As they say, 3 is the Magic Number and I think the third episode of Moon Knight is probably my favourite MCU entry so far. I absolutely loved the trip through Egypt and it ends on a cliffhanger that has a lot to unpack from it. Throughout this video, we’re gonna be breaking it all down as there’s a massive amount of easter eggs, hidden details, nods to other movies and things you missed.
Yes you, that’s why you’re here don’t lie.
Throughout this video, we’re gonna be breaking it all down and God Ammit if you love the video then please hit the thumbs up and make sure you subscribe to follow us on this journey that Eclipses any other show.
With that out the way, thanks for clicking this, now let’s get into Moon Knight Episode 3 Punk.
Now we begin with Layla picking up a passport from an old friend. Desperate to catch up with Marc she’s had to take the long way round and fly there whereas we saw last week that there was somewhat of a jump from London. I did think that Marc also flew out there and there was certainly a gap in time that we weren’t privy to due to him being splashed out on the bed looking like he’s had a long night of watching Morbius.
Steven was in the mirror and we sort of saw from his perspective how we went from one place to the in a second flat like he got an apartment aboard.
Second flat, apartment abroad your mums a broad goddamn I’m nice.
However, in this episode, we learn that there are passages that the gods have access to that can allow you to get around faster than we upload breakdowns. Though Khonshu says the Ennead tend to do this, having this ability would explain why Layla is a bit behind him and has to get a passport quickly.
The person carrying them out clearly knows who Marc is and as we saw in the last episode he had a passport in a lockup, potentially also being made by this woman. The guy has got lots of secret identities and Steven would need a form of ID to get a job so potentially Marc ended up going to her to get one created for him. In this episode, we get a very big hint towards Jake Lockley being part of the show and in case you don’t know, this is a third personality that we haven’t been introduced to in the series yet.
I actually think that Marc was well aware of Steven and that he’s been the one covering things up whilst Jake has just been going balls to the wall with it.
All theories at the moment but we did get a shot in episode 1 of some of the postcards at Steven’s work and he was also leaving voicemails to his mother. In the comics, Marc’s mother died when he was very young and therefore I think that Marc set up a landline and has been sending Steven postcards to make it look like she’s abroad. Not a broad, like your mum, ey got you again.
World-class Mum jokes at this channel guys, not like you get at screen crush.
Marc and Layla
Now Marc would also have been the person trying to buy a one finned goldfish so that Steven wouldn’t think anything was amiss when he woke up.
Beyond this, if Marc and Layla were still technically together then I don’t think that he’d have organised a date with another woman as he did in the first episode. Layla says that his new apartment is just 20 minutes from their old place.
He’d also surely know that Steven was a vegan and avoid a steak house at all costs. To me, Marc has been trying to cover everything up and I think that Jake might have been a personality that’s been popping up in the show, just that Marc has been getting the blame for it.
Now there are two major moments in the episode where might actually encounter him. Known for his thick accent there are several points where this comes through. Listen to the pronunciation and how it sounds slightly different to Mark’s voice.
Supersubtle but the pronunciations there are slightly different and potentially we might even get Jake say ‘ey I’m talking here.’
Beyond this, the character also has what I believe is a Chicago cap in the first scene and throughout all the comics Jake wears one too. He’s also kind of a douche to Layla and seems way more stern. We did theorise last week that the guy who looked in the CCTV at the museum could be him too but yeah we might be reaching.
Anyway, that’s the end of theory time, theory time, theory time.
Now we get a split second shot of Layla’s name on the passport. Her surname is El-Faouly with her middle being Abdallah. This might be a possible reference to Abdallah Othman who is a stuntman for the show. Her job also says Antiquities dealer and this is likely her real occupation.
Interestingly she’s not travelling under the surname Spector and this could be due to the divorce or potentially to avoid being flagged up as she’s travelling to Egypt. We learned she hasn’t been there for 10 years and that she was trained by her father.
This makes her extremely in line with Marlene from the comics. His dig sites are mentioned and we learn he also called her his little scarab.
