Cast: Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, May Calamawy, and ensemble.
Creator: Jeremy Slater
Director: Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead
After gaining popularity amongst fans, with its first three episodes, 'Moon Knight's episode four was released on Hotstar yesterday (April 20). As the first season progresses and the last episode of the first season approaches, the storyline appears to become increasingly muddled with each episode.
With the moon deity Khonshu imprisoned by his other gods, his human avatar Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac) is forced to combat cult leader Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) without the use of his Moon Knight powers. The first thirty minutes of the fourth episode are mostly focused on Marc Specter and Layla's search for Ammit's tomb, and then a major surprise arrives when Arthur Harrow cold-bloodedly shoots Marc Specter, followed by ten minutes that call the entire plot established in the previous three episodes into question.
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The episode begins with an inverted shot of the imprisoned gods in figurines and then moves on to Steven Grant (Marc Specter's other personality) and Layla who are looking for Ammit's tomb and now know the location thanks to Khonshu who helped them in the episode 3 by changing the night sky and getting the coordinates.
As Layla and Steven make their way to the tomb, the shots and events are reminiscent of well-known movies like 'Tomb Raider' and 'The Mummy.' Episode four also had gore sequences that are horrific enough to make one uncomfortable. As the episode unfolds, Layla barely manages to defeat a monster before meeting Arthur Harrow, who reveals that Marc Specter, as a mercenary, murdered Layla's father. Episode 4 really works well on Layla's character development who is able to defeat a monster all on her own and also receives a lot of information about her past and her father.
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Meanwhile, Steven learns that Alexander the Great was Ammit's final avatar buried in pharaonic style, with Ammit's ushabti—the statue that seals her away—embedded in his throat. After a little disgust, Steven successfully puts his hand inside the mummy's mouth and retrieves the Ammit figurine from it. Then comes Layla, who begins questioning Marc about her father, and Marc after taking control of the body from Steven tries to explain to her that he was present when his partner murdered Layla's father and that he was also supposed to die that day. While Layla and Marc continue to bicker, Arthur Harrow enters Ammit's tomb, and Marc tries to attack him and kills two of his guards, but ends up getting shot by Harrow.
After being shot twice in the chest, Marc Specter/Steven Grant is shown falling into some kind of pit, and then out of nowhere viewers get to see scenes from a super cheesy parody film 'Tomb Buster,' which is playing in a mental institution and Marc Specter is a patient there, and other people from the series are shown in the mental institution where Marc Specter is sitting on a wheelchair with an action figure of Moon Knight in his hand. Marc also meets Layla there who is jubilant about winning a bingo game and says things that Marc was saying to her just moments before getting shot. The mental facility has numerous details that resemble Marc's life and were seen earlier in the show. Then Marc meets the doctor of the mental hospital, who is surprisingly Arthur Harrow, and after discovering aspects that look extremely familiar to his life, Marc attempts to exit the area where he is being held.
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The mind-bending episode concludes with Marc Specter encountering Steven Grant his other personality in another body which looks exactly the same as him and then the duo attempts to leave the mental facility, but before they do so, they are accosted by an anthropomorphic hippo dressed in an ancient Egyptian ritual costume. "Hi!" she says sweetly, eliciting screams from Marc and Steven. Taweret (Antonia Salib) is an ancient Egyptian goddess of childbirth and fertility who protects women and children. Unlike some of the other gods seen in this show, Taweret isn't based on a comic book character, making her a rare MCU original.
With an ending that literally comes out of nowhere and points towards the first three and a half episodes of the series to be a mere figment of Marc Specter's imagination, it seems as Marvel Studios has adapted the storyline from two of Moon Knight's comics and then made it into one, but it would be extremely interesting to see how the remaining two episodes will come out and how the story will progress.
