Moon Knight reveals a big plot twist in a solid outing

Should we start with the twist? I think we have to start with the twist, right? It’s not every day when an MCU show goes out of its way to recreate arguably what’s one of the most fascinating episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yes, I’m talking about season six’s “Normal Again,” the premise of which found the titular slayer confronting a reality where all the misadventures she’d been having with her Scooby gang for years are revealed to be (or, wait, are they?) figments of her own delusional imagination. As Buffy struggles to discern what’s real and what’s not (could she really have been in an institution all this time, dreaming up Big Bads and sisters and vampires all by herself?) we’re left to question the very show we’ve been watching for six seasons straight. The final shot of that episode risked retconning everything we thought we knew about the quippy blond heroine, but the show treated the incident as the bottle episode it was, nothing more than a lark the writers cooked up to get Buffy to value what it is she has.

Question is: Will Moon Knight be similarly wiping the slate clean in the episodes to come? For, by the time this episode ends we’ve left Cairo altogether and find ourselves in an antiseptic white-halled institution where, if we are to believe the one doctor who looks suspiciously like Harrow (he’s played by Ethan Hawke), Marc’s entire “Moon Knight” adventures are mere fantasies concocted by someone who needs to be sedated and restrained and talked down to as if he were a child. But could that possibly be true? Could it really be that the scenes we just witnessed—like, everything that happened inside the tomb of Alexander the Great (!), who apparently was Ammit’s avatar (!!), which is where Marc got shot and plunged into a vast nothingness after coming face to face with Harrow and his men. Everything around him in the fussily decorated hospital seems to echo all we’ve seen: There’s the action figure that looks just like Moon Knight; there’s a VHS tape of an Indiana Jones knock-off that centers on a lunar god; there’s Layla being the one friendly face among his fellow patients; and even in the doctor’s office, there are Egyptian artifacts that all but mock a groggy Marc with what they remind him of. It’s why he cannot rightfully believe that any of this could possibly be real. And that’s before he tries to escape, finds Steven trapped in a sarcophagus (naturally) and then is face to face with…a hippo goddess?

But maybe the identity of this new high-pitch voiced character, who rightfully scares the shit out of Marc and Steven (yes, you read that right), is best left for next week’s recap (in the meantime, google “Taweret”). We should concern ourselves instead with this bifurcated episode instead. After all, the first half picked up right where we’d left off, in Cairo, with Khonshu having been banished and Layla and Steven left adrift. In the middle of the desert. With only flares to help stave off those on their tail. Though eventually, once they’re safe, their interactions serve as more expository-heavy confessionals, with Steven admitting to Layla how Marc had hoped to disappear from her life, and eventually, Steven finding out precisely why that was a concern of Marc’s. Thankfully, Oscar Isaac’s playful chemistry with May Calamawy (and, arguably with himself when playing Marc and Steven volleying banter) that even these requisite plot-heavy dialogue scenes seem to fly by.

And fly they do because all of a sudden we’re in Alexander the Great’s tomb learning about how the famed historical figure was tied to Ammit and thus embroiled in the very mythology Moon Knight has been sketching out for us these past few episodes. I will admit, I lost a bit of interest in the middle section of this episode. (Oh look! Another tomb! Some more nerdy archeology lore! More backstory! Harrow and his men yet again!) The only thing that kept it somewhat interesting was the fact that the suit didn’t (can’t) make an appearance. So instead we had some tense conversations and one attack from a very scary being (again, I already had Buffy and her vamps in my mind before that “Normal Again” reset) that pushed our heroes to be the resourceful folks they’ve shown themselves to be. (Who knew flares could be so versatile a weapon?) And we did finally get a lovely, intimate scene between Layla and Marc, in which his utter disbelief at having to explain to her how he was there when her father was executed is only exceeded by the shame he feels at finally needing to hear himself say those words aloud.

Which is maybe why I was so taken aback—in the best of ways—when we got to that twist. Even if it ends up being some psychic mirage of Steven’s (or Marc’s?) making, I enjoyed being thrust away from the dark sandy tombs we’ve been living in and instead blinded by the all-white decor of this most cuckoo’s nest of hospitals. Also, since we’ve given Oscar a chance to play with horror, action-adventure, and buddy-comedy, it only made sense we got him to go full Girl, Interrupted on us. Bonus: We’re back to really leaning into the kookiness of the material (again: see “hippo goddess”), letting the absurdity cut through the more self-serious moments that characterized much of the episode before this. What’s more, the cliffhanger ending of this one ushers in a welcome change. Namely, Marc and Steven are no longer sharing the same body. Not in whatever world/headscape we’re at. Which is a win for all of us. Because, as in life, in Moon Knight, two Oscars are better than one.

Stray observations

• “You smell like him. I mean, why wouldn’t you?” Trust us Layla, we couldn’t choose between Marc and Steven even if we tried—and they look exactly alike! Sometimes Steven’s puppy-eyed enthusiasm is intoxicating, but there’s something to be said about Marc’s take-control attitude. Good thing we don’t have to choose as they get to both live in our heads rent free from here on out.
• Tomb Buster, we have to admit, is a great title for a B-movie knock-off that’s equal parts Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider. And while we were probably too confused when its grainy footage first started playing, there’s no denying it makes for a lovely curio of a pop-culture piece in the broader MCU.
• I’ve been praising Isaac for his strong work but attention must be paid to the gravelly voice work that Hawke has been doing. MCU properties live or die by the strength of their villains, after all, and his Harrow is a particularly slippery one, so self-righteous that he feels distractingly real.
• We all saw that second sarcophagus, the one neither Steven nor Marc opted to open despite it clearly having someone inside, right? Hmm…
• Also: Let’s add “great screamer” to Isaac’s acting CV: That final moment is just divine.