Marlene’s father
In the source material, Marlene was at the dig site that Marc travelled out to Raoul bushman with. After he killed all the archaeologists there he ended up leaving Marc at death’s door and this is when he was carried before the shrine of Khonshu. He became the avatar Moon Knight and it’s likely that we’ll see this all play out in the series. Now Marlene’s father was murdered at the dig by Bushman and judging by the police report that we got last week, Layla might end up getting this.
Later on, Harrow reveals to her that Marc knows more about her dad’s death than he’s let on and this causes a lot of tension in the car ride they have.
Marc ended up Avenging Marlene’s father and you’ll probably end up having to avenge yours after I called your mum a broad twice in this video.
Which I take accountability for and apologise over.
Layla picks up a green passport but you should’ve got a blue one cos that’s the major thing we got out of Brexit.
Was it worth it?
Urrrr moving on.
Now we cut to the title sequence and get another piece of music as opposed to the usual marvel fanfare. Episode 1 had Englebert Humperdinks man without love and then two went back to the fanfare but we have another jam here. This is Enta by DJ Kaboo which samples Warda by Batwanness Beek. This was also a piece that Timbaland took for Aaliyahs I don’t know what to tell ya. The sample for Big Pimpin popped up in Episode 1 which he produced and much like what we have here, the sample not being cleared Timbalanded him in hot water.
Cut to the desert and we find Harrow with his followers and the golden scarab compass. There’s a very Raiders Of The Lost Arc feel to it and the creative team behind the show cited this as one of their inspirations for the series. A poster for this actually appeared in Marc’s room in the Jeff Lemire run which this show is also taking heavy inspiration from.
Scarabs are symbols that were laced throughout ancient Egyptian culture and they typically tended to be associated with wisdom, regeneration and longevity which is why they were placed on several tombs.
Harrow is also joined by the two policemen that he was with last week including Officer Fitzgerald, an Irish Man that might be a nod to Molly Fitzgerald aka Shamrock in the comics.
Fitzgerald and Kennedy
Now shoutouts to Erik Voss at New Rockstars for pointing out that Fitzgerald and Kennedy are probably a nod to John F Kennedy
I didn’t spot that in my episode 2 breakdown so congratulations Erik, I’m a stupid as f**k Brit who fell for it too. However, let me perhaps one-up your reference with their first names which are Bobbi and Billy. These are actually the names of the two orderlies in the Jeff Lemire run that are revealed to be working for Ammit.
Take that punk.
The bad news is that Marc is close by too and we get an awesome action scene in which he sprints across the rooftops to meet a contact. Very fast-paced vibes here and the scene has flashes of Casino Royale as well as Inception and the chase scenes that were part of those movies.
The contact is killed and in another Nod to Raiders, we get some fancy knife work like the swordplay in that film. It ain’t enough and Marc busts out some hand to hand moves and slaps a kid across the face like he just did a GI Jane joke. The choreography here is brilliant and Isaacs really shows some amazing techniques that we got hints towards in his Moon Knight training videos that were posted online last year.
He comes close to killing them however Steven talks him out of it in the reflection of the knight which is such a creative way to have them go back and forth. I’ve really loved the use of mirrors throughout the season and Steven seemingly takes over the body.
During this time we get purple flashes and this somewhat mirrors the colour of the purple boat ride that we get later on as well as Khonshu’s magic at the end. It’s likely that in this series that Moon Knight’s power is somewhat brought out of the dark dimension and each magic in the MCU has its own specific colour.
Purple is the dark one which is why we see Dormammu and Agatha harknessing it. Orange is standard, Red is Chaos, Green is trickster magic and Golden is cosmic.
Really nice attention to detail here and Marc wakes up in the back of a cab.
Now, this could be a minor hint to Jake who was a cab driver in the comics. Probably reaching but if I don’t say it someone in the comments will and I’ll be sitting here for a week thinking f**k I’m a moron and this is why my dad doesn’t talk to me.
Suddenly all those mum joke projections make sense.
Now I do think that Steven probably took over at this point which is why the driver says they’re heading to the airport.
He just wants to get out of there as quickly as possible but Marc wants to remain behind.
