Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show I’m your host Paul aka the guy who has no better half and in this video we’re breaking down Moon Knight Episode 2. The second entry in the season is packed with a lot of easter eggs and hidden details as well as an ending that’s somewhat of a cliffhanger.
I wanna get right into it but obviously, there will be heavy spoilers so if you haven’t checked it out then check out now. Smash that thumbs up button like Moon Knight smashed that Jackal and make sure you subscribe for videos like this every week.
With that out the way, thanks for clicking this, now let’s get into Moon Knight Episode 2.
Now unlike the songs over the top of the titles that we got last week, the Marvel logo has its classic fanfare. Last week’s episode didn’t really feel like a marvel project and we had pretty much no superpowers until the last shot. This however helps to ground us back in that universe and we pick up in the aftermath of the bathroom fight with the grunts of the jackal as it gets pounded away.
This is over the top of some sand and though it initially seems like we’re in the desert it’s revealed to be at the foot of Steven’s bed. He once more cracks open the mirror to try and talk to Marc and I love the iconography that we have here of the two faces side by side. So far we haven’t had Marc’s third personality Jake Lockley and in case you don’t know he’s a taxi driver that’s basically Matches Malone. This persona is used to gain intel on low-level criminals as people tend to talk more freely to a cabbie. One of his main contacts is a man called Crawley and it is possible that the mime he meets every week is actually the character.
Mirror Time
Just like last time, mirrors are used heavily throughout the episode and we catch one in the HR office in which Steven is reflected in the table. As he travels to the storage locker we see one in the glass and he, of course, has an exchange with marc in the reflection of a container. There’s also the goldfish tank at his home, the back of the police car later on and the bread bowl at Harrows. Going beyond this we get the river during the chase scene and also the one on the spire that Marc impales the Jackal on.
Steven returns to work at the Gallery and after checking the CCTV tapes with the security guard they watch Scotty… sorry, Steven from the last episode. Interestingly you can’t see the Jackal at all in any of the footage and later on the other one that appears is completely invisible.
It’s only upon being struck with water that this sticks to it and though it’s tangible, everyone other than Steven, Marc and Harrow is unable to see it.
Now we don’t learn why this is but potentially only those that have died are able to view them. Marc had to die in order to be resurrected by Khonshu and we learn that Harrow once was the avatar of the God. Therefore I think that they work much in the same way as the Thestrals in Harry Potter in that you have to have been close to death in order to be able to perceive them.
Perhaps the abilities come from the Gods themselves though and this would explain why Steven and Arthur can. He is of course now the servant of Ammit and he does say that he can no longer see Khonshu so possibly only the avatars have the ability to view them.
Steven is fired from the museum that understands his mental health issues and he’s given a pamphlet from HR for therapy. In Moon Knight Volume 8 he actually ended up going to an institution that was overseen by a character called Doctor Emmett. This was actually revealed to be Ammit and she had orderlies that were actually jackals that chased Marc through the night. The entire thing turned out to be an illusion and she attempted to convince Marc that everything was all in his head and that he’d been stationed there since he was a kid. We know from the trailers that we are getting a scene in which Marc is in a psychiatric hospital so I’d love for us to see that as a flashback or something that pops up later down the line.
Steven is asked to hand over his name badge and as we know, he’s very much struggling with who he is. I absolutely love the shot when he places it down and the reflection of his face sits between his hands almost like he’s throwing them up in confusion.
Looks like he’s reaching and we are too, now cut to the mime Steven sounds off to him and he decides to go to Central London Storage. He doesn’t think he’s ever been there but the staff recognise him in a scene that’s somewhat reminiscent of Fight Club. The creative team behind the series said that this heavily influenced them and this moment especially feels like when The Narrator was retracing Tyler’s footsteps.
Inside the room, he comes across Marc’s possessions which include a bed and several army story containers. The bed itself is much like what the Army use and it’s clear he’s been bunking out here. I’d love to see us get Steven’s blackouts shown to us in later episodes and we could watch the missing day in which he got a goldfish and also potentially travelled here to rest up.
