“Moon Knight” Episode 2 Recap and Review: Summon My Suit’s Tailor
by Rob LoAlbo
Now, that’s a fit check!
All photos courtesy Marvel Studios and Disney Plus
This week, not only do manners maketh man but a nicely tailored and updated fighting suit also maketh him, and thank goodness Oscar Isaac can pull off the color white. In other news: two can play at this game as Marc and Steven butt head and fight for control of the one true body, but only if you can control the chaos within you. With lots of backstory, this episode might be a bit heavy on explaining but at least we’ve got a much better idea as to how this thing works.
Spoilers on the move in this week’s very tomato-based cult-driven Moon Knight!
Wait, I thought I was hiding and you were seeking.
After trashing his job’s grandiose multi-sink lavatory (really, how many people do they expect to use a museum bathroom at once?), Steven wakes the morning after with a bad case of the Tutankhamen shakes and a handful of bad memories about just how much he punched a jackal last night. In a panic to clear his name out of the mouths of his bosses, he races to work to erase the tapes but finds that not only has he been sacked for excessive late-night plumbing but also that no one can see the second party in a two-party fight. Apparently, jackals don’t cast shadows and museums have a shortage of “Steven” name tags.
Just when Steven turns in his identity tag to his former boss, he chases down his alter one when he puts key and storage locker together, finding a whole ‘nother identity marked with international money and passport in a duffel bag beside some uncomfortable sleeping conditions. (Summon that man a tempurpedic mattress!) After warning him to turn back, Marc explains that he serves Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon, and that Marc takes over when Steven is asleep to “protect the vulnerable and deliver justice to those who hurt them,” a practice that doesn’t really fit with Steven’s more laid back lifestyle. Run Steven!
Just when you thought it was safe to roam the abandoned halls of a storage facility…
As if Marc weren’t enough of a deterrent, Skeletor Crow flicks a few light switches and demands ownership of the golden compass scarab (which I think was the plot of The Mummy 3), but Marc is too crafty to be caught (somehow) and his soon-to-be ex-wife deus ex machina mopeds her way into his heart. Layla facially recognizes Steven as Marc, so we’re still unsure just how long Steven has been around, but judging by the way he doesn’t know how to comfortably hold on to her while riding a moped, it’s clear that it hasn’t been long enough to have touched a girl. My guess is that Marc was on a mission, things went south, and Marc died only to be resurrected by Khonshu, which would be around the time that the Steven persona emerged and took over the body. (Now if they could only just get in touch with their mother and give her the good news.)
Get out of my dreams and get onto my moped!
Layla wants him to sign on the line that is dotted, but Steven can’t even recall being married. Me think Marc protests too much from the mirror, but Layla’s got plans of her own when she finally finds the scarab. She reveals to us that she and Marc have spent a really long time looking for it, as it points the way to someone of importance in Egypt. And just like that…the cult shows up and takes Steven prisoner (if I had a nickel for every time that’s happened to me). They’ve got info on Marc that shows him to be a stone cold archeologist killer which doesn’t exactly win points with Steven. But it does win sympathy from Time’s Cult Leader of the Year Arthur Harrow.
“And if you think the Lentil soup is impressive, you should try the Kool-Aid.”
You see, Harrow knows what it’s like out there for a pimp. At one point, Khonshu used him as an Avatar and “manipulated” him into doing his bidding. He turns into an enabler for StevenMarc (Starc?) when he reveals that without Steven’s help, Khonshu is essentially powerless. So while Khonshu can only watch, Arthur gives Steven the grand tour of his perfectly creepy world which is a cross between a farm collective and the place that housed the authorities who brainwashed Malcolm MacDowell.
Harrow’s got beef with Khonshu, as Harrow’s ideas is that by the time judgment comes too many have suffered, which sounds like something a cult leader would say. And seemingly, there are two Egyptian figures at work here: Khonshu who punishes the guilty and Ammit who punishes those who will cause evil, a real baby Hitler killer if ever there was one. Harrow’s plan is to resurrect Ammit, and he needs that scarab to find her whereabouts. And that cane of his? It’s got Ammit’s power, and he’s not afraid to use it.
By the power of Grayskull!
Layla then decides to show up with the scarab for reasons and no plan, and she and Steven manage to slowly escape without a problem. But when the jackal shows up and only Steven can see it, he overcomes performance issues to summon the very cool white leisure suit of the comics. It’s played for laughs, but it just might be my next Halloween costume (okay, full confession - Paul gave me that joke). The Greatest American Hero doesn’t really know how to use it, or the inanimate carbon rods it comes with, but at least it gives him super strength and some indiscriminate level of invulnerability.
Steven does his best but is clearly out of his depth, so he allows Marc to take over with a more proper superhero suit that comes with crescent moon batarangs and a cape. He slow-mo’s over the rooftops and manages to impale the jackal on a pointy monument, but in the process he loses the scarab only to have it fall into Harrow’s hands.
Hey Marc: if you want my body and you think I’m sexy, come on sugar, let me know.
Oscar Isaac then spends some time yelling at himself, and in the process we learn a few things:
Marc lives in servitude to Khonshu, paying off a debt with some kind of deal.
He’s done this for “a long time.”
The person in charge of the body is growing stronger.
Marc’s replacement for being an Avatar is Layla.
They need to get to Ammit’s tomb before Harrow.
Khonshu is kind of a dick.
Our episode ends in Egypt, which as far as Marvel Disney Plus globetrotting goes, it’s better than beautiful sunny Madripoor. (So seemingly, we ARE going the Brenden Fraser route.) I’m curious as to how it’s going to distinguish itself from that Indiana Jones vibe, but maybe it won’t want to. With the first four episodes already screened, the critics are saying that it’s not like anything we’ve seen before, so my faith lies in that so many of these shows have found their way despite exposition-heavy action-light episodes like this one.
As far as new characters go, I’m not terribly impressed with May Calamawy’s somewhat generic Layla, but the intention of the episode may have been to give Ethan Hawke’s Harrow the spotlight. He’s a very complex character for a villain, something we haven’t seen since Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger. That we can listen to a villain and think, “hey, he’s evil but he does make some good points” is terrifying. I’m hoping they can maintain Hawke’s subtly duplicitous nature and not have him get so jackal-ly on us all the time. Maybe Layla’s got some surprises for later episodes. And with the Marc-Steven interplay steadily developing in addition to the great scenes between Isaac and Hawke, we’re spying some interesting and curious dynamics with these actors and their relationships, but without the full scope of the show yet revealed, it’s like judging Avengers: Infinity War having just seen the first hour.
Next week: Sand. A lot of sand, which is coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
Star City Rating: 3.5 out of 5