We are now at the end of Moon Knight and throughout this post, we’ll be breaking down all of Episode 6. It’s filled with Easter eggs, comic callbacks and we also want to talk about the rumours of what could be happening next.
Full spoilers ahead and I know it’s early so if you haven’t watched it then off you pop!
Foreshadowing
Ok so first off I wanna talk about how this entire journey throughout the season was actually foreshadowed all the way back in Episode 1. Steven’s fishtank contained a number of items in it and now knowing what we know these have pretty much set up the entire series. There was the pyramid of Gisa from episode 3, then a journey into a head for episode 4 which could be Duat, the ship in episode 5, followed by the temple of Khonshu and lastly the gates of Osiris.
Really great foreshadowing and this series has been filled with it also in regards to the Moon. Throughout, every time it’s appeared we’ve had different phases of it and this all comes to a head in the entry when we get Arthur and Moon Knight having their final showdown in front of a full one.
Gods & Monsters Meaning
Episode 6 is titled Gods and Monsters which has a lot of meanings. This phrase has been used in a tonne of things including a Lana Del Rey song and also a 1998 movie starring Ian Mckellan. This followed the director of the Bride and Bride of Frankenstein in his last days before his death. He watched his life slipping away before him, realising it was the end. In the Lana Del Rey song, Gods are the people we worship such as celebrities and public figures with the monsters being drugs, temptation and evil.
Here it feels a lot more literal with the Gods being the figureheads and the monsters being what both Harrow and Marc were turned into in being their avatars. Harrow of course was formerly Khonshu’s and he has spent the series in many ways repenting because of what the God made him do and also because he enjoyed it.
By the end of the episode he’s tied up in hospital with Ammit bound to him and this is why Khonshu orders his murder so that the god is finally gone.
Episode Summary
Now the episode opens fittingly with the song The End by Earl Grant which recounts the closing of a chapter but how love preserves past this and that it doesn’t really end.
We pick back up with Marc where we left him after being shot by Arthur Harrow. Interestingly Harrow shot him two times, potentially one bullet for Marc and one bullet for Steven. This opening tells the opposite side of the story whilst Marc was in Duat and I love how you can see the little tattoo on his follower’s wrist as he scoops him out. At this point, Harrow teases towards someone else being in the body which of course sets up Jake Lockley who appears later on.
Now Arthur leaves behind the golden scarab on Marc but weirdly his followers must have forgotten Layla was there too as they pretty much ignore that she’s there, even when a guard goes missing. Harrow’s staff transforms into holding an ancient Egyptian axe which slightly resembles the blade of the one that Moon Knight had in the comics. These ancient axes were common weapons given to pharaohs and we learned in the comics that Ammit’s original Avatar was in fact a Pharoah.
Layla got down on her knees and picks up the scarab off his body which is when we see Harrow’s caravan heading out. He pretty quickly shows how powerful the staff is by wiping out most of the police but one is judged to be worthy so he gets to keep his life. We have theorised that Ammit just wants people that will be useful to her cause rather than good souls and this is why the old woman was killed in episode 1 along with the homeless man at the end of episode 2. This is potential because they would’ve caused a burden rather than being useful soldiers so Ammit probably took the police out to demonstrate her power to the one who was most likely willing to follow.
Harrow
Now as for Harrow, he’s a far cry from the comics in which he was a mad scientist that carried out human experiments. He had no connection to Ammit or Egypt however his experiments did focus on mummifying people so, meh, I guess it’s a Pharoah inclusion to have him here. Moon Knight defeated him quite easily but the show has done a master stroke of giving him not only the doctor role from the source material but also something more. It’s important to bear in mind that the purple blasts we see are also pulling from the dark dimension which is why they’re able to wipe people out so easily.
Now at this point, Layla prepared herself to kill him but Taweret takes over a body and reaches out to her. She of course is a guide in the underworld so it makes sense that she’d be able to reach out to those above. This sort of follows from last week in which Marc and Steven asked her to pass on a message to her.
Is There More to Layla?
Now throughout the series we’ve had teases that Layla could end up becoming the Scarlett Scarab. In the comics, this Egyptian character was called Abdul El-Faoul and we know from the passport that Layla’s name is Abdullah El-Faouly. Her father used to call her his little scarab and along with his scarlet scarf we also saw a scarlet scarab drawn on her finger in the hospital.
Later on in the episode, she ends up becoming Taweret’s Avatar and she dons this Scarab symbol which is our first major fan theory we predicted…just ignore the other 20 we got wrong…look over there.
Arriving at Gisa, Harrow wipes out the Geezers there aka the Ennead which gives Layla time to grab Khonshu.