What’s In The Bag?
Inside the bag, he finds not only a gun but also several different currencies. This is something that a lot of Agents are given and it was shown to great effect in the Bourne Identity when mAAAAT Damon discovered himself. He finds the golden Scarab which levitates upon the wings being opened and Steven calls it a compass which we know is what it’s used for in Egypt. Trailers have shown Harrow with it out at a dig so I’m guessing that going forward he’s gonna use it to locate where Ammit is.
Marc comes out at this point and he instructs Steven to go to sleep on the bed so that he can take over. We did discuss in our last breakdown how Rapid Eye Movement was used to show the characters passing over control and this is something that typically occurs in sleep.
I’ve had a couple of Moon Knight moments myself where I’ve gone to sleep, found another dude inside me and woke up chained to the bed…What.
Anyway, he reveals that he’s the Avatar of Khonshu, the moon god that brings justice. I hope we get Marc’s origin story in flashbacks as it’s a big part of the character that we haven’t seen before and it could potentially introduce his nemesis Raoul Bushman who betrayed him out in Egypt.
Hilariously Steven says he eats one piece of steak and he goes Bonkers and this you might remember last week that we learned he was a vegan. However after he realised his date wasn’t coming he ordered some and it made him MEAT, Marc.
Steven wants to hand himself in so he can’t hurt people and he grabs the bag.
Before doing this though he talks about the NHS filling him with pills and potentially this has happened before doing his psychiatric treatment.
Now I love the following scene which is shot like a horror movie. If you slow down the moment you can actually see Khonshu for a split second just as Steven exits the lockup. It chases him through however he manages to get out and here he runs into Layla. She reveals she’s his wife and this is kinda interesting as my man almost cheated this seems like a good strategy to tell the wife when I end up with my biggest fan…you.
I know it’s you…don’t deny it.
Now Layla is a completely new creation for the series and typically it’s Marlene who’s his love interest in the comics. She could be a combination of Marlene and another character like Frenchie as the two are both fluent in it. Frenchies name Duchamp also appeared in the phone contacts last week and like I’ve been saying….it’s all connected.
She’s got divorce papers and this sends Steven off telling her about the scarab. However, when Marc says if she finds out she’s gonna get killed he pauses for a second. Turns out Marc wanted to get divorced to protect her and that’s another excuse I’ll be using with the wife…gaaadamn Layla you’ve got me on my knees.
Theory Time
Now it’s theory time, theory theory theory time.
So now that we know Marc is married it kinda recontextualises last week’s date. I can’t see Marc setting up one if he’s married and therefore it is possible that it’s Jake who did it.
Marc comes across as wanting to protect Layla and therefore I don’t think that he’d go behind her back. He’s also not coming across as a smooth womanizer so perhaps we’ll get scenes of Jake chatting her up and then asking her out.
Now Jake might have also been the person that popped up in the CCTV at the museum though it could definitely be Marc. Since we’re, since we’re in theory time I also thought I’d talk about another one I have which is that the person on the phone who Steven believes his mother isn’t there.
In case you don’t know, in the comics Steven’s mother is dead and I think it’s probably the same thing here.
We know that she’s been cast and will be played by Fernanda Andrade, however, the actress is quite young and therefore she’ll probably only be appearing in flashbacks. Who knows when we’ll get these but I think they would’ve gone with an older woman if they were really gonna show his mother in the series.
Detective Fitzgerald
Now at this point, the police arrive and we meet Detective Fitzgerald. This might be a nod to Molly Fitzgerald a character from the comics who became a hero known as Shamrock. Fitzgerald was Irish as well so might be linked, might not be but we like filling up the videos with useless trivia.
Luckily…luck of the Irish…ly…Layla goes out the window, however, he’s arrested after they find his fake passport. One rule yeah, never go with Police when you know the guy who’s after you has people everywhere and there’s a little easter egg in his Interpol file.
