I’ve been writing these recaps for every Marvel show on Disney+, but I’ve never had so difficult a time as I’m having with Moon Knight. This series is full of twists and non-linear story-telling, turning all of my attempts to recap the episodes into a rambling waffle.
With that said, this one is no different. And fair warning, the following contains spoilers for Moon Knight. If you haven’t watched the latest episode, proceed with caution.
On With The Recap
The episode, “Asylum,” opens with the shouts of a young boy. This is followed by the image of a woman shouting, “This is your fault.” This bleeds into Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac) screaming in Dr. Harrow’s (Ethan Hawke) office. Harrow tries to explain to Marc that the life he thinks he lives is a delusion. Marc doesn’t believe him, having cast Harrow in the role of his adversary. Harrow then asks about “the boy,” which sets Marc into a breakdown, prompting the arrival of the orderlies to give him a sedative.
The sedative leads Marc back to his meeting with Taweret, the hippo goddess we met in the previous episode. She explains that they are on the Duat, the Egyptian afterlife, one of many afterlives (which leads to a neat little reference to Black Panther and the Ancestral plane).
Naturally, Marc is skeptical, thinking that a more logical reason for their situation is that he’s insane. But when he goes outside, he finds that he’s on a boat sailing across the desert.
Taweret weighs their hearts against the feather of truth on the scales of justice. She discovers that Marc’s and Steven’s souls are unbalanced. They have to balance them or else they’ll get dragged into the Duat and frozen in sand.
This sends Marc and Steven through their memories. They first come across a room full of people just… sitting. It’s revealed that these are all the people that Marc killed as a result of being Moon Knight. Steven is surprised, and a bit horrified, to find a child in the room. Marc tries to get Steven to ignore it, but Steven follows the kid and stumbles upon Marc’s childhood.
The boy Steven follows is Marc’s brother, Randall, who, Steven learns, died young. His death sent Marc’s mother into a spiral of depression. She blamed Marc for Randall’s death. Steven continues through Marc’s memories, seeing that Marc’s father was supportive, but his mother kept getting worse until Marc had had enough and ran away.
However, there’s one room in Marc’s memories that he won’t let Steven enter. He pulls him away and into another memory, in Egypt. Marc reveals how he became a mercenary and was nearly killed while raiding a tomb. With a bullet in his stomach, he crawls through the desert and finds Khonshu. The god offers to save Marc’s life if he agrees to become the Moon Knight. Marc does, and there’s an awesome shot of him being imbued with the power.
As each secret gets revealed, the scales balance a little more. But by that point, souls begin to flood the Duat as Ammit sends unbalanced souls to the underworld before their time.
Steven asks Taweret for help to get back to the real world, and Taweret brings the boat toward the gate of Osiris. As she does, she urges them to balance the scales or else the Duat will take them.
Steven is convinced that the room Marc wouldn’t let him go into is the key to balancing the scales. Marc freaks out, which pulls him back into the office with Harrow. Harrow continues to try and convince Marc that he’s delusional. Marc retreats into his mind leading Steven to discover the truth of the final room.
Marc’s mother had grown abusive. In Marc’s desperation to avoid the pain, he created the Steven persona as a way to escape. Steven is upset by this, thinking that he was the original personality. Marc then reveals that their mother was dead, which shocks Steven even more. This sends Steven to Harrow, who confirms that Steven’s mother is dead. Steven is devastated to learn the truth.
This leads to the moment of Marc’s mother’s funeral. Marc is outside his house, wanting to go in to say goodbye to his mother, but the pain of her treatment is too much. He recedes into his mind, giving Steven control. Marc explains this was the catalyst for their lives to bleed into each other.
Steven tries to comfort Marc, telling him that Randall’s death wasn’t his fault, but a lurch in the boat stops them. They go to Taweret, who shows them to the gates of Osiris. Unfortunately, Marc and Steven’s scales never balanced, and the boat is overrun by souls from the Duat. Marc tries to protect Steven, fighting them off, but he’s overrun., Steven leaps in to help him. Marc is nearly dragged off the boat and Steven saves him, falling into the Duat in the process. Marc tries to get Taweret to stop the boat, but at that moment, the scales balance.
The last we see of Marc, he is standing in the Field of Reeds.
Final Thoughts…
One of the best parts of the episode is, without a doubt, Oscar Isaac’s acting. His emotional range at Marc Spector’s pain, coupled with Steven Grant’s unbridled hope plays so well off each other, even though he had nothing to react to on set. He gave two excellent one-sided performances and it worked wonderfully.
I also have to acknowledge the “death” of Steven. It was a tragic, terrible moment, but it was Steven fulfilling his role. Marc created the identity of Steven to save himself from pain, so for Steven to go against his physicality and rescue Marc from the souls in the Duat was fitting.
“Asylum” answers some questions about the series while raising the stakes quite a bit. Unlike the previous episode, Moon Knight makes a brief appearance but doesn’t affect the story very much. I’m curious how the showrunners plan to end the series; considering there’s only one episode left and Marc still needs to free Khonshu, stop Harrow, rescue Steven, and restore his mind. There’s a lot left. But all in all, Moon Knight continues to deliver a mind-bending story full of classic MCU trauma.