All these dead members leave the door open for more avatars to come in and if we get a second season then we could see brand new characters being brought across. I’m unsure if they’ll bring in Midnight Man due to the death of Gaspard Ulliel but if they decided to cast another actor in the role, this could be a future path they take.
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Freeing Ammit & Khonshu
Ammit is finally released and like the legend, she’s much taller than the other Gods. She also has the braids that she had in the comics linking nicely back to that.
The more she feeds the bigger she gets and this is similar to the comics in which she was a giant beast ready to feast on all that had not lived a kind life.
It becomes clear at this point why Harrow has been putting glass in his shoes and he’s been desperate to release her. Guy clearly knows he’s unbalanced and I think deep down he carried out this quest because he knew that if he served Ammit that he’d likely be allowed to live. It shows the hypocrisy in Ammit’s plan as she will wipe out those that aren’t balanced but will also use them as weapons if needs be.
She says she’s here to ‘bring balance’ and we all saw how that worked out for my boy Thanos.
Finally Layla frees Khonshu and he wants to enlist her straight away. Interestingly, he calls her little bug, clearly trying to play on the fact her father called her little scarab but not quite getting there.
Khonshu’s Persona
Now in the comics, namely the Jeff Lemire run, it was revealed that Khonshu was the biggest villain in Marc’s life and that he’d been there from his childhood manipulating him. Khonshu had deliberately fractured his mind in the hopes of taking over his body. That’s why the speech at the temple last week was so Arthur harrowing because it was both Marc and Steven admitting that Khonshu had manipulated him into a thing that no one would ever want like an El Meurto movie.
In the end, Marc and all his personas united in the other void to crush Khonshu’s head which in some ways does sort of mirror how his personas all come together to defeat the big bad here.
The comic ended with him finally getting the God out of his life and he looked over the city as the rain hit his face. Though he didn’t know if it was real or not, he decided that it was real enough which was good enough for Marc and the other personas.
By the end of the episode, we see that he’s still manipulating the guy and that he’s using Jake. This makes me think this reveal in the comics is indeed true and we do get some teases towards it.
The way he acts with Layla makes me realise he just cares about his avatars and nothing else which is why he’s like, well no doubt Marc died fighting. Clearly just wants to replace him.
Now Khonshu and Ammit end up going head to head but just before the fight Ammit says “Khonshu, time has been cruel to you”. My guess is that he originally had flesh and feathers over his face which would be similar to how he looks in the legends. This has probably rotted over the years though giving him a more skeletal look.
Marc’s Sacrifice
Back in the field of reeds, we find Marc and Taweret. His heart is full and he’s finally at peace without the chaos that dominated his life there. However, he can’t rest because Steven is out there. I love the line about how he’s manifesting everything around him and in the legends, the field of reeds was someone’s idolised version of their life. Marc imagining his heaven to be like this shows how destructive his life was and just in the same ways he manifested Steven to cope with his mother’s abuse, he’s manifesting this paradise to rest.
But can he rest?
Nope, he refuses to leave Steven behind and he exits the field which transforms around him. I love how getting there and exiting it had these quick cuts that transform around him really adding to the effects.
Marc has a heart-to-heart with his corpse and he refuses to abandon Steven. He freezes up as he places his perfect heart in his hand which frees Steven along with Marc. In the comics, there’s a moment where the pair hugged each other and this brought them together completely which this moment symbolises too. They now share a full heart instead of being divided which opens up the gates of Osiris, allowing them to travel back through. I was kinda predicting that an external force would be the one that got them out of there like Jake or Khonshu but I actually prefer that they escaped themselves.
Sensing that he’s alive Khonshu once more resurrects him which is something that has happened several times in the comics. Every time Marc has died, Khonshu has brought him back and though the transformation is a bit iff with the floating head, it’s a nice way to show that Moon Knight has returned. I do really love this suit and along with the Mr Knight, they make a new deal with Khonshu. He promises to release them both and with the Ennead no longer judging him he’s able to turn the sky to black.
At this point, Moon Knight jumps into the sky creating an effect over the moon that looks like a crescent one. Really nice imagery and I feel like it’s riffing on the shot in Batman 89 in which the batwing flies up over it.
Layla and Taweret
Layla finally becomes Tawerets avatar and we learn that her father was taken to the field of reeds so he now lives in paradise. That’s a bad outfit, I just kinda wish the CGI was better as it is a bit distracting.
There are a lot of movies being delayed now even though cinemas are open and this is actually because there’s been a big backlog in VFX so I just don’t think that the artists have enough time to work on stuff like this. This is a real shame as it did kinda take me out of the moment even though I know these guys would’ve been pushed for time and trying their best.
Final Battle
Now Moon Knight flies to the Pyramid and he battles it out with Harrow on the side of the structure.