Kinda funny how he decides to attempt to talk to the guys and they’re just absolutely terrified of him. It leads to a chase scene that we don’t get to see in full as there’s another jump after he’s hit over the head. I do really hope that at some point we see the blanks filled in in the show as there are so many scenes like the cupcake fight that I’d love to see play out in full. Now Marc gets smacked over the head and he collapses which is when we do a jump cut. He goes from holding a guy up against the wall to holding a knife in him and it’s such a brutal scene that you really don’t expect to see in an MCU show.
Where is Moon Knight?
Now a big question you probably have is why didn’t Marc wear the Moon Knight costume at any point during this and it’s clear at this point his powers are just linked to the moon and night. Moon Knight see, the clue is in the name but I think we will likely only ever see the suit come out when it gets dark and the daytime scenes will have him like this. Khonshu is of course the Moon God so it makes sense his powers would be linked to the night and it would also explain how he’s able to cause an eclipse as well as the change in the night sky that he does at the end of the episode.
Again as we mentioned earlier this is likely Jake who carried it all out and it’s clear he has no qualms about killing. He was pretty much a lowly guy who kept his ears to the street and used to get information from people by being a cab driver. His main informant was a man named Crawley who we know from the credits is the living statue that popped up in episodes 1 and 2.
Typically Jake isn’t really a killer in the comics however they’ve likely changed him up for the show. Steven is a rich millionaire playboy in the source material that’s often compared to Bruce Wayne so they could’ve done something different with Jake to make Marc and Steven more than just Two-Face.
ey…little Batman pun there.
Now he tries to get info from the kid in the group that he refused to hurt badly before.
However, rather than giving up Harrow’s location, he cuts his tie after saying praise Ammit.
It really shows the devotion that Harrow’s followers have and that they’d rather die than betray their leader and God.
Now, this scene also heavily riffs on the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me. In that Roger Moore does an eyebrow-raising interrogation where he dangles Jaw’s partner over the edge of a roof in Egypt. Holding onto his tie he interrogates him and this is then smacked away like what we have here.
May just be a coincidence but I think the setting and form of interrogation are very similar, Bond just says Feckish and lets him die ey.
Think we avoided a yellow ad icon with that one there.
Marc blames Steven for going on a killing spree and the latter does the same back. He also calls Khonshu a pigeon.
This is because the guy looks like Big Bird’s skeleton however this design wasn’t always in place. Originally he was more like a ghostly Pharoah, however, this design changed over the years so that he became a lot more like a bird. Moon Knights hood that we see later on also has somewhat of a beak shape to it and as I’ve been saying, baby….all connected shabow.
An Audience With The Gods
Now Marc requests an audience with the Gods and Khonshu says this line that sets up the ending of the episode.
Khonshu also brings up the protection of the healing armour which explains how Mr Knight can get speared later on and still pump out videos every day even though he’s just had two kids. Khonshu calls together all the Avatars of the Gods after blacking out the sun and this is very similar to the wrath of God in the Bible.
After Pharoah refused to let my people go, he sent ten plagues to Egypt, one of them being Darkness like what we get here.
Now, what’s a Pharaoh’s favourite chocolate.
Pharoah rocher.
Anyway, Harrow is alerted by this and he’s called upon to come to the meeting of the ennead. We discover Khonshu was banished by the Gods the last time they spoke and he’s very much getting close to his third strike.
The meeting is held in the great pyramid of Gisa which is a nod to the first episode when the Girl littered the model of it after saying there was nothing there.
That was a f**king lie and there’s a gigantic room adorned with statues of the Gods. Inside Gisa, we get several Geezers and also the avatar of Hathor.
Hathor is the Goddess of music and love and she was also a character in Marvel comics.
The Gods take over their Avatars and we hear the names of the others like Horace and Osiris. There’s some great back and forth between them all and my boy, Oscar just gets to chew up the scenery as he lets Khonshu inhabit his body.
Now a big question whenever immortal characters are introduced this late into the MCU is always.
‘Where were you guys when Thanos was snapping his fingers like my wife when I don’t take the bins out?’