The File Number is 1975 and Marc Debuted in 1975 during the comic Werewolf by Night 32. This gets another nod to it later on when we get a quick cut to the roof of the bus and can see the letters WBN 0032. WBN obviously stands for Werewolf by night, 32 for issue 32 and ey, nice classy easter egg I appreciated.
Now his assigned agent is also Nick Pepin who’s a crew member that’s worked on over 16 marvel projects from Captain America all the way up to Hawkeye.
They realise he was at a site in Egypt that had several archaeologists killed at it and in the comics Marc went out to a dig with Bushman who killed a lot of people there and then attempted to do in Marc. He left him for dead in the desert which is when he was taken before a statue of Khonshu. Marc pledged his life to him and thus he became Moon Knight. Now though the mystery of the show is making us think Marc did it. If he had killed the archaeologists then he wouldn’t have become Moon Knight so I think we will, of course, learn that he didn’t have a hand in it.
Turns out they’ve brought him to a neighbourhood run by Harrow and ey, been to worse places in London, you should see what Albert Square is like. Murder there every other week.
Harrow reveals he was Khonshus’s avatar and correctly guesses that he’s instructing Steven to kill him.
He says ‘break his windpipe’ which would stop the character from talking and it’s clear that the God doesn’t want Harrow to tell him the truth about what’s going on.
Harrow says he was the fist of Vengeance which is actually another name for Moon Knight in the comics. Moon Knight Annual 1 from 2019 showed other avatars of the Gods and I love the idea that he was very much what Marc and Steven once were but he chose a different path.
Arthur asks whether Khonshu chose him because he was easy to break or because his mind was broken and in the comics, we learned it was the latter. One of the big reveals that’s only come about recently is that Khonshu actually infiltrated Marc’s life when he was a boy and that he’s had his eye on him the entire time.
Arthur reveals that the Gods can’t actually do anything without the help of their avatars and this pretty much sets up the battle between Harrow and Steven who will have to go hand to hand for their Gods.
The community is made up of hundreds of people from different walks of life but we know that it’s built from those deemed worthy by Ammit. I’m still holding out that that Old woman last week was a nice lady and she was taken by Ammit because her heart was pure and the god needs good souls.
The Scales Of Ammit
Now Harrow and Steven have a discussion about prevention and if you know someone will do bad whether it’s ok to kill them. Kinda like the killing Thanos as a baby discussion from Avengers Endgame but Harrow drops an interesting line here.
He says Ammitt will Eradicate the choice to do evil and this sounds like Ammit might actually strip people of their free will. Ammit wants to wipe out people before they sin whereas Ammit will do it before they do it. Ammit as willing to kill kids and ey, we don’t do that here, most of them watch these vids so I need that ad revenue.
However, this is somewhat playing on the idea of original sin from the bible which states that everyone is somewhat born sinful.
We hear the song from the start of the last episode Every Grain of Sand by Bob Dylan and this was released by the singer after he became a born again Christian.
Now slowly Harrow’s forces start to surround Steven and when he begins to question Ammits way. Harrow switches gear and realises that he’s gonna have to take the Scarab by force which is when he starts to show off the power of the Cane. We learn that this belonged to the first Avatar on Ammit and that it contains a slither of the God’s power. Is it God or Goddess…am I being sexist? Anyway, this glows purple and as we’ve talked about in a lot of our Marvel breakdowns, this indicates that it’s pulling from the dark dimension.
Orange Magic is the standard colour, Red represents Chaos, Golden is Cosmic and Green tends to be illusionary magic designed to trick people. Purple is the dark dimension which is why Dormammu was cloaked in it and we also saw Agatha busting it out in Wandavision.
Just the glow of it makes everyone step back and it’s clear it’s very powerful.
At this point, Layla enters with the Scarab and she tells Steven to summon the suit. Lots of flashes of the put on the suit part of the Avengers between Captain America and Iron Man that feels sort of like poetry, they rhyme.
