So far, I’ve written three recaps of Moon Knight as well as recaps of all of the other Marvel series on Disney+, yet this one, for the episode titled “The Tomb,” is proving to be the hardest to write. Mind you, I’ve already watched the episode twice, so it’s not that I haven’t had time to see it. The issue is that…I’m still trying to grasp what I’ve seen.
Anyway, here goes. Keep in mind that I’ve got spoilers ahead so if you want to avoid those, watch the episode first. (Not like they’d even make sense…)
Let’s Recap
After the imprisonment of Khonshu, Steven (Oscar Isaac) is left unconscious as Arthur Harrow’s (Ethan Hawke) men converge on him and Layla (May Calamawy). Without Moon Knight’s help, Layla has to fend them off using only a lit flare and a perfect throwing arm.
After the gunmen flee, Layla and Steven use the star map to find Ammit’s tomb. Just before going in, Steven tells Layla about Marc pushing her away to protect her from becoming Khonshu’s avatar. They share a kiss and then descend into the tomb.
They wind their way through the tomb and come upon an altar covered in flesh and blood. Before they can figure out what it’s about, a creature, a mummy of sorts, drags a man into the room and puts him onto the altar. The mummy begins to prepare the man for mummification as Layla hides just feet away and Steven watches from an alcove near the ceiling.
The creature realizes someone is in the room and creeps after Steven. They escape after Layla causes a diversion but soon get separated. The mummy follows Layla, leaving Steven to find Ammit on his own.
Layla tries to escape the mummy, but it manages to ensnare her, pulling her into a dark crevice. A fight ensues, and Layla buries a lit flare into the creature’s eye. It grabs her and falls into a chasm. As the mummy hits the bottom, Layla climbs back to the top.
That’s when she discovers Harrow in the room with her. He talks to her about her father and how he died, explaining that mercenaries killed him. Layla realizes he’s insinuating that Marc killed her father. Harrow explains that Marc remembers everything from that day.
Meanwhile, Steven stumbles upon a sarcophagus that he realizes belongs to Alexander the Great. He opens it up and finds the entombed Pharaoh but no statue holding Ammit. He and Marc work out that Alexander was the voice of Ammit and searches the body’s throat, finding the ushabti. Layla arrives and he triumphantly shows it to her. But her mind is more concerned with the secret of her father’s death and she demands to speak to Marc.
Steven allows Marc to control the body, and rather than explain himself, he tries to get Layla to flee with him. But she refuses, wanting answers. Marc tries to explain that his “partner” killed her father, but Harrow’s men arrive, armed to the teeth.
Harrow demands the ushabti from Marc, but Marc fights back with an ax found in the sarcophagus. Harrow shoots Marc.
With two bullets in the chest, Marc falls backward into a shallow pool of water. Everything around him goes white, and he wakes up in a hospital. All around him are memories from his past, people he knows, Layla. A movie plays on the television with a character named Steven Grant who finds a statue of the Aztec lunar god. Harrow appears as Marc’s psychiatrist, trying to help him get past his delusions. But again, Marc fights it and runs away, finding a sarcophagus in the hospital. He opens it, freeing Steven. Together, they try to escape but come upon an Egyptian anthropomorphic hippopotamus.
I know you’re probably expecting me to transition to the next scene, but there isn’t one. That’s how the episode ends. As I said, it was a weird one.
What Did I Just Watch?
For starters, Moon Knight wasn’t even in the episode. Without Khonshu, Marc is left powerless. This gave the other characters a chance to stand out. We got to see Layla’s resourcefulness and her abilities in the face of danger. Steven was able to use his knowledge of Egyptology and figure out the mystery of the tomb.
The ending, itself, lends an air of mystery to the character. Marc is shot. We assume he’s dead, but when he wakes up in the hospital, it drives him to his psychological issues. We already know he’s got dissociative identity disorder; this scene makes us, and him, wonder if everything he’s experienced is just the delusions of a broken psyche. And if they are, why?
But more than that, the final scene is truly brilliant. Marc Spector is drugged in a mental hospital surrounded by things that we’ve already seen in the show so far. Crowley, the statue performer, calls numbers in a bingo game. Donna, Steven’s uppity boss at the museum, hugs a scarab pillow to her chest. A woman draws a hummingbird with Khonshu’s head as an orderly gives her a cupcake (a reference to the cupcake truck in Episode One). Marc is rolled to a window where a fishbowl sits. He clutches a Moon Knight action figure. Layla has a little scarab beetle drawn on a Band-aid on her finger. It’s a wonderful pastiche meant to make the viewer question what they’ve seen so far.
Even the hippo is a callback to the stuffed animals from the first episode. This is the goddess Taweret. But how she plays into the plot is beyond me.
There’s also the question of the second sarcophagus in the hospital. One that Marc and Steven ignore. Comic fans know that Marc Spector has a third personality, the taxi driver Jake Lockley. Lockley has yet to appear, but the show has hinted to him a couple of times already. Given that Marc found Steven in a sarcophagus, it’s not a far leap to think that the other one held Lockley.
As far as the series goes, Episode Four marks a great turning point. Delving into Marc’s psychology is a theme that the MCU hasn’t really explored, but Moon Knight is the perfect character to delve into. I’m very invested in how Marc will recover from the attack, how he’ll pull himself back together to find Harrow, and how he’ll free Khonshu and recover the powers of the Moon Knight.
So once again, I find myself looking forward to yet another Wednesday.
