“Moon Knight” Episode 1 Recap and Review: Will the Real Oscar Isaac Please Stand Up?
By Rob LoAlbo
“I am vengeance…Batman’s got nothing on me.”
All photos courtesy Marvel Studios and Disney Plus
When introducing a brand new character under a familiar label (Marvel), one who’s more rich in mythology than actual flash, whiz, and bang, it’s good to gamble not on an unknown thespian, a minor character actor, or someone who doesn’t have the acting chops to light up the screen.
It’s good to gamble on Oscar Isaac.
My coworker is spreading rumors that I have multiple personality disorder. Well, three can play that game!
If you only know him from the Star Wars sequel trilogy, you don’t know Oscar Isaac. An interesting actor who brings a whole new level of commitment to every project, you’re in for a unique treat. Whether cutting a rug with his robot companion in Ex Machina, being down on his luck as a failed blues musician in Inside Llewyn Davis, or pulling a smooth Ace of Spades in last year’s The Card Counter, you always know you’re going to get something special. In fact, I’m hard pressed to name even a mediocre role of his: he’s just that intense and that good.
For the makers of Marvel’s Moon Knight, it was smart to go with someone who truly embodies strange and interesting characters. The character of Moon Knight has often been boringly described as Marvel’s version of Batman, and he isn’t traditionally as charismatic and interesting as, say, Loki, Wanda, or Bucky. Putting Isaac in the role ups the weird factor and the game significantly, bringing credence and weight to a usually rote character.
Otherwise, the show might have been a fairly ordinary affair. Thankfully, showrunner and director Mohamed Diab also decides to forgo not only the typical origin story by putting us en media res, but also to jettison any kind of overarching plot with a McGuffin being sought by two opposing forces. Instead, he creates a character study between two eccentrics, Isaac’s Steven Grant/Marc Spector and cult leader Arthur Harrow, the latter played with equal heft by legendary indie-darling Ethan Hawke. In what may be the most perfect casting duo of the year so far, Hawke and Isaac circle each other cat and mouse-like, developing rich interplay by being generous to their fellow costar, providing plenty of showy opportunities. (Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.)
“So what your saying is that you want to start seeing other people…”
Our show starts by pulling some immediate punches by first giving us our “villain” (it’s still unclear if he’s bad or just morally complex) going through the religiously fanatical steps of a penance-laced ritual by putting broken glass in his shoes, not doubt to pay for past sins which may enable his current judge-y arm tattoo. It’s all to the strains of Dylan’s “Every Grain of Sand,” a song whose lyrics are rich with religious imagery. In fact, the first episode alone has five needle drops which all reveal what exactly the main character in the moment is enduring. It’s a bit on the nose, but it’s a fun Easter egg hunt.
Shifting to Isaac’s Steven Grant, our main protagonist, multiple visual cues indicate that he’s a guy with problems. He chains his ankle to the bed, surrounds it with sand to mark his footprints, tapes the door shut, does everything he can to stay awake: totally normal here! Nothing to see!
How do you solve a problem like a single-finned goldfish? (Named Maria?)
The episode is called “The Goldfish Problem,” with the titular animal shown as a “one-finned wonder,” symbolically swimming in circles. (Hmm…metaphor?) That while Steven feeds the fish he is also consistently leaving long-winded messages to his absentee mother indicates a different kind of going in circles, and having one-sided conversations with street performing statues doesn’t indicate a lot of social confidence.
You see, Steven doesn’t know how to read the room. His issues aren’t named yet (symptoms approach Asperger’s, or at least on the spectrum of something similar - the comics indicate “dissociative identity disorder,” which kinda goes along with the whole voices in his head theme of the show), and as an unreliable narrator who keeps losing time and falling asleep on buses, we’re not really sure what about his current reality is true. It’s clear that his alter ego is moonlighting as a vigilante and lothario, but how he got here is what sets the show apart from most of its peers. Marvel leans into the mystery box motif, and we’re happily hunting for clues.
“Yes, please tell me more about the Pharaohs. I’m totally listening.”
He’s smarter than your average bear, as shown by parading tons of Egyptian knowledge, but we have no idea where he got those killer skills. Being that we only see what he sees, we don’t know why he’s waking in a strange field with a smashed jaw, how he got a gun in his hand and most around him are knocked unconscious, or why he’s driving a cupcake truck backwards down a hill. The shifts in time and space keep us on our toes because just like Steven, we have no idea what’s next or how these scenes connect.
Thankfully, we’ve got Salieri telling us what to do.
The thunderous bass-y voice of F. Murray Abraham playing (shuffles webpages and types furiously to get to IMDB) Khonshu, the nocturnal god of the moon, cuts in to help guide Stevie back to being Marc (how many people are in there?) and away from the mysterious people shooting at him only to bring him face-to-face with Hawke’s magical judge. (Hawke himself said that he modeled his portrayal after cult leader David Koresh which makes him all the more chilling and ominous.) That he kills an old woman in front of the non-reactionary group and talks about making “a better world” makes him, sadly, a relatable threat.
“I know you don’t think so, but I, in fact, DO have your nose.”
You see, Steven has Harrow’s gold trinket that everyone wants, everyone except Steven, but F. Murray Abraham has other plans. In a fairly clever, well-shot, pulse-pounding but cost-effective car chase, Steven/Marc/Khonshu manages to escape and defeat all the armed cult followers, and we’re left to mentally fill in the blanks along with Steven and his stilted date. And the now two-finned goldfish.
Still putting the pieces together, Steven stumbles across an old Razor flip phone stashed in his walls with a call log filled with missed calls from “Layla” (and one “Duchamp”? I think that’s a Pokémon). He calls her, she calls him Marc, he can’t figure it out, she hangs up. It’s then that the mirrors start acting all funny by talking back to him. and ancient Egyptian gods start showing up on 5th and Main.
No one here but us crow skeletons. Move along.
When David Koresh turns up at the museum to track down “Steven Grant of the gift shop,” there’s a lot of tattoo-flashing and mumbo jumbo about folklore, anime, and James Cameron, with everyone trying to get the gold scarab back (which seems like just a plot device at this time). That Harrow comes back as a (werewolf? Egyptian boogeyman? Vampire dog?) reveals that the show is about these two characters facing down their conflicting ideologies and internal chaos. It’s also unclear how much power Steven in allowing Marc to transform, but when he finally does, dog-wolf gets the snot beat out of him.
At this point, it’s all a bit confounding but not exceptionally so. We get a good sense of who everyone is, what their characters are like, how they feel about each other, and where they are in the moral universe akin to one another. There are lots of unanswered questions, but we don’t want everything spoon-fed to us, do we? That’s the job of lesser works like Falcon and the Winter Soldier which supplants grandstanding speeches for subtle thematic imagery.
“Just found out I have dissociative personality disorder. I gotta tell the other guys.”
Visually arresting and cinematically appealing to our eyeballs, it’s a very promising start. That there are only six episodes is a bit dispiriting, but previous Marvel Disney+ shows have done a lot with a similar timeframe. And unlike many of those shows, we’ve got a lot of talent stuffed into unfamiliar surroundings with brand new characters. It’s a clean slate, and already the writers and showrunners are making the strange seem kinda comfortable yet still not at all familiar. Serving up something new is just what we needed at this point, given that our last outing was Hawkeye’s Christmas Spectacular (a great show), but another approach like that would have turned tuners off. Moon Knight might be just what we need at this point in our MCU journey, and with Hawke and Isaac, we’re in good weird hands.
Next week: Looks like we’re headed to Egypt, so a pyramid scheme could be a good thing.
Star City Rating: 4 out of 5