However, with Steven being in control he’s not able to break out the Moon Knight costume as easily. What he does get though is the Mr Knight one which is awesome to see in this episode.
In the comics it was made but here it’s summoned and it’s gonna be Stevens suit whilst the classic one belongs to Marc.
It’s one of the coolest comic book costumes ever in my opinion and I loved seeing this show up here. Using it he goes toe to toe with another Jackal and we see him take on a boxing stance which has some basis in the comics. Marc actually trained as a boxer in his youth so it makes sense that he’d have the ability to fight like this in his subconscious.
Subkhonshu more like ey…having that.
Now speaking of having that…last week we announced we were teaming up with noblechairs and Overclockers UK to give away a hero chair. The winner of that competition is on screen right now so if that’s you then make sure you message me on Twitter at heavy spoilers and we’ll get that sent out to you.
Werewolf By Night
Now when the Jackal was first shown in the trailer many people thought that it was a werewolf. I told you f**king c**ts it wasn’t a f**king werewolf but you f**king c**ts didn’t listen. Anyway, gonna let you off a bit now as this scene is actually somewhat riffing on the Werewolf by Night which was the first appearance of the character.
There is of course the bus easter egg and the pair both fought in the streets with Batons even being busted out like what we get here.
Khonshu actually gave the character the ceremonial weapons to Marc in Cult Of Khonshu Volume 2.
Khonshu see I’m giving you golden easter eggs here and do I get a like? Do I f**k.
Steven uses British slang throughout the episode like Bruv, Ends and Yard as well as Wagwan…which means what’s going on.
Bruv is what I call you and ends and yard is basically where you live. See kids, bet you wouldn’t get that from Ryan Arey.
Now The Jackal slams Steven against a bus and on the sign we can see that there’s an advert for the GRC. This is the fictional group that was introduced in Falcon And The Winter Soldier that reunited people separated by the snap and blip.
The tagline says reuniting you with your better half which is a play on how half of all life was snapped away.
Beyond that though Marc is very much seen as the better half of Steven whom he’s been reunited, in the events of the show. I still love you though Steven.
They do a great bit where he talks to himself in the mirror and Khonshu sees you’re in trouble Steven. Now Steven hands over control to Marc which is when the costume changes from the Mr Knight one to the typical suit. I love the way he pulls his Moonerangs out of the symbol on his chest and we get further moon imagery when Marc leaps across the sky. This is then shown in the river and on the rooftops and we end with somewhat of a pyramid poking towards it after Marc impales the creature.
Unfortunately during the kerfuffle, they dropped the scarab and this is picked up by a homeless man. Harrow kills him and it very much shows that he doesn’t really care about making a better world, it’s only who he and Ammit view as desirable. That’s probably why he took at the older woman too as she wouldn’t have had much to offer.
Marc and Steven
Steven is now trapped in the mirror world and we learn that it’s difficult for those stuck there to come back. In the Jeff Lemire run we very much got it filled in how Marc and Steven came to be and we learned that the latter was very much an imaginary friend for him when he was younger. He didn’t realise he was an offshoot of his personality and the two actually liked each other unlike what we have here.
Marc says that when he’s done that he’ll disappear but in the source material he was the more dominant personality. He talks about how Khonshu saved his life and ends up losing it when Steven sends some home truths.
Marc smashes the glass and this pyramid is swapped for another one when he wakes up in Egypt. Clearly, he tracking Harrow who now has the scarab which is gonna lead him to Ammit. Khonshu says some really interesting stuff in the build-up to this namely that Marc’s body belongs to him which he also stated in the Jeff Lemire run. The God also threatens to use Layla as his next vessel and from here we very much see the jump from Steven’s perspective.
His head lifts in the mirror and we catch Marc sitting there drowning his sorrows about to head out on the next mission.
Great second episode and normally in shows I find that the second episode of a season is the weaker one but this was really good and I dunno which of the two I prefer. Both brilliant entries and I hope that you enjoy the breakdown.
I’d of course love to hear your thoughts so make sure you comment below and let me know you punk.
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