With Khonshu locked away in a little stone statue, it is up to Layla and Steven/Marc to figure out how to stop Arthur Harrow from reaching Ammit. The good news is the opportunity to do some cool Tomb Raider nonsense. The bad news is that losing Khonshu means losing access to the Moon Knight suit. That’s the downside of playing a warlock – if your patron gets taken out, you just become a guy.
Recap:
Layla and Steven escape from Harrow’s cult members and make their way toward Ammit’s resting place. Marc insists that this situation will be dangerous and therefore Steven should surrender the body to him, but Steven has no plans to give up control. He even tells Layla that he and Marc made a deal – once Khonshu was done with Marc, he would give up the body to Steven. This is only sort of correct, since Khonshu clearly isn’t done with Marc. His last instructions to Steven in the previous episode were to tell Marc to free him. But Steven sees his chance to keep Marc at bay and take a shot at Layla, so he is not going to give up easily. Plus, it turns out that having an expert in ancient Egypt is really useful when you are delving into a previously unexplored ancient Egyptian tomb.
Ammit’s tomb is a maze full of traps and zombie priests, so Steven and Layla soon find themselves separated. Layla has an encounter with Arthur Harrow, who tells her that she should really ask Marc what he knows about how her father died. Meanwhile, Steven goes grave-robbing in the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great and finds the statue holding Ammit. Just when it looks like they have won, Layla demands to speak with Marc who explains that he did not kill her father, he was just partners with the guy who did and happened to be in the room when he died. Surprising no one, his attempt to hair split his way out of this does nothing to satisfy Layla. He hands her the idol, promises to hold off Harrow and sends her on her way. When Marc refuses to tell Harrow the idol’s location, Harrow shoots him. That’s when things get weird.
Marc Spector “wakes up” in a psychiatric hospital. Other characters from the series appear as patients and staff members. Marc is eventually brought to the office of Arthur Harrow, apparently the lead psychiatrist. Harrow discusses Marc’s favorite film about an Indiana Jones rip-off named Steven Grant and Marc realizes that this is a hallucination and flees, eventually meeting Steven face-to-face after freeing him from a sarcophagus. The pair keep running until they come face to face with an Egyptian hippo goddess who greets them enthusiastically.
Analysis:
It’s interesting to have an episode of “Moon Knight” that doesn’t feature… Moon Knight. That’s probably because the show’s writers correctly guessed that the most interesting part of the show is the dynamic between Marc, Steven, and Layla (and eventually Jake Lockley, I’m assuming – there was another sarcophagus in Marc’s hallucination that he didn’t open, which is probably where Jake was locked away).
Harrow has been an interesting villain to watch along the way. He has an unforgiving efficiency about him as he searches for Ammit. Instead of lying to Layla about what happened to her father, he guided her to the truth and used it as a wedge to separate Layla and Marc. In this way, you can see his sense of justice. Marc suffers the consequences of his wrongdoing because he is separated from the woman he loves. Obviously Harrow’s sense of justice is completely out of whack, but you can understand why he does what he does.
Taweret (the hippo goddess) obviously has a role to play in the next episode, although we don’t know what yet. We need to see Moon Knight’s multiple identities come together, the rescue of Khonshu, some form of reconciliation with Layla, and stopping Harrow from releasing Ammit. All in two episodes.
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