This Review contains spoilers from the two episodes of the Moon Knight
The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s flourishing phase four arrives in 2022 with the Disney+ Original series Moon Knight, with Oscar Isaac playing the titular hero.
Who is the Moon Knight?
In comics, Marc Spector is a mercenary who operates majorly in Egypt and during one such operation is left dead underneath the statue of Khonshu – The Egyptian God Of Moon when he strikes a deal with him to become Khonshu’s fist of vengeance and deliver vengeance over the people who do evil and protect the vulnerable. Marc returns home with that statue and invests the small fortune he had made during his mercenary days to fight crime and adopts the identity of Steven Grant a businessman, Jake Lockley a taxicab driver, and recently Mr. Knight a consultant.
Moon Knight debuted in the August of 1975 in Werewolf By Night #32 and was initially created as an antagonist but later given his series as he had become a fan favorite. He was created by Doug Moench and Don Perlin. The caped hero or as he has been called “Marvel’s Batman” by comic fans all over the world due to the loose similarities between the two characters and how Moon Knight has proved to be a very interesting individual in his early days very much like Gotham’s caped crusader.
Episode 1: The Goldfish Problem
The first episode takes us to the life of Steven Grant, a gift shop employee at the museum in London who is suffering from blackouts, we’re introduced to the innocence of a man who is trying to live a life with a terrible boss at the museum and who is also confused about how to do so as his blackout condition is something of a restraint on his life. In one such blackout episode, Steven finds himself in a different country where he runs into one of the cult meetings held by Arthur Harrow played by Ethan Hawke, who demands a scarab which is in Grant’s possession unknowingly.
Unable to hand the scarab to Harrow and his men Grant escapes that meeting with a series of blackouts and a mysterious male voice guiding him as he tries to make sense of what is happening before finally blacking out. Waking up back in his room Steven shrugs off the entire incident as a dream and proceeds with his normal day but soon realizes that the “dream” he thought he saw was real and two days had been passed since he fell asleep. Coming home from a failed date Steven finds a phone and a storage keycard in his apartment. Upon opening the contacts of his phone he sees that the most calls from that phone are to someone named “Layla” from which he receives a call and a woman is on another line who addresses him as Marc. The following day Steven is confronted by Harrow who again demands the scarab back from him and reveals that he is a servant of Ammit – Devourer Of The Dead. Later that day, Arthur unleashes a jackal-like monster on Steven demanding the scarab back when a panicked filled Steven is told by his reflection to let go and give it control so that it could protect them, upon agreement Grant becomes the masked warrior and takes down the beast.
This brings to the end of a very well-paced mysterious series premiere of Marvel’s Moon Knight which much like its predecessors such as WandaVision doesn’t reveal much about the plot and leaves out a lot of questions unanswered.
Episode 2: Summon The Suit
This episode starts with Steven waking up back in his house as if nothing happened but when he arrives at the museum he finds out that the jackal monster was invisible to the museum cameras. Steven was fired from his job after being blamed for the damage to the restroom, using the keycard he found in his apartment Steven uncovers a storage locker where he finds weapons, illegal cash, and the scarab that Harrow was after in a black bag. Upon further going through the contents of the bag he finds a passport by the name of Marc Spector, which is when he is greeted by the same reflection who tells him that he is Marc Spector who is living as another identity inside Steven’s body and that he is an American mercenary and the current avatar of Khonshu and persuades Steven into giving him control so that he can sort this mess out. Steven refuses and flees and runs into Layla played by May Calamawy who reveals herself to be Marc Spector’s wife. Back at Steven’s apartment, she tells Steven about how they both have been going on adventures and their last one was to find a scarab after which Marc disappeared. She finds the scarab while going through Marc’s bag but as they’re arguing two police officers arrive at Grant’s place and arrest him.
The two officers are revealed to be working for Harrow and while taking Steven to him they tell him how Marc had executed innocent people brutally. Upon arriving Steven argues with Marc again when he declines to surrender control to him as he is a bad person, he is then greeted by Harrow who asks Steven if he could see Khonshu behind him and tells him to not get excited and walk with him first and how Khonshu was limited in what he could do without Steven’s help. While walking with him Harrow tells Steven how he saved this neighborhood and helped the people around it with the guidance of Ammit, he then also goes on to tell Steven how he used to be the former avatar of Khonshu and how he came to reject those beliefs and chose to serve Ammit instead. Harrow then reveals that the scarab reveals where Ammit’s tomb is and how he wishes to resurrect her so that she can purge all evildoers from the world. Layla rescues Steven while telling him to summon the suit as Harrow summons another jackal-like creature and sends it after them.
After repeatedly trying to summon the suit Steven finally summons a suit a magical suit similar to Marc’s that looks exactly like Mr. Knight from the comics and tries to fight the jackal beast but is eventually overpowered by it. Steven surrenders control to Marc, who in turn kills the jackal but in the process losses the scarab, which later Layla finds out that Harrow has recovered. In a heated confrontation with Khonshu, Marc promises that he will find Ammit’s tomb before Harrow which is when Khonshu sends him to Egypt.
What do we think?
Living up to its previous standards this Disney+ original show from Marvel Studios has a very gripping plotline and a good pace which when helped by the amazing performances given by Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, and May Calamawy makes it to be a very good and an interesting show to watch.
We rate the show 9/10
What’s next?
The second episode ends with Marc in Egypt leaving the story to dive into the past like in most of the Disney+ shows we’ve seen to fill to answer the questions that were left unanswered in this one as well, the third episode is scheduled to release on the 13th of April which will tell us more about how the story progresses.
Let us know what you think of the show!
The CineSquad 