This shot has been used heavily in the trailers and I love the way that they title the angle on the camera so that the pyramid is sideways. It creates lots of smaller sideways pyramids making for a really cool moment.
Flying through the night sky, Marc jumps back and forth between himself and Steven showing they have now fully accepted each other and that it isn’t a fight for control.
In the streets of Cairo, they battle it out whilst Ammit and Khonshu have a Kaiju fight against the pyramids.
Really nice idea for a final battle that hasn’t happened in the comics before. It’s great that we see Gods going head to head whilst we also have the ground-level battle and I loved the constant persona switching even if we get the little corny bit where Marvel has to hammer home they indeed have an Egyptian superhero now. Look representation is important and this is probably gonna mean a lot to the little kids who are finally seeing themselves in a superhero so I’m just gonna avoid my 33-year-old cynicism and be like…meh good for you.
Marc gets stabbed with the staff and at this point we get another blackout like in episode 3 to find him on the other side of it in a position of power.
I did theorise that Harrow would have him beat and that the jake persona would come out but I was expecting us to have that as the introduction rather than getting the blackout that we do.
Meet Jake Lockley
Now Jake Lockley was someone we’ve expected to see for a long time and there were lots of clues throughout the series to hint at him coming up.
This actually has a lot of basis in the comics as Marc explained to Steven that though they met in his childhood, which we saw play out, Jake didn’t arrive until much later on. Jake is very much a way to protect both Steven and Marc when things get too tough for him which is why he ended up killing those kids in Episode 3.
Episode 1 of course had the date scene which I doubt that Marc would’ve arranged because he was still married to Layla and though he was attempting to get a divorce it’s clear he still loved her.
There was then the accent change in episode 3 which also came with a Chicago cap. This accent change-up was also later featured in episode 5 in Harrow’s office.
Also, Harrow brings up how he’s been starting fights in the hospital which didn’t really seem like something either Marc or Steven would do. There have also been tonnes of reflections in the series and the vast majority of these have featured two extra people in them. There’s the museum glass which had two people in, the mirror in Steven’s apartment and the one in the triangle when he woke up that all foreshadowed Jake being here.
I’m so glad that they have him in this and though it’s a bit of a cop-out to have the angles switch all of a sudden, it’s nice that they have this looming danger constantly hanging over that newcomer audiences will still find some mystery over.
Back at Gisa, they call on the Gods to trap Ammit and she becomes bound to Ammit. Instructed to kill Harrow and Ammit, Marc refuses and he’s released by Khonshu. However, come the end of the entry we learn this is a f**king lie and that he still has a deal with Jake. As of now, Marc and Steven are completely unaware of him and it seems like he’s the only persona who can take over the body at will. Therefore I think that he’s gonna be able to jump into it without Marc or Steven ever knowing and that they’ll have no idea that Khonshu is still using them. Jake appears with Hieroglyphics under his collar further teasing this.
Upon being freed, Steven and Marc go back to the asylum with Harrow. The pair unite and finally break free of the trapping in their mind and Marc wakes up in Steven’s bed even to the same song by Englebert that appeared at the start of Episode 1. I can’t play this as I did in that first breakdown as Englebert blood claimed the video but ey nice inclusion. There are also the two goldfish symbolising how the pair are now swimming in the same tank. He goes face first and though he isn’t with Layla he’s clearly more accepting.
Theory Time
Now going wild with it, potentially this is all still in his imagination and the pair are actually stuck inside the head, believing it’s real whilst Jake is out there in the actual real world.
The show has played with our emotions at several points and potentially it could be happening.
It’s something we’ve been over in-depth several times so I don’t wanna do your head in by repeating it. It’s the only way that Marc’s brother Roland could’ve drawn the one finned Goldfish unless Steven somehow managed to find one exactly the same. The moment here also teases at it too and it could potentially paint out that Marc is indeed in the asylum with Harrow as his doctor. I love that there’s this undercurrent to it and this has of course also been something that has happened in Joker, 12 Monkeys and Shutter Island. They always leave it ambiguous like how they have here and it’s a nice bit of storytelling that will make some people question if what they saw is actually real.
Again, it’s a bit of a tenuous theory, especially with all the revelations but I would love it if it was revealed that we had so many things repeating because they were trapped in the fantasy whilst Jake was actually out there.
Post-Credit Scene
Cut to the post credits scene which takes place in Sienkiewicz hospital. This is a reference to Bill Sienkiewicz, who is an artist that’s worked on Moon Knight before.
Here we find a rubber ducky and Harrow in a wheelchair much like how Marc was. This looks exactly the same as Putnam in his mind but it has the Yellow filter over the top that Hollywood loves to add to shows set in Mexico.
However, when we pull out to the final shot at the end we can see it’s in London due to the Gherkin.
