New Avatars and the End of Things in Moon Knight Episode #6

The skies have turned, backwards and forwards, and the moon has shown us (nearly) all of its faces. As gods are released from their stony prisons, the battle for the souls of mankind takes place among the pyramids. Who rises, who falls, and what choices do our heroes make in this final fight for free will? Marvel’s Moon Knight finale answers all!

Armaan Babu: It is a waning crescent moon tonight. Though all seemed lost, a crescent sliver of hope has begun to shine through, and we find ourselves on our way to something entirely new. Well…not entirely new. For one thing, we’ve got Adam Reck returning to cover this finale!

Adam, how’d you enjoy this?

Adam Reck: Thanks for having me back, Armaan! Coming off the fifth episode, which I think was probably the best character work of the season, this finale has the unenviable task of handling Marvel’s finale trope of the giant-battle-in-the-sky, and it’s only got 45 minutes. Not a lot of time for a show to pay off on everything it’s been building to. Which is all a roundabout way of saying this is a bag of mixed nuts.

The Waking Dead

Armaan: Definitely a lot going on here, which is fair, given all that needs to be wrapped up. Whatever this show experimented with, all the things that made it one of Marvel’s more unique shows, boil down to this: in the end, it’s a superhero show. And in the end, here, with this finale, that’s just what it was. I can’t say it wasn’t a lot of fun, but this episode was on the Marvel path of least resistance.

Still, I really enjoyed the perspective on Layla we opened with, she gets a pretty significant chunk of the episode — to say nothing of the eyes of the gods on her goings on.

Adam: Shifting focus to Layla allows the viewer to grapple with whether the show is really going to let Marc die and chill in the Gladiator wheat field. But of course it doesn’t last long because Marc isn’t willing to give up on Steven, so he abandons paradise and gets his bro back. What I did like was that in Marc/Steven’s absence, it allowed Layla agency to not only follow Harrow, but ultimately take on her own superhero status as the Scarlet Scarab! What did you think of Layla’s superhero turn here, Armaan?

Armaan: Love it. Absolutely love it. Put aside that the costume looks great and that she gives the Falcon a run for his money with her wing-based combat. What I loved the most was that Marc’s worst fear came to pass: Khonshu took advantage of her desperation, to offer her the mantle of the Moon Knight. The very thing Marc left her to protect her from. And faced with the offer, what does she do? Spit in Khonshu’s face. Deny him, repeatedly.

She didn’t need protecting, one bit. As someone who was annoyed at Marc’s unilateral decision to leave to “protect” her, this was a particularly cathartic moment. Yeah, Layla kicks butt here, and it’s great!

Adam: One of my favorite moments in the episode was when May Calamawy gets to switch back and forth from playing Layla to the bubbly hippo Tawaret. It’s silly, but a fun play on what Oscar Isaac has been doing all season. This paired with the reunion of Marc and Steven is all the character development we can expect from this episode though, because Harrow is successful in releasing Ammut the giant cartoon crocodile! We expressed concern early in the season about some of the CGI, but it is interesting that this show leaned so hard into more exaggerated animal gods! Your take on the literal big bad here?

Armaan: Look, it’s the superhero finale. I’m here for the ride. The CGI on Moon Knight has not been one of the show’s strengths, and that continues to be the case, but do you know why I’m enjoying it?

Because Ammut looks so. Ridiculously. Evil. That crocodile smile of malicious triumph as she walks around Harrow. Ethan Hawke has been doing incredible work as the grounded, earnest prophet, the True Believer, and Ammut struts across the temple like as a pure, villainous hypocrite. I wondered whether or not she had her thumb on the scales, and her accepting Harrow by valuing loyalty over justice? That confirms it. I am entertained.

Adam: Crocodilian hypocrisy on full display, Harrow gets to work on his master plan – pre-cogging the planet. He’s up to the top of the pyramid which leads to the show’s action-packed fist-fight of the Gods!

Kaiju Clash at the Temple

Armaan: With Ammut released, things escalate quickly. Her followers are empowered to become judge, jury, and horrifyingly quick executioners — those judged guilty (by Ammut’s inscrutable standards) fall immediately, their souls empowering our crocodile goddess as she grows, and grows, and grows. Does anyone else have the Power Rangers theme song in their head?

Adam: Gotta say, I have questions about this plan. You’ve got Harrow using his new axe-cain to channel judged souls to Ammut, but his followers still have to go use their tattoo powers to judge? This doesn’t seem like a huge improvement on the one-cane one-judged person at a time. Especially since there aren’t that many followers in Harrow’s camp. But at this point we’re in full nonsense mode as Moon Knight returns to fight Harrow and Khonshu goes skyscraper-size (despite not eating any souls) to beat up his archenemy.

Armaan: “We’re in full nonsense mode” is what’s going to get you through a lot of this episode. I like the way Khonshu fights — slow, dramatic, turning into mist every once in a while, as ephemeral as the moon…which might explain why he can’t land a punch to save his life. Then again, that’s what the Fist of Khonshu is for, and he’s definitely landing a lot of punches on Harrow.