Well, just like the Eternals the Gods decided to not interfere with humanity. Turns out humans turned against the Gods and basically stopped worshipping them so they took a step back. All they do is observe however Khonshu remained on Earth and tried to help out where he could.
Khonshu calls for judgement against Arthur Harrow because he plans to release Ammit. Now we don’t know exactly what’s happened with the God but it’s clear that something bad made them destroy the creature. They hid where she was buried and left the knowledge with one person in case they ever changed their minds.
It is possible that this was hinted at in the first episode when we had the poster of the Ennead.
Missing Gods
We’re told there are two Gods missing and this could potentially be Ammit and Khonshu. There are 7 at the temple I believe so yeah, kinda keeps in line with what was said in the first entry.
There’s also the mention of the other void and in the Jeff Lemire run we discovered this through the eyes of Marc. It’s basically a void outside of time and space that can be manipulated and changed into whatever the gods see fit. Initially, it started off as an Insane Asylum that Marc was made to be a prisoner over.
Overseen by Dr Emmet who was actually Ammit she attempted to trick him into believing his entire life was a fantasy and that he’d been in the institution since he was a boy.
She also had Jackals masquerading as orderlies which explains why Harrow is able to summon them so easily.
Marc managed to escape and we had lots of crazy twists and turns with Steven believing he was in a TV show called Moon Knight whilst Jake thought he was in a 70s noir taxi driver film. There was also Moon Knight who thought he was a space pilot on the moon called Moon Knight and it had lots of very off the wall storytelling styles.
We constantly jumped back and forth between the characters and it’s a real head f**k when you read it.
In the end, it was revealed that Khonshu had infiltrated Marc’s life as a child and that he wanted to fully take over his body. He’d created the entire thing to try and break him and I’d love it if the series went this way. We have seen shots in the trailer that look like they’re in a psychiatric hospital and it would be great to have an episode like that.
We also see a lot of little Statues as Harrow enters and these seem very similar to the one Khonshut gets placed in. Typically when someone was mummified their organs would be put in pots like this but I think they’re way too small to carry what was typically carried out.
Arthur Harrow is completely in De-nyle ey and belittles Khonshu, Marc and Steven. The show is very much a comment on mental health and how people who suffer from issues are often overlooked and just thought of as delusional.
It’s easy for people to gaslight and manipulate people into thinking that those with mental health issues shouldn’t be listened to and Harrow carries out these tactics to make it seem like Marc can’t be trusted.
It also calls into question Khonshu’s judgement and Harrow is allowed to go about his business.
However, Hathor realises what’s going on and due to her relationship with Khonshu, she gives Marc some advice.
Midnight Man
At this point, Layla catches up to Marc and the pair travel out to Anton Mogart. Now if you’ve been paying attention to what’s been going on behind the scenes then you’ll likely already know that this is going to be Midnight Man. Sadly Gaspard Ulliel who plays him recently died in a Ski-ing accident and it sucks watching these scenes now knowing that he never got to see them. Guy had just made it to the MCU and it’s really heartbreaking hearing how he sadly passed away before the show’s release.
Rest in peace guy and no doubt his character will be back down the road to don the costume.
In the comics, Midnight Man is a master thief that stole several high-value works of art and this has thrown him to blows with Moon Knight several times. This is their first meeting and it very much leaves him riding off into some smoke to likely return at some point. I’ll do a more in-depth breakdown of the character if he shows up in full costume but their real names are the same so I think that’s what’s gonna happen.
Now on the boat ride to him, Marc and Layla finally have a deep conversation. She wears a crescent moon necklace which is of course laced throughout Moon Knight’s costume and there’s also a celebration on the boat that has a song the two played at their wedding.
Awkward.
Marc reveals he’s known about Steven for a long time and that he had it under control until very recently. This could have been the emergence of Jake’s personality but Marc does seem unaware of this. It could also be the dig that birthed him into Moon Knight and the reason he doesn’t want to talk about it is because Layla’s father died there.
Layla and Marc spot what appears to be Harrows’ men and they show up later on in the scene to cause Chaos.
Mogart’s arena has two pyramids at it and there’s also a mention of Madripoor.