He’s escorted outside by Jake who arrives in his classic cap from the comics. Whereas in the source material he was a cab driver here he’s a limo one and he wheels Harrow out of there after killing one of the orderlies.
I did try scanning the QR code at this point about 30 times as well but with it being at an angle my phone wouldn’t pick it up. So if you managed to do it then make sure you comment below with what issue you got.
The licence plate on the limo also reads SPKTR which is of course, Spector. This pulls directly from the comics, even down to that detail however it belonged to Mr Knight rather than Jake. In the Limo, Khonshu sits in a suit based on Mr Knight which is from the Lemire run.
Khonshu tells him he has a new friend, Jake Lockley who speaks Spanish. He executes Harrow in the back of the limo and the pair ride out to the moon. Know potentially all our grasps at the accent changes are wrong and Jake might just speak Spanish going forward. He could very much also represent his mother’s aggressive side and be formed because of this. I love the moon that hangs over the final shot in the daytime and typically Moon Knight operated at night. However, this shows he might have moved on to working in the day and there’s a lot to take from it.
I am kinda settled a bit on the theory that Marc and Steven are trapped in the mind with Jake running around, however, this final shot in London shows they could all be together and not aware of each other.
What’s Next for Moon Knight?
So going forward there are still a lot of things they can do with Moon Knight and I’d love to see that Midnight Sons series or movie coming soon. We of course have Blade going into production first which will likely pick up with the conversation between him and Dane Whitman from the end of the Eternals.
This was also set in London so it’s the right place and right time for their meeting to happen.
They ended up going onto help form the Sons which Moon Knight was also a member of. Though they haven’t introduced Ghost Rider yet I’d love to see him and I think we can get together a great team of supes that tackle supernatural elements in the Marvel universe.
What I wanna see from the future of Moon Knight is that but in addition to it I also need some closure on the Raoul Bushman storyline. First mentioned in episode 5 it’s clear that he caused not only a lot of anguish for Layla but also Marc. Bushman is the perfect villain for next time as he pretty much was the reason that Marc ended up becoming Khonshu’s slave and he’s also the person that murdered Layla’s dad.
He was originally supposed to be in this series but Mohammed Diab said that due to his similarities with Killmonger that they skipped over him.
Series Review
Now as for my thoughts on the series, I know I say this every time and I’ve come to grips with the fact that I suffer from recency bias but this is up there as being one of, if not my favourite MCU Disney Plus show. I think that the series has not only stayed very consistent but it’s managed to improve almost every single week and there have been some brilliant moments that have made me question exactly what’s going on.
Oscar Isaac has delivered some phenomenal performances throughout and we’ve laughed, cried, and also got a globe-trotting adventure that feels like it’s ripped right out of myths and legends.
On the opposite side of this, I think that Layla was an incredible addition and in the comics, I always found Marlene a bit boring but May Calamawy knocked it out of the park.
Also let us know below what we’re gonna get more comments for, pronouncing May’s name wrong or Taweret. Get an amazing prize if you win.
Now in addition to this, there’s Ethan Hawke who really brought his A-game to the role. He was intimidating, and menacing but he also had this softer side when he was manipulating people that made you realise how dangerous he really was.
All-round great performances and though the CGI suffered at points, there was enough good here that I just ignored a lot of the flaws. However I do wish that they showed Moon Knight a lot more and though he had some big scenes at certain points, this was clearly more about the psychological aspects of the character rather than being an action show. I do like the fact that they tackled deep themes like that but in an ideal world, I think we would’ve got more of a balance with those moments but also some focus on him being a superhero.
I think this might have a bit less rewatchability than some of the other shows but for a first journey it was really well thought out. I might actually go back through the whole series as there’s a tonne of foreshadowing and I’d love to see how this all pays off.
Now unfortunately I thought episode 6 was probably the weakest one in the series and Marvel does have a bit of a problem sticking the landing with their shows. Outside of Loki, I think they’ve all ended a bit meh but I am trying to judge the series as a whole rather than just this one entry.
Disney Plus Shows
Now in terms of ranking all the Disney Plus shows so far I would probably go Loki at number 1. I loved the multiversal aspect of it, the reveals were big and there were also actual stakes to it that have great ramifications for the MCU. Next is Moon Knight for the reasons I’ve just listed, after that is Wandavision which still holds a place in my heart due to the week-to-week journey everyone had with that show. I still don’t think a series has matched the hype of it and the production design on the old tv shows was perfect.
After that it’s Falcon and The Winter Soldier, for me What If goes on from that and then it’s Hawkeye last which, though I enjoyed it, just didn’t get me as hyped as the other shows and when rewatching Daredevil I realised that they kinda dropped the ball a bit with Kingpin.
So overall great series and I’d of course love to hear your thoughts on it in the comments below.
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