by Rob LoAlbo

*Pump up the volume…pump up the volume…pump up the volume. Dance! Dance!*

All photos courtesy Marvel Studios and Disney Plus

Oh Layla, you’ve got Marc on his knees! Chasing after him to Egypt, she and Marc battle, fight, bicker, and grow (together? apart?) in this globetrotting episode that highlights the spectacle of impressively staged large scale sequences like a chase through a crowded market, but it often all comes across as more confounding than cool. Let’s summon our suits and head to the sands!

Full spoilers ahead as we dig for clues for what’s actually going on!

*No wonder you’re confused about how I got here. You didn’t watch my thrilling fake passport making scene.*

Full confession: I`m still not feeling Layla. (Is it because she looks too much like Alia Shawkat from “Arrested Development” or “The Mummy’s” Rachel Weisz?) I love that they went with an unknown Egyptian-Palestinian actress, but other than authenticity, she just isn’t standing out enough for me. It’s just nice knowing that Marvel is finally casting appropriate actors with appropriate backgrounds. (Ahem, Danny Rand?) We open with an extended character-building scene of her getting a fake passport that establishes her values, but it’s weirdly placed and kind of boringly paced. There are few clues dropped about her dead father and how she should “avoid your old haunts,” but I’m tiring of Marvel’s overreliance on this rote approach to characters and plot, where mysterious hints are dropped that don’t get paid off until later episodes.

Thankfully, Harrow’s quite a bit in this episode, as he’s the most interesting in character and in depiction of the series thus far. Ethan Hawke’s quietly weird fervor is fun to watch, and his calmly-intense obsession with releasing Ammit chills. That he gets so many scenes with Marc just makes it better, as their adversarial chemistry is the best part of the episode. Neither character is fully good or bad, so scenes with these two warring value systems as portrayed by Hawke and Isaac just slay.

But we need action! Enter Marc jumping from rooftop to rooftop while chasing unknown assailants about a dig site! It’s exciting because the editing, music, and choreography tell us thus, but too often we are not sure why people are fighting, who’s got what motivation, or who to root for. In fact, so much of this episode suffers from that exact reason—murky motivations and unclear reasons for scenes. And convenience shouldn’t play a part in scripts: the guy Marc needs to talk to is killed just as he gets there; Marc almost kills someone, but Steven stops him because of a super shiny knife. (Honestly, who carries a knife that shiny? )

But, new twist: Marc keeps blanking out and neither he nor Stephen know what happened. Marc/Stephen keeps waking up with LOTS of blood on their hands and no one knows why. Marc isn’t that sinister, as he’s shocked to have killed a man and is horrified to have been complicit in the suicidal killing of another. It’s definitely not Khonshu, because he can’t take over. My guess: there’s a third personality and he’s really morally compromised. Right now, I’m leaning towards the comic’s storyline of Jake Lockley, a cabby who gathers information any way he wants to. Future episodes will tell.

When humans can’t help, it’s time to summon the gods. Khonshu eclipses the sun (go big or go home, amiright?) which gets their attention, so all the avatars gather and plead their cases. This setup gives us background on Khonshu: he’s on the outs with them, except for Hathor, the goddess of music and love. Last time, they banished him and are just looking for a reason to put him in stone. Regardless, Khonshu accuses Harrow of attempting to release Ammit, which to me feels fairly cut and dry in terms of an accusation. That Harrow talks his way out of it doesn't surprise me, but that Khonshu and the gods can’t build much of a case DESPITE that they just need to visit the dig site and see that YES, HE IS DIGGING FOR AMMIT! (Stupid legal system.) And Khonshu speaking through Marc struck me as silly and reminded me of someone I can’t quite put my finger on.

When lawsuits don’t work out, Marc gets a hot tip on a horse: a sarcophagus named Senfu has a map to Ammit’s tomb marked on it. Sold on the black market, Marc goes hunting with the now imported Layla. After some silky boat talk, Layla flirts with knowledge about Mogart, a big cheese in the market, but Marc wet-blankets the steaminess by un-intimately confessing that something recently happened that forced Stephen into the foreground. He’s dismissive, so romance isn’t much in the hieroglyphs on this trip.

When we get to Mogart, he’s all fancy and rich and stuff and likes to play with horses and antiquities, so of course Marc is all thumbs and refuses to let Stephen out of the box. Dealing with the world’s worst diversion creator, Layla can’t hold them back while Steven gives origami instructions from the great beyond, so it’s time to summon the suit and fight it out. Yet what makes this fight special is not just that we get to see Moon Knight finally kicking some major ass, but that we also get to see Mogart’s Midnight Man—as played charismatically by the late Gaspard Ulliel—make his thrilling move on the chess board. (Did you hear the chimes ring at midnight?)

Marc jumps and karate-chops some people Daredevil-style until Stephen gets all whiny and takes over. He lasts maybe three seconds until he gets impaled and wants back inside, showing real battle-ready rigor. Layla gets tossed about until she pulls her necklace off and it turns into knives (why didn’t she lead with that?!?), but Marc is stuck like a matador bull, until he isn’t (whatever). They grab the charts, go, and have Steven make a swan or something out of the folded pieces. It’s a map to the sky from years ago, so Khonshu sacrifices himself by turning back the sky. (Am I supposed to feel bad for him? I don’t know!) And now, Marc and Layla know where the tomb is but without the protection of Khonshu.

The problem I’m having is that each of these above mentioned scenes seems to have one single purpose to it—showing us that there’s a third person in there, the gods are angry with Khonshu, his relationship with Layla is complicated—which makes for overly deliberate and clumsy storytelling. If some scenes had more than one purpose, our episode might have more cohesion and a quicker pace. As is, it feels random and dragged out. It’s not that the show is slow: it’s that each scene has too much simplicity to it. Give us multiple plots conflicting within a scene. We can handle it.

Despite individual scene simplicity, I’m never really sure who I’m rooting for at any given time. Steven is too annoying to put my bets on and Marc is too cold to everyone around him. Layla is too bland (even though she has some sort of tragic backstory involving her father’s murder or something?) and although I sometimes feel sympathy for him, Harrow is the bad guy, right? (Does that make me a psychopath?) It’s different from most other MCU shows, but again, without the whole picture I can’t quite judge it’s effectiveness. It’s forcing me to struggle, and whether the struggle is worth it or not remains to be seen.

At least I feel like I’m watching something deeply authentic, a world unfamiliar to myself. It’s culturally rich and continuously forces me to the internet to look things up. It’s sagging in the middle, but it’s unique and keeps me thinking.

Either way, the Egyptian pop/club music in this show absolutely slaps. Gotta put it on my Spotify playlist.

Next week: No more new clues! Reveal some secrets, dammit!

Star City Rating: 3 out of 5

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