This of course was a major location in Falcon and The Winter soldier that massively pulls from the comics. As we know Anton is a black market dealer and he could’ve ended up doing trades with Sharon Carter aka The Power Broker. She too was involved in some dodgy dealings and I love how there are these little nods to the greater world.
Anton is pretty fuming Layla’s got a man and he takes a bit of a dislike to Marc. He and Steven have some great back and forth and it very much gives us the idea that they’re stronger together. Steven is an expert on all this stuff whereas Marc is out of his depth but the two work in the reflections to create a star chart.
Now one of the big criticisms of the show has been Isaac’s cockney accent which makes him sound like Dick Van D**khead. I know there are several British people that watch these videos who don’t think it’s good but that might actually be on purpose.
Marc is really American and Steven is a persona that he ended up creating along with his accent.
Therefore if it’s bad it could be because Marc never had the ability to do a proper one and I actually quite like that idea.
Kevin Fiege, I’ve saved you again.
Steven folds the sheets in the shapes of Pyramids and he ends up disarming Anton’s bodyguard in a move that I believe was shown directly in the behind the scenes fight training.
Harrow arrives and offers him even more buried treasure. He also brings up Layla’s dead father and kinda confirms what we talked about before with her hating him once she learns the truth about what happened. He also destroys the sarcophagus so that the Tomb of Ammit cannot be located.
At this point, Khonshu arrives and says.
Moon Knight Fight Scene
From here on out we get an amazing action scene with Moon Knight and Layla taking down Anton’s forces.
Moon Knight’s cape is shown to be a crescent moon and he also does the ‘go random bull**t go when throwing out his gadgets and gizmos. These include spikes, Moonrangs and his fists when he almost kills someone.
Steven takes control at this point and tries to use diplomacy to calm the situation down.
Impaled like Boromir he gives Marc back control and there’s a really slick bit where Moon Knight impales someone on one of the spears.
Layla breaks her necklace apart to reveal they’re actually Karambits which was somewhat seen in the recent Batman movie with the bat symbol.
Anton goes to kill her in a joust move and Moon Knight seemingly gets him though he’ll likely be back.
In the car ride, they discuss Layla’s father and in a great bit of costume design, Marc wears a white hoody that of course is riffing on his moon knight costume. Steven also had something similar in the first episode when meeting Harrow and I love how it comes back here.
In the desert, they try to piece together the map but unfortunately, they discover they need to know exactly what the sky looked like on that date.
At this time Khonshu steps forward and reveals that he remembers what the sky looked like on that night. The caging of Ammit was a big thing for all the gods and though he says he remembers every night, it’s clear this one has stuck with him.
In a really cool and atmospheric scene, Khonshu and Marc turn back the night sky so that it aligns with the map and its moments like this that I think really elevate the entry above the rest. Lots of flashes of pre-crime in minority report as they rewind things and it brings out the correct constellations.
Unfortunately, as a constellation for doing this Khonshu is imprisoned in stone by the other Gods and they trap him in stone. He does instruct Steven
What Happens Next
So going forward I think they might launch a rescue attempt to save him.
They now know where Ammit is and will likely be heading straight there for the next entry.
In the end, Khonshu is trapped and the Gods say that he can probably hear what’s going on.
As we learned last week, Harrow was the old Avatar of Khonshu and he states he enjoyed dealing out pain in his name.
In the first entry, we watched as he put shards of glass into his sandals and this was very much carried out as a religious penance. Showing his devotion, Harrow hid this from everyone and every step he takes, every breath he makes would be extremely painful because of how this would cut into him.
He states that he learned from this pain though and that he now knows the value of healing.
He promises to do what Khonshu could not and the episode ends with him saying.
So as I’m sure you can tell I really enjoyed this midpoint of the series and everything feels like it’s really coming together. Setting the entry in Egypt was such a nice change-up from London and this was an entry laced with a lot of cool visuals, action scenes and character choices.
Khonshu’s sacrifice at the end was so impactful and though he will no doubt be back I thought it all played out really well to give the series stakes.
So overall, great episode and I hope that you enjoyed our breakdown of it.
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