I’ll admit, a part of me was hoping for this kind of 1:1 God-Avatar fight. Like, if we see Harrow get the upper hand while fighting Moon Knight, then Ammut gets the upper hand over Khonshu as well. Missed opportunity there, though the fighting is still fun, as Moon Knight switches costumes and personas at will to keep Harrow on his toes — a fight that only gets better when Layla swoops in to join the fray.

Adam: I assumed they were going to mirror the fight too, and disappointed when it didn’t. But having Marc and Steven switch back and forth throughout the fight made for some fun choreography. The addition of Layla to the action really added a great deal. What still felt missing was the reveal that the show has been teasing for some time. I can’t be the only viewer who expected Jake Lockley to be pivotal in the final episode. The fact that he was the deciding factor in the physical fight against Harrow and we have yet to see him? I was pretty annoyed at that. We’ll get into the actual reveal in a second, but not allowing Marc and Steven to win this particular fight was anticlimactic.

Armaan: Very. It was cleverly done in previous episodes, heck, there was a running theme with them in terms of incompleteness. Here, though, in the nonsense filled superhero brawl of a finale, it just felt annoying. It was absolutely a let down.

I want to rewind a bit, though, for a moment that wasn’t a let down at all — Steven Grant negotiating with Khonshu, cheerily putting on the business suit, knowing he has Khonsu over a barrel. A real win for Steven, I was so happy for him.

That deal turns out to be a real game change, because after some chanting, some glowing lights, some villainous “We’re not so different, you and I!”-ing from Ammut before she’s bound to Harrow, we see Marc and Steven get to exercise the freedom that Khonshu’s been denying them through Moon Knight’s entire existence: the freedom not to kill.

Adam: Wellll at least they think they have the freedom not to kill. We do have another brief visit to the shrink, which, I guess is in Marc’s head? But Harrow’s bleeding suggests he exists in that space too, so I don’t know what to think. The episode “ends” with Marc/Steven back in Steven’s flat. We don’t know what happened to Harrow. We don’t know what’s up with Layla. But this is the MCU. OF COURSE there’s going to be a post-credit scene. . .

Tip Your Uber Driver

Armaan: So it turns out that, surprise surprise, there’s a third personality — Jake Lockley, who still works for Khonshu, who wheels Harrow out of a mental health facility and kills both him and Ammut, once and for all.

This was…a fairly terrible reveal. I do not see why it was held back this long. Everyone with the barest of google abilities knows that Jake Lockley is the third personality that’s being held back. This would be like there being a post-credits scene in Spider-Man that reveals he has Spider-Sense. It’s just an essential part of the character, and there is no reason to have held it back this long.

Adam: I agree. Saving Lockley for the post-credit stinger just seems lazy to me more than anything. Structurally, the show gave viewers enough to expect the third personality. The final fight scene with Harrow would have been improved greatly if Lockley had been revealed there, giving more weight to Marc, Steven and Layla’s confusion. Instead, this feels cheap. I can’t decided whether I’m more annoyed by the scene or that the scene is shoehorned into this now required format, but it’s definitely a combination of the two. But whether we like it or not, that’s the end of the season! I enjoyed much more of the season than I disliked, and I’d love to see Isaac and Calamawy reprise these roles elsewhere if they’re into it. Armaan, you did a great job with these recaps. Any final takeaways?

Armaan: Just that this series brought me unexpected joy. The final episode was fun, gorgeous, and formulaic, but the preceding episodes broke the mold in fun, engaging, fascinating ways. This show could have gotten away with being so little, so predictable, but there were parts that went that extra mile, and I appreciate it deeply.

I hope that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Moon Knight.

Spector Specifics

Layla’s Superhero Avatar for Tawaret is credited as the Scarlet Scarab in the Marvel Fandom Wiki. The 616 version of Scarlet Scarab was Abdul Faoul, who in the 40s was the leader of a group of anti-British colonizers (good) that sometimes teamed up with Axis forces (not good). Abdul’s son Mehemet became the 2nd Scarlet Scarab but is mainly off the radar.
Even though May Calamawy vocalizes as Tawaret when becoming her avatar, the animated hippo Tawaret is voiced by Antonia Salib.
While Steven Grant’s original millionaire playboy status is different in the show from the comic book, Jake Lockley’s day job is the same: Limo driver.
Jake Lockley’s Rolls Royce license plate is SKPTR (like Marc Spector – get it?!)
In a fun nod to the Moon Knight artist, Harrow’s Psychiatric Hospital is named after Bill Sienkewicz.
It’s delightful that Jake Lockely gets his own ridiculous accent.
We see that Marc and Steven are living in Steven’s apartment again. Where did Layla go?
Will there be more Moon Knight? Isaac and Hawke both spoke about the show as a one-time experience, but Marvel deleted their “Series Finale” tweet and then used the word “Season” instead. I have to imagine Marvel would like Isaac and Calamawy to reprise their roles.