow’s men to the alter and kills him and begins to prepare the body. The Heka priest, as it’s credited, hears Layla shifting around and almost catches her, until Steven makes a noise and draws its attention. Layla throws a jar to distract it and they run in two different directions. Steven shoves over a table, squishing the priest. Layla finds a bottomless pit, confirmed after throwing a torch in it. She hears another priest’s clicking decides to risk falling in to escape it. She rock-climbs over, almost falls, and then gets grabbed by the priest. She wrestles with it, taking it apart as it’s ancient, before stabbing it with a flare. She rolls it off the side of the edge of the pit, almost falls with it but saves herself. After stress screaming, she gets up and sees Harrow watching.

 

Artur Paendrag Tanreall in another turning of the
Wheel of Time. Yes, I want you to watch that show. 

Steven goes in deeper on his own, geeking out about who might be buried here. He wonders if the last Avatar of Ammit was Nefertiti or Thutmose II. Marc cuts in to grill his other self about kissing Layla. Steven forgets it when he sees Macedonian writing on the sarcaphogus. Realizing there was only one Macedonian that was also a pharaoh, he concludes this is the lost tomb of Alexander the Great. Neat!

 

Harrow tells Layla that he handled that situation beautifully, and she tries to storm off, but he mentions her dad. He draws her back by talking to her, saying that her dad would be proud that she was one of the first to prove the Gods walk among us. He explains that his power, the scales, let him see moments of sin and weakness and he saw a lot of that in Marc. He hints there’s something Marc isn’t telling her and Layla demands he just talk.

 

Steven takes a minute, but then pushes the sarcophagus open. Inside is Alexander’s mummy. Realizing Alexander would stick with the theme and want to hide the statue from looters and guess he had it put in his mouth. Steven rips open the wrapping, and breaks open his jaw, finding the statue.

 

Harrow tells Layla that her father was murdered by mercenaries and she guesses that Marc was there. He describes what her father was wearing, saying that the image of him wearing a scarf that Layla made him sticks in his mind. She storms off.

 

We know he's not dead, not with 2 episodes left
but still, this was shocking.

Layla joins Steven, who is jazzed about finding the statue, but she’s on edge after learning from Harrow. She wants to know what happened to her father. Her demands let Marc swap in. He wants them to leave but she needs to know. He says he didn’t kill her dad but confirms he was there. She asks how he died and Marc said his partner got greedy and killed everyone at the site. He tried to save her dad but failed. He reveals that he was shot and supposed to die that night, but Khonshu saved him. He said he tried to tell her from the moment they met, and she realizes that they only met due to his guilty conscience. Harrow’s men begin arriving, Marc tells Layla to find them a way out while he holds of Harrow’s people. Harrow talks about the day he realized Khonshu was gone and how freeing that was. He tells Marc he has choice now, and has an important decision to make. He says ‘okay’ and a goon goes to grab him. Marc kills three of the goons before Harrow pulls a gun and shoots him twice, a terrified Layla watching. He falls back into the fountain alter and dies.

 

How is Harrow evilier now?

Marc wakes up in a psychiatric hospital. He’s watching an old, really low budget movie about gentleman adventure Dr. Steven Grant and his sidekick Rosser investigating an Aztec ruin. We’re shown around the hospital floor, lot of mentally unstable people doing activities like bingo, drawing, and such. Marc is pushed into a corner where Layla, acting unstable, joins him and explains her conspiracy idea them changing the movie. She runs off when she realizes they got a bingo. Marc, staring at his reflection, calls out to Steven but he doesn’t answer. He tries to get up, falls because he’s bound to the chair and drops a Moon Knight toy. He has a session with Dr. Arthur Harrow. He talks about Marc’s favorite movie, Tomb Buster, and points out how the movie is like Marc’s whole backstory. Servant of a lunar god, a megalomaniac villain and so on. He gives a speech about how we live in a psychic world not a material world and how context matters. Marc is distracted by a fly for a second. Marc says everything reminds him of… something. He asks about Steven. The question causes Marc to look around the room, seeing a bunch of things like Harrow’s cane, a painting of a town in the alps, Egyptian artifacts and so on. Marc tries to run from Harrow, breaking the door and then fighting the orderlies that try to stop him. He runs down the halls, which start swaying. He ducks into a room where he finds a white sarcophagus that is thumping and the man inside is screaming. Marc opens it, releasing Steven. They hug. Steven asks how this is possible, but neither knows. They just remember being shot. They head out. They pass a red sarcophagus that is thumping but keep walking. At the end of the hall, the doors oepen and a huge hippo lady walks in. She says hi, they scream and the credits roll.

 

Hi Taweret!

… That is honestly the best reaction to any hippo encounter. Look it up, they’re the deadliest land animal in the world.

 

This was a fine episode. It was interesting to se Layla and Steven working together. They’re dynamic is obviously different than her and Marc, as she’s the badass and he’s the academic. Probably says something about them that two such different guys are attracted to the same type of woman. I totally get it, spit fires are hot. The exploration of the tomb is okay. The bits about exploring the tomb seem interesting in principle but are kind of rushed over. The Priests didn’t seem to be of much use. I know others have said it, but they feel like a watered-down version of the priests from The Mummy. Just’ saying. The bit in the hospital had me worried. It’s a pretty standard trope that “hero from a fantasy/sci-fi world wakes up in a mental hospital and wonders if they’re adventures are a hallucination.” Superman, Batman, I think Spider-Man has done it a couple time, the list goes. The bit where Marc looks around and sees a bunch of things that were in his hallucination was very similar to what happened to young Clark in Smallville. Thankfully, they don’t try to convince us of the impossibility that everything we’ve seen is a lie. Marc isn’t crazy as proven by finding Steven. Fun fact, the body double to stand opposite Oscar Isaac in the scenes where Marc and Steven are together is none other than Mike Hernandez, Oscar’s brother. So when Marc gives Steven a huge bearhug, that was Oscar bear hugging Mike, which is just sweet. Things are about to get real weird, as the Hippo goddess telegraphed, see you then. 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/67029